Books

The Courtly and Refined Work of Jahanara, the Daughter of Shah Jahan

A new English version translation of a Tamil novel could have given a bit more context of the history and the translation.

This is a time of strong literary engagement with Indian history. Several contemporary writers, who may have earlier focused on a purely contemporary social realism, feel the call to confront distant pasts. What may be of note is that a simple idea of “our” past is expanding. While there may be a common sense idea of the units of belonging (region, language, community and so on), the engagement with the past is no longer by predictable constituencies.

Thus, it may or may not be surprising that Tamil writers may be interested in an Agra- and Persian-centred Mughal paramountcy. Many southern Indian writers are making claims to this more universal idea of the Indian past. In this context, the noted litterateur Sukumaran’s Jahanara (translated by Kalaivani Karunakaran) is a skilful addition.

Sukumaran’s
Jahanara A Novel,
Translated by Kalaivani Karunakaran,
Published by Eka (2024).

One need not know much about the princess Jahanara (1614-1681) to enjoy the book. Jahanara was the daughter of Shah Jahan, and the sister of Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. It is hard to imagine how the Persian or Hindustani bhasha of that world may flow into Sukumaran’s Tamil. Receiving it now as translated into English, this is hard to gauge – was English (for the Mughal court already had Englishmen) not much farther than Tamil to the world of the Mughals?

One welcomes such venturings in languages, but perhaps a clearer and more extended note (by the author or translator) could have given a better context of both history and translation. It is often not entirely clear what the historical Jahanara wrote, and what the author’s reconstructions are from what has been imputed to Jahanara by generations of scholars and writers who have sought to re-imagine her life.

In English, as a translator, a lyric fluency of Jahanara’s world has been achieved by Kalaivani Karunakaran. Jahanara had been privately educated in many literary and religious traditions. Sukumaran writes the initial chapters in the voice of the head of eunuch – Panipat. This solves a novelistic problem of access to inner quarters by an intimate, and one who possesses a historical knowledge of the family – and yet, also does some disservice to Panipat who is not developed sufficiently.

There are only rare moments when Jahanara finds solidarity with other undefended people of the court, such as the accountants who have to find the money to spend on lavish personal projects. As Panipat remarks on one of these, “Perhaps he too was just like me – someone who was against power, but entirely dependent on it for survival”.

More successful formal devices that create access to that world include creations of atmospheric mood – be they of funerals, coronations, mehfils, elaborate feasts with their mingling of the scents and cold perfumes of kasturi and sandal, of various kinds of warmed meat oe the extended chess games that went on with laughter all through the night. Yet, despite the romance of the palace, the novel is not quite able to ground romance in this milieu – understandably, working out of a sparse and speculative set of sources, the imagination of Jahanara’s love-life does not quite hold water.

Often the palace’s mood of dreams is cleverly linked to some geopolitical intrigue that marks the court. There is the realisation amid all the intrigue that “bravery is not courage alone but a combination of daring, ingenuity and fear”. There are cinematic images too: “ I slowly climbed down from the balcony and took cover in the darkness near the emperor’s throne”.

There is a growing wariness of the single-minded, rising power of Aurangzeb, as ruthless in prayer as in war. He was thus seen from childhood: “He ate little, wore simple garments, spun caps and had them sold, offering the money earned to charity for the pilgrims”. When ill, he wanted to “heal through prayers and prayers alone”. In contrast, Jahanara wavered at crucial times–Panipat remarks that her (Jahanara’s) “power is just like an arrow in the hands of an expert archer who hesitates to shoot”.

In the 17th century, the pre-eminent sense of being an artist was that of architecture. A great deal of what is murmuringly beautiful of Delhi was Jahanara’s doing: she and her father brought to life a river-bank capital, a ”pond brimming with moonlight”, with the “moon at the window [heightening] the white marble walls and floors”. Like her father, more than war, it was building and gardening that gave them joy – there were whole gardens built to celebrate single flowers. This resolve deepens as Mumtaz dies in childbirth on a far, war-torn province of empire an hour before dawn, even as the opium dissolved in pomegranate juice makes its way through her body.

Her mother’s death is used by Sukumaran to introduce Jahanara’s voice directly, without Panipat. This second part of the book however seems to introduce fewer new themes. This is ironic as it is finally in Jahanara’s voice. Perhaps as a matter of actual historical truth, her life indeed diminishes to just watching her brothers battling it out. She becomes a mere witness behind a “silk-curtained palanquin”.

Everything is in suspension till one of the brothers triumphs. Delhi seems the eternal Kurukshetra, and she wonders if the “ air in Delhi always carry the germs that spread the lust for power”. As one of the characters says of the interminable war that seems a very constricted history: “ I am telling this story to someone other than me. To whom? To forgetting…”.

As Jahanara loses her brother Dara, she writes: “Let my tears touch the ink. My tears aren’t colorless. They are black with despair.” An age at its most vile is reduced to the binary of takht/taboot (throne/tomb).

Though Jahanara bets on the wrong horse, she does over time manage to regain her position in the court. She survives, as sister and daughter, through the internecine inter-generational wars of fathers and sons and brothers. As Aurangzeb says when he refuses to meet his father: “This son won’t forgive the father who didn’t forgive him”. Against this grim view of eternal unforgiving, Sukumaran’s Jahanara survives as a counterpoint into our own time, as one whose words and white-marble architecture we can still inhabit in her beloved Delhi.

Nikhil Govind, professor of literary studies at the Manipal Centre for Humanities, Manipal, and is the author, most recently, of the Moral Imagination of the Mahabharata (Bloomsbury, 2022).

Unshackling the Flesh and Blood Ambedkar From the Image

Anand Teltumbde’s compelling biography offers a multi-dimensional portrayal of Babasaheb Ambedkar. It is an invitation to reassess his complex and evolving strategies for social change.

We live in a time when the deification of Babasaheb Ambedkar has brought forth devotees who would rather worship him than engage with the sheer force of his ideas and his human aspect. In this scenario, Anand Teltumbde’s reflective biography of Babasaheb breaks new ground, opening up a much-needed space for introspection.

Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Anand Teltumbde, India Viking, 2024.

The way Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar peels back the layers of hyperbole that vested interests have imposed on Ambedkar, offers readers a chance to discover Babasaheb Ambedkar’s true legacy.

The circumstances under which Teltumbde doggedly worked on the biography – incarceration under the draconian UAPA, compounded by the COVID-19 crisis and a general state of public despondency – speak of the urgency the author accorded to the work.

The biography not only presents an insightful account of Babasaheb; it also serves as an example for biographers on how to depict their heroes with depth and honesty through case studies that future generations could objectively learn from.

In the preface Teltumbde declares disarmingly that he has used the same methodology that Ambedkar followed in presenting his own ‘lord’, the Buddha, in his The Buddha and His Dhamma – namely, the obligation of a disciple to his preceptor.

The book, spanning over 600 pages, is a comprehensive work. It includes a 45-page preface, 60 pages of notes and references, a 35-page long index, and select photographs that enhance the biography.

The narrative, structured as per the historical chronology, divides Ambedkar’s life into seven phases. To this is added an eighth phase: his enduring, posthumous impact – how, as also stated by other scholars, Ambedkar became more powerful after his death than during his lifetime. Initially neglected by the mainstream, he came to be venerated as one of the central figures of the Indian political and social landscape.

The author examines the land struggles sparked by some aspect of Ambedkar’s legacy where his followers were eventually undermined by the ruling class’s co-option strategies. He also looks at instances where Ambedkar’s followers have compromised his legacy for personal gains, leading to the fragmentation of the institutions he painstakingly established. There is a subtle suggestion that this outcome was, to some extent, foreshadowed in Ambedkar’s own life.

Assessing the tangible changes in the lives of Dalits is a significant part of the author’s analysis. He notes that despite Ambedkar’s immense contributions, their condition remains the same vis-à-vis the non-Dalits – a tiny Dalit middle class, like the tip of the iceberg, obscuring an entire structure of hopelessness beneath. Such a candid, introspective and in-depth account of the Dalit movement is rare.

The author also scrutinises the posthumous deification of Ambedkar’s image. He emphasises that while Dalits should revere Ambedkar, they should recognise him as the embodiment of a collective history of their movement – a history that remains unstudied for its ramifications despite a plethora of literature – to which many have contributed and which remains a work in progress.

The first phase explores Ambedkar’s initial life journey. While the harsh reality of ‘untouchability’ was a fact of daily life for impoverished Dalits, some Dalits gained access to free English education by joining the British army during the colonial period.

Bhimrao benefited from his father’s position as Subedar Major in the army, the highest position an Indian could reach in those days. With it came a stable financial background, English education and a new cultural environment. His father’s decision to settle in Bombay enabled Ambedkar to graduate from Bombay University. Thanks to the urban environment, association with social reformers and a scholarship provided by the princely state of Baroda, a path was created for an ‘Untouchable’ youth to achieve the highest academic qualifications from prestigious universities in the United States of America and England. It transformed an ordinary Mahar lad “Bhiwa” into the formidable Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.

While charting these fortuitous circumstances, the author also highlights the focused, hard work put in by Ambedkar, which made him a bibliophile for life, moulded his character, thought process and ideological personality, influenced by teachers like John Dewey, James Shotwell, Edwin Seligman, and James Harvey Robinson. The narrative hints that these formative experiences informed many of Ambedkar’s later pivotal decisions and policies.

The second phase charts Ambedkar’s evolution from a highly educated young man to the revered “Babasaheb” (1919-1927). Through meticulous research and newly discovered evidence, Teltumbde provides fresh insights into the establishment of the Excommunicated Benevolent Society, Ambedkar’s testimony before the Southborough Committee, the founding of the Marathi fortnightly newspaper, Muknayak, and his efforts to launch various educational initiatives. This phase highlights the emergence of Ambedkar’s distinct personality, with the author challenging inaccuracies in previous biographies, and offering a nuanced portrayal of Ambedkar’s early public and intellectual life.

For instance, while analysing the Chavdar Tank Satyagraha at Mahad he highlights the ‘upper’ caste community’s fierce opposition and the British administration’s biased stance. However, the author acknowledges the courageous support of a few Brahmin and ‘upper’ caste allies even when the focus is on describing the unwavering determination of the ‘Untouchable’ people willing to make any sacrifice for the cause. By revisiting Ambedkar’s strategic decisions,

Mahad: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt, Anand Teltumbde, Aakar Books, 2016.

Teltumbde offers a fresh perspective on how the satyagraha shaped not only Ambedkar’s leadership but also the foundational ethos of the broader Dalit movement, an aspect outlined in the author’s earlier book, Mahad: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt.

Disillusioned by the entrenched attitudes of caste Hindus in Mahad, Ambedkar began to consider religious conversion as a means of liberation for the ‘Untouchables’ while simultaneously engaging more deeply in the political arena where new opportunities for representation for Dalits were emerging. The author contextualises his pivotal decisions, critically reflecting on Ambedkar’s strategies and actions.

Whether one agrees with Teltumbde’s critique or not, this analysis is an astute examination of the significant dimensions of Dalit emancipation. It is a timely reminder to the activist community that well-defined strategic anchors are a must in the pursuit for social change.

Ambedkar’s plunge into politics comprises the third phase of his journey in the biography. His legislative struggles in Bombay apart, this phase is dominated by his fierce disagreement with Gandhi at the Round Table Conference, following which Ambedkar emerged as a pan-India leader of Dalits, eclipsing many a provincial leader.

Interestingly, the author makes the point that Ambedkar’s entire battle over the question of representation would have been unnecessary had he not been so fixated on the prevailing first-past-the-post system of election and had instead considered the proportional representation system that guarantees, at least in theory, representation to each person.

The biography also highlights how Ambedkar was taken in by the enhanced quantum of representation of Dalits offered in the Poona Pact, which he later regretted. Ironically, he had to defend the joint electorate system for Dalits during the drafting of the Indian Constitution.

The fourth phase dwells on Ambedkar’s two contradictory approaches: a tryst with class politics through the Independent Labour Party (ILP) that he founded in the wake of the Government of India Act, 1935, to participate in the provincial elections of 1936-37; and the trajectory of a religious conversion movement. Teltumbde comments on the ILP’s electoral success in the 1936 elections, and looks at the favourable public response to Ambedkar’s historic march against the feudal Khoti system in the Konkan region and during the workers’ strike against the Industrial Dispute Act in 1938.

It seems to the author that Ambedkar’s experiment with the caste-class struggle was short-lived. Even though he had serendipitously arrived at the correct answer to the issue of the caste-class struggle in India and, unbeknownst to him, even practised it successfully through the anti-Khoti struggle and workers’ strike, the moment was wasted. Ambedkar soon turned his focus on caste, dissolving the ILP and forming the All India Scheduled Castes Federation (AISCF). He also took the first step towards statecraft, as a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council.

The rest of the phases dwell on the 1940s and 1950s. In the political eddies that accompanied the transfer of power, Ambedkar again suffered neglect, mainly due to the AISCF’s poor performance in the council elections of February 1946. He managed to get elected to the constituent assembly from Bengal, thanks to Jogendra Nath Mandal, in the face of stiff Congress opposition. But when his seat went to Pakistan under the Mountbatten plan of partition, he was elected to the constituent assembly from Bombay by the Congress and even made the chairman of the important Constitution Drafting Committee. The book dwells on the clandestine manoeuvres behind these crucial developments.

As is well-known, Babasaheb resigned from the Nehru cabinet in 1951 and even burst out against the attribution of having written the Constitution itself. The discussion on the Constitution and Babasaheb is informative.

This biography fills a significant gap in Ambedkar studies, building upon past efforts to contribute fresh insights and contextual depth. Earlier biographies by Dhananjay Keer, Changdev Khairmode, and B.C. Kamble, although extensive, had limitations that have been acknowledged by serious scholars. Khairmode and Kamble’s work extended to many volumes but often lacked the critical depth necessary for a comprehensive understanding. Recent scholarship by Ashok Gopal, Akash Singh Rathore, Scott Stroud, and Christophe Jaffrelot, which has delved deeply into Ambedkar’s socio-political and ideological dimensions, has been acknowledged in this biography.

Teltumbde’s work, with its multi-faceted portrayal of Babasaheb and bold reflections, is a seminal contribution to Ambedkar studies. Unlike many a previous authors who either glorified Ambedkar or rigidly analysed him within academic constraints, Teltumbde transcends these boundaries. He repositions Ambedkar’s life and legacy within the framework of contemporary social struggles, particularly in the context of neoliberal capitalism and class struggles that necessitate the eradication of caste.

Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar is more than a mere recounting of historical facts; it is an invitation to reassess Ambedkar’s complex and evolving strategies for social change. The author presents Ambedkar as a figure who, despite being a product of his time, offered solutions that transcended temporal and spatial limitations.

Teltumbde achieves his purpose by presenting Ambedkar as a human being, complete with contradictions and ideological struggles — not only as a towering leader but as someone who adapted his roles to match the changing realities of his time, even when those adaptations seemed contradictory.

The author argues that the Dalit movement, after Ambedkar’s death, lost its direction as various leaders pursued divergent interpretations of Ambedkar’s ideology for their own gain. He discusses how Ambedkar’s ideological conflicts, particularly with communists, were weaponised to divert Dalits from livelihood-centric struggles. Teltumbde also recounts the two major post-Ambedkar land struggles in the Khandesh and Marathwada regions as rare, bright moments demonstrating the revolutionary potential of Dalits before being co-opted by the ruling class – a strategy that marked the decline of the unified Dalit movement.

Teltumbde’s narrative suggests that Ambedkar’s deification by the establishment in the 1970s was a tactical move to neutralise his radical thoughts. Prising this constructed image apart, Teltumbde reveals a more authentic Ambedkar – relentless in his mission for caste eradication and deeply attuned to the socio-political complexities of his time.

The author reframes the challenge of carrying Ambedkar’s legacy forward in a compelling manner, emphasising that Ambedkar’s vision can be a source of inspiration at all times, but the responsibility of addressing new challenges by adapting their insights to contemporary realities lies with each successive generation.

Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar should have been written at least 30 years ago, when Ambedkar’s writings started becoming publicly accessible. But, instead of making strategic sense of these writings, many an intellectual fell prey to the ruling class’s enticements to produce hagiographies in which every thought and action was lauded, divorced from its context as well as goal. It only deepened the confusion in the Dalit movements about how to face the harsh reality around them.

What was needed was to present Babasaheb Ambedkar in flesh and blood, as a person struggling with his own strengths and weaknesses to create space for Dalits, as a dreamer who longed to see his ideal society based on liberty, equality and fraternity. Dalit youths would have learnt a lot from that. Although a bit ‘late’ in that sense, this biography restores a more real Ambedkar to us.

In sum, this book is a must read not only for Dalits but for all those who are desirous of understanding the making of the Indian republic and its future.

Rahul Kosambi is a sociologist, an Ambedkar scholar and Yuva Sahitya Akademi Awardee, 2017 for his book Ubha Aadav.

Poem | A Kind of Anthem

‘A nation you thought you knew,/ from Ashoka to Buddha to Gandhi to Nehru/ in a single decade unravels into/ Muslim, Christian, Hindu…’

The following is a poem from I’ll Have It Here, a collection of poems by Jeet Thayil. This is his first since the Sahitya Akademi Award–winning These Errors Are Correct, in 2008.

I’ll Have It Here, Jeet Thayil, HarperCollins India, 2024.

A Kind of Anthem

A nation you thought you knew,
from Ashoka to Buddha to Gandhi to Nehru
in a single decade unravels into
Muslim, Christian, Hindu,
unholy trinity of saffron, green and blue,
on a field of British white.

My girlfriend’s Chinese, my baby mama’s a Jew,
my husband’s red, white and blue.
When we’re out on the toot
in Chikmagalur, Diu and Kathmandu,
there’s no jealousy or rue.
We try to eat right.

We like our new brew.
We float past our differences and accrue
credit for the next Bardo. (Our karmic due!)
Either way, it’s true:
We’re dead if we don’t and dead if we do.
Got a light?

Jeet Thayil is the author of five novels and five collections of poetry, and is the editor of The Penguin Book of Indian Poets.

The Tiny, Flickering Light Within

Translator K. Srilata’s quest in these five unpublished translations from well-known Tamil novelist and poet Vatsala’s most recent poetry collection, is to give the poems an after-life while preserving their tone and emotional truth.

Translator’s note: R. Vatsala, a recipient of the Kalaignar Nootrandu award, is known for the finesse with which she crafts story poems which draw generously on life material, as evident in her most recent poetry collection Vatsalavin Thernthedutha Kavithaigal (The Selected Poems of Vatsala, 2023).

Given that she happens to be my mother, translating her has been an intimate and somewhat overwhelming experience. I am not quite sure how the entangled nature of our personal histories have impacted my reading of her poems. Perhaps there’s both too much knowing and too many blind spots. But it is precisely the strange and paradoxical nature of my relationship with Vatsala’s work that has served as mulch for these translations.

I have experimented with lineation, stanzaic patterns, visual topography, and pace. The rhythms and syntax of the Tamil original are obviously quite different from the translations which have landed on the page. My attempt has been to give Vatsala’s poems an after-life while preserving their tone and emotional truth.

– K. Srilata

Holding Appa’s* Hand

(Appavin Kai Pattri)

As a young girl holding appa’s hand,

taking in the world’s wonders,

I spotted a firefly with its tail-light.

With the moon around,

why does the firefly carry a light?

I asked appa.

My love, he said, the firefly is wise.

It knows, only too well,

that from time to time

the moon, the sun and the stars

disappear without warning,

and so it’s best to keep

a small lamp handy.

And that’s how,

even in the pitch dark,

I walk without groping my way,

my path lit,

much like the firefly’s,

by the tiny flickering light within.

*Appa is the Tamil word for father.

Amma’s Worries

(Kavalai)

Amma’s first worry:

Would I ever shed the dark skin I was born with?

Her next:

Would somebody lure me with chocolate?

Would they take me away to the red-light district?

Then:

Would I attain puberty and what when I did?

And then:

Would I attain puberty at all and what if I didn’t?

Would any man be willing to marry me?

And if indeed there was such a man,

how much dowry would he and his folks expect?

And after that, the worry:

what sort of man would he turn out to be?

Then, the worry:

Would I have a child?

And after that:

Would the child ever shed the dark skin she was born with?

And so on and so forth…

Before leaving home,

I have choked back

the tears which threaten to burst forth.

Rushing to board my flight, I wonder:

In the loneliness she wore in her last days,

did amma worry

about what they would do

if they found her —

at home or on the streets —

an orphan corpse?

Did she wonder, did she worry:

Would they burn her or bury her?

The Blue Bucket

(Neela Nira Vaali)

It’s all over and yet,

it lingers in my heart —

that blue bucket.

What would his mother have done with it?

Would she have left it behind?

But then, on the other hand,

wasn’t she the same woman

who had once ordered

that the oil from the pot

she had demanded as dowry

be emptied into a biscuit tin?

Hadn’t she then carried the pot

away with her on the train?

Surely, to a woman like that,

this blue bucket

wouldn’t have seemed a heavy burden?

I had pleaded with him to get me

a bucket I could use to bathe the baby.

With his permission, I had bought,

at one go,

two boxes of laundry detergent.

The bucket had come free.

I had talked the shop keeper into giving me

the blue one.

My one year old loved blue.

When I stood her inside the bucket

and bathed her, her joys spilled over.

What could have become of that blue bucket?

Tired of hearing him scream, “Go away! Get out!”,

I had left with the clothes on my back,

the baby on my hips.

Despite the passing of many years,

amma continued to scold,

“You went and left everything behind!”

She had scrimped and saved and gone without,

to put together

gold, silver, brass, steel…

That mother-in-law of mine

had apparently helped herself to all of it —

almirah, cot, sofa, U-foam mattress.

Her demands had swallowed,

even Appa’s provident fund.

She had later sold each item at half price.

I had not grieved these losses.

Then, as now,

there’s only one question which plagues me.

Even after forty years have passed,

I wonder sometimes

as I bathe my granddaughter,

Whatever became of that blue bucket?

That Moment I

(Andha Ganam 1)

We walked together,

labelling by colour,

dew drops dancing

on tips of grass

ran,

holding hands,

our feet not touching

the burning sands

spotted,

by lightning flash,

tiny puddles,

dipped our feet in them.

Even now,

we walk together.

Only

to different beats.

I can no longer do this.

Allow me to walk back.

Let me meet

that moment.

Meet it in order to crush it, stamp it out of existence.

Allow me to walk back.

Let me meet

the moment in which

we slipped away from each other.

Not That I Have Forgotten

(Athanaiyum Adangiya Adhu)

Do you know that these days

I no longer grieve

when I think of you?

Not that I have forgotten you

or the love you poured into me.

Your affection, your concern,

the respect you held me in —

I have forgotten none of it.

Not leaving behind a single thing,

I have stuffed them all into the small pillow

I hold close every night as I sleep.

R. Vatsala (born 1943) is an award-winning Tamil poet, fiction writer and former Systems Engineer at IIT Madras. Her most recent poetry collection Vatsalavin Thernthedutha Kavithaigal (The Selected Poems of Vatsala) was published by Red River in 2023. Her books include four poetry collections and two novels.

K. Srilata is a poet, fiction writer, translator and academic based in Chennai. Her most recent collection of poems Three Women in a Single-Room House was published by Sahitya Akademi in 2023.

Watch | Ratan Tata Had Four ‘Great Loves’, Two American, One Parsi, One Gujarati Who ‘Walked Away’

Thomas Mathew, whose book Ratan Tata: A Life was published just weeks after Ratan Tata’s death.

Ratan Tata, the former chairman of Tata Sons, who lived and died a bachelor, had four “great loves” in his life but never married any of them. This is revealed by his biographer, Thomas Mathew, whose book Ratan Tata: A Life was published just weeks after Ratan Tata’s death. Mathew worked closely with Ratan Tata while writing the book but it’s not an authorised biography.

In a 45-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, which reveals in detail Ratan Tata’s personality, his private life, the things that mattered to him, his relationship with his dogs, Tito and Tango, and his care for his staff, in particular, his cook, Rajen, Mathew also speaks about the four “great loves” in Tata’s life. Two of these were American women, one Parsi and the fourth a Gujarati.

The interview also focusses on Ratan Tata’s affection and love for his dogs. It seems, more often than not, he would name them Tito and Tango. He had, at least, three separate sets of dogs with the same name. When one of the Tangos broke his leg in 2008 Ratan Tata: “scanned the world for a vet who could save the limb” and eventually flew Tango to Minnesota.

Ratan Tata took particular care of his staff. Of Rajen, his cook, Mathew says Ratan Tata took great care of “Rajen’s every need, or rather, pampered him”. For instance, when Rajen wanted to learn fishing, Tata spent hours finding a suitable fishing rod for him.

Samantha Harvey’s ‘Orbital’ Is the Second-Shortest Novel to Win the Booker Prize

‘Orbital is our book. Samantha Harvey has written a novel propelled by the beauty of sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets.’

New Delhi: British writer Samantha Harvey won the prestigious Booker Prize on November 13 for her novel Orbital.

The book follows a team of astronauts in the International Space Station as they collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments, test the limits of the human body and observe. The book touches upon themes of mourning, humanity and the climate crisis.

‘Orbital is our book. Samantha Harvey has written a novel propelled by the beauty of sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. Everyone and no one is the subject, as six astronauts in the International Space Station circle the Earth observing the passages of weather across the fragility of borders and time zones. With her language of lyricism and acuity Harvey makes our world strange and new for us,” the Prize noted.

The Booker carries a $64,000 prize money and has been given since 1969.

Its past laureates include Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy.

Also read: Booker Prize 2024: Six Shortlisted Books, Reviewed

Orbital has been reported to be the second-shortest novel to win the prize at 136 pages. Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald, winner of the 1979 prize, is the shortest.

Harvey had been longlisted for the Booker Prize twice, for The Wilderness in 2009, and now, for for Orbital. Harvey is also the author of the novels All is Song, Dear Thief and The Western Wind, and a work of non-fiction, The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping.

She has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award, the Women’s Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Walter Scott Prize. The Wilderness was awarded the Betty Trask Prize.

“I wanted to write a space pastoral,” she has told the official Booker Prize portal on her prize-winning novel.

She has no social media accounts and has admitted that she doesn’t own a mobile phone.

A Feast Through Time and the Essence of Delhi’s Cuisine

In ‘From the King’s Table to Street Food’, Pushpesh Pant’s scholarship is apparent, but it’s his love for Delhi, its spirit and its food that shines through.

Pushpesh Pant’s From the King’s Table to Street Food is a vibrant tribute to Delhi’s culinary landscape, where food becomes the language through which history, memory and culture are experienced. Pant, a renowned scholar and food historian, starts with the legendary city of Indraprastha, passes through the courts of the Sultanate and Mughal eras, travels into British India, and lands in the globalised capital we know today.

The roots of Indraprastha

Delhi’s culinary legacy begins with the ancient city of Indraprastha, referenced in the Mahabharata. Pant explores food in myth, noting how epic feasts reflect the era’s cultural richness. The ‘Banquet of Pandavas’ introduces readers to celebratory dishes made with saffron from Kashmir and bamboo shoots from Pragjyotisha (now Assam). Delhi’s history, Pant observes, is connected with food from as early as these ancient tales, which included foods gathered during exile, reminiscent of foraging traditions still seen in Indian villages. His scholarship brings alive Delhi’s mythic past, laying the groundwork for a food history that, even today, mixes humble ingredients with royal opulence.

Pushpesh Pant’s
From the King’s Table to Street Food,
Published by Speaking Tiger (2024)

Medieval confluence: Sultanate and Mughal Eras

Pushpesh Pant’s narrative also delves into the Sultanate and Mughal periods, tracing how trade, migration and culture influenced Delhi’s palate. As a historian, he places emphasis on the public kitchens and Sufi langars (communal kitchens) that served as social equalisers. With influences from Persian and Central Asian cuisines, the Mughal era gave birth to Delhi’s qormas, biryani, and richly spiced kebabs. Through figures like Ibn Battuta and Amir Khusrau, Pant unearths how dishes like the samosa traveled from distant lands, eventually becoming synonymous with Indian street food.

In this section, the author introduces readers to Mughaliya cuisine, distinct from the often-interchanged term Mughlai. While Mughaliya is rooted in the authentic royal flavours of the Mughal dastarkhan, Mughlai refers to the adaptations that evolved later, particularly under the British. The difference is subtle yet significant; Mughaliya represents authentic Mughal techniques, while Mughlai became a simplified version that melded with Punjabi and North Indian preferences.

The British Raj and beyond

The British introduced Delhi to new tastes and dining customs, adding elements like stews, cutlets and pies to the Indian table. He offers an engaging perspective on the cultural clash and culinary fusion of this era, detailing how mutton cutlets and Shepherd’s Pie became adapted to local tastes. However, the British weren’t the only influence. This era also saw the establishment of tea culture and bakery items like patties and pastries, which Pant recounts as a highlight of his childhood visits to Delhi’s famed Wenger’s bakery.

The story of Partition forms a bittersweet part of his narrative. With Partition came an influx of Punjabis, whose hearty cuisine would redefine Delhi’s culinary reputation. The butter chicken and dal makhani, that are Delhi icons today, originated with Punjabi migrants and soon captured the city’s collective palate. In another chapter, Pant reflects on the establishment of Pandara Road eateries, representing foods of those displaced by partition, Lahori, Peshawari and Pindi-style cuisine. This transformation is key to understanding how Delhi grew into a cosmopolitan food hub.

A culinary melting pot

Pant explains, how Delhi’s identity, extends beyond Punjabi and Mughal foods. The city’s population grew with migrants from across India, bringing with them the flavours of Bengal, Bihar, the Northeast, and South India. Each group contributed to the city’s diversity: Bengali puchkas and jhaalmuri at C.R. Park, South Indian idli-dosa tiffin centres, and spicy Andhra fare. Delhi, Pant asserts, is unique because of these regional confluences. From Calcutta-style chops to Naga curries and ‘Indian-Chinese’ Manchurian, Delhi’s food culture is inclusive and constantly evolving.

In Pant’s retelling, the South Indian tiffin culture brought by immigrants in the mid-20th century highlights the affordability and universal appeal of items like idli and dosa, which are today staples across the city. Similarly, the Parsi community brought to Delhi dishes like berry pulao and dhansak, still enjoyed by families at the Parsi Anjuman. Through these regional influences, Delhi has transformed into a culinary kaleidoscope, reflecting India’s diversity.

From dhabas to fine dining

From wayside dhabas to posh restaurants, Pant also tracks Delhi’s evolving dining scene, attributing much of the change to globalisation and a growing middle class. Pant observes that Delhi now claims to be a global food capital where one can find Japanese sushi, Thai noodles, Mediterranean falafel and Korean BBQ, mirroring the internationalisation of urban Indian food culture. However, the rustic dhabas with earthy flavours still retain their charm, with roadways to North India lined with stops famous for parathas, makki di roti, and sarson da saag.

The book’s chapters on modern Delhi trace how restaurant culture evolved with urban development, such as the rise of fine-dining establishments in neighbourhoods like the Asian Games Village. He explores how diplomatic enclaves, corporate parks, and upscale markets fostered a high-end restaurant culture. Author expertise reveals how Delhi’s food culture reflects its status as both India’s political capital and a culinary destination in its own right.

The essence of the ‘asli dilliwala’

For Pant, an asli Dilliwala is defined not only by a love for food but by an appreciation of Delhi’s diverse culinary traditions. This identity is woven into the food rituals of the Baniya, Kayastha and Punjabi communities, as well as the contributions of Bengalis, Kashmiris, Parsis and Christians. Pant’s fascination with Delhi’s cultural intersections lends warmth to his account. He highlights how dishes that originated in small community kitchens have become symbols of Delhi’s identity — chole bhature, papri chaat, parathas, and kebabs.

In one of the book’s most personal reflections, Pant shares nostalgic stories from his own past, painting a vivid picture of Delhi’s food scene in the 1960s. Memories of Sohan halwa, the Hanuman Mandir, and family visits to Wengers bakery bring to life the sensory pleasures that shaped his early experiences. Pant’s voice is both scholarly and sentimental, infusing historical facts with the charm of personal anecdotes.

Pant writes, “Dilli Haat, established in 1994 by Delhi Tourism, was first envisioned by Jaya Jaitley. It sought to bring craftspersons from all over India and provided space for eateries from different regions, to showcase the diversity of Indian cuisine. Bijoli Grill from Bengal had on its menu kosha mangsho, prawn cutlet, fish orly, aloo dom, Radhaballabhi; Awadhi Dastar Khwan offered galouti and kakori kebabs, shami and pulav; Kashmiri Wazwaan tempted walk-in guests with rishta, gushtaba, martswangan qorma, tsuk vangun, aloo bukhara qorma, and rogan josh. Rajasthan served pyaaz kachori, mirchi vada, ghewar, dal bati choorma. The Naga Kitchen had no qualms about mentioning pork and palate-scorching raja mirchi aka bhut jholakiya. A taste of Assam and Manipur introduced Delhi to other flavours from the North East. Peninsular India was represented by Tamil Nadu, and Anantam, that showcased delicacies from Kerala.”

The book is gives extra ordinary cultural insights, presenting Delhi not just as a city but as a melting pot of traditions, migrations, and flavours.

An evocative narrative for all tastes

Without burdening readers with academic jargon, Pant presents Delhi’s culinary history as an area woven with colourful threads of memory, culture and flavour.

The book’s pages brim with recipes, not as mere instructions, but as relics of eras and people. His scholarship is apparent, but it’s his love for Delhi, its spirit and its food, those shines through.

From the King’s Table to Street Food is not only a must-read for history buffs and food enthusiasts but also for anyone who wishes to understand Delhi from the inside out. It’s an experience that feels as satisfying as a hearty meal and as enlightening as a tour through time, making it a fitting homage to a city that, in Pant’s words, “never stops cooking up something new.”

Ashutosh Kumar Thakur is a Bengaluru-based management professional, curator and literary critic.

For ‘Karla’s Choice’, John le Carré’s Son, Nick Harkaway, Speaks in His Father’s Voice

Harkaway has not produced a fake le Carré. Far from it.

George Smiley had people, Karla had choices. Dedicated readers of le Carré’s oeuvre will recognise the deliberate riff on the title of one his unforgettable novels and that of the book by Nick Harkaway, le Carré’s son. Le Carre also wrote a novel (A Perfect Spy) about his father. Harkaway’s remembrance of his father is of a completely different kind. He is not trying exorcize his past. On the contrary he is trying – with remarkable success – to relive his father’s fictional world by bringing back le Carré’s most memorable character George Smiley and the people, the institutions that made his life, his loyalties, his disillusionments and his humanity.

‘Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel,’ Nick Harkaway and John le Carré, Viking, 2024.

Le Carré had a habit of resurrecting Smiley from retirement. Harkaway does the same in this novel. He catches Smiley at a most unusual time in his life. Smiley has retired from the Circus where Control still sits on the fifth floor holding all the strings. Smiley is reconciled to his beautiful wife, Ann, and for once is enjoying domestic bliss. But deep down there is something clawing at his heart that causes him incredible anguish. This is the death of Alec Leamas, his friend and colleague, who had been shot on the Berlin Wall. Smiley was an eyewitness to that killing. He was urging Leamas to jump on the western side as bullets felled him. Leamas, as readers of The Spy who Came in from the Cold will recall, was sent on a most dangerous mission into East Germany and the Soviet Union. Control had lied to him about the real target of the mission. Smiley had not been able to accept Control’s deception and his utter lack of morality.

This book is situated in the immediate aftermath of Leamas’s death just as le Carré’s A Legacy of Spies was placed in the years intervening between Call for the Dead and The Spy who came in from the Cold.

Smiley is back in action in this book as are his people – Ann, Jim Prideaux, Peter Guillam, Connie Sachs, Millie McCraig, Mendel, Toby Esterhase and in passing General Vladimir; Control, of course; Bill Haydon makes a couple of cameo appearances and there is the looming presence of the ghost of Alec Leamas. All the le Carré coinages are here – lamplighters, scalphunters, tradecraft, deadletter boxes, treff, safehouses and so on. But there is one significant difference so far Smiley is concerned and this is the reason for italicising the words ‘in action’ above.

In all previous Smiley novels, the eponymous protagonist had been the backroom case officer – analysing intelligence, taking back backbearings, thinking inside out, pouring over files, interviewing people who can provide vital leads and information. He is never out in the field engaging in acts of derring-do. Yes, there was the first-hand investigation in Hamburg and then the dash through Schleswig-Holstein in Smiley’s People but Smiley was essentially what in le Carré lingo was called the juju man – always reflective, often puzzled and for ever cleaning his glasses on the lining of his silk tie. In this novel, all these recognisable facets of Smiley are there but he is also out there in the field to the extent of actually going into the cold by crossing the Iron Curtain and being present in Budapest the scene of action and then driving at break-neck speed to drive into Czechoslovakia and then flying onwards to safety in London. Smiley is in action perhaps because he is much younger. He is also witness to a peppering of violence in Budapest which leaves one his officers – a scalphunter – dead. This is a reminder that Smiley in his youth, after being recruited into the Circus, had spent some terrifying years behind the lines in Nazi Germany. Smiley thus knew the game and the thrill of the chase and the escape.

The escape from Budapest is the only somewhat implausible part of the novel. It leaves one wondering if le Carré would have done it differently. I don’t want to give away the plot and the storyline but Smiley rushes into Budapest, against Control’s explicit instructions, to exfiltrate two women who are not only in danger of being killed but are in a position to provide valuable information about the whereabouts of a former Karla agent who has gone missing. Smiley’s recall from retirement and devotion to Ann is on an order from Control who believes George Smiley – and only George Smiley – can find the missing Russian agent who when found will be a source of invaluable intelligence.

Also read: In John Le Carré’s Swan Song, Commitment, Betrayal and a Love Affirmed

This brings the reader to another of Smiley’s people though not quite his favourite one. This is Karla who through intrigue and ruthlessness has risen to be the head of the notorious Thirteenth Directorate of Soviet intelligence. Readers know from a flashback sequence in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that Smiley and Karla had met in the mid-1950s in a jail in Delhi and that Karla had recruited the mole, Bill Haydon. Readers of Smiley’s People will also remember that at the end of that novel Smiley had engineered the defection of Karla. But in this novel, all these (except the Delhi encounter) in terms of chronology lie in the future. Here Karla has just risen to power and is working to erase traces of his past, including friends and comrades who know about his antecedents. In this sense, this is Karla’s debut and he is already making choices that bear his trademark ruthlessness.

Nick Harkaway leads off with a saying attributed to Picasso as one of the epigraphs to the novel. Picasso apparently said, “I can fake a Picasso as well as anyone.’’ Harkaway has not produced a fake le Carré. Far from it. He has only brought back to life some of le Carré’s characters, especially George Smiley. If le Carré was a master of creating atmosphere (recall the opening of The Spy who came in from the Cold and the closing pages of Smiley’s People both depicting the Wall and the crossing), Harkaway doesn’t venture down that path. There are rare exceptions and he nearly matches le Carré.

Take the following as an example: “Take a perfectly reasonable city and make it impossible: think of Venice, with every second calle or sottoportego opening not on to another road but a canal, and only comparatively few bridges to get you from one maze to another. Berlin was different, the Wall a gash down the centre of its face, but the same rules applied. Streets were broken in the middle by a no man’s land of barbed wire and searchlights; schools were cut off from their playgrounds and warehouses from markets. Somewhere, Guillam had heard, there was a boatyard with no route to the water. The map of the war was burned forever on to what should have been reconstruction, and the city existed in a frozen parody of peace.’’

Thus, Nick Harkaway is his father’s voice.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee is chancellor and professor of history, Ashoka University. Views are personal.

Booker Prize 2024: Six Shortlisted Books, Reviewed

From a longlist of 13, six novels have been shortlisted for the 2024 Booker prize. Academics review the finalists ahead of the announcement of the winner on November 12.

The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden

The Safe Keep, a novel about the expropriation and theft of Jewish property during the second world war, revisits a dark chapter of Dutch history.

Before being deported, Dutch Jews were stripped of their homes and belongings, and forced to flee Amsterdam with what little they could carry. Van der Wouden’s debut novel shines an ironic light on the act of keeping or maintaining things that were to be reclaimed by their rightful owners, but which were lost or stolen in the war.

The trauma of this history hangs over the lives of three siblings grieving the loss of their mother.

Isabel, the novel’s lonely protagonist, lives alone in the family house, keeping it in order as her late mother would have wanted. All the while she suspects that their maid is stealing from the kitchen. But following the arrival of her brother’s girlfriend, Eva, Isabel discovers the truth of the house and attempts to right historical wrongs.

By Manjeet Ridon, Associate Dean International, Arts, Design and Humanities

James by Percival Everett

James is an incredible re-writing of Mark Twain’s 1884 American classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Everett has reclaimed Twain’s “Jim” from the peripheries, boldly placing him centre stage.

Just like the original book, it’s set in the pre-civil war plantation south. It’s 1861, war is brewing, and James hears that he may be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his family. He goes on the run with the resourceful young white boy, Huck Finn.

This is a literary, writerly and scholarly novel. Everett expertly weaves black literary criticism and theory into his narrative, while also making artful allusions to the books that shaped American scholarly and literary traditions. This weaving, however, is done with a light and engaging touch.

James’s story will change you. You will start to question all the other classic novels you’ve read and wonder whose story is being suppressed. What if, you’ll ask yourself, they could be fleshed out and heard properly? It would, perhaps, be a much richer tale to tell.

By Emily Zobel Marshall, Professor in Postcolonial Literature

Held by Anne Michaels

In Held, war seeps into the very bones of the text. Always looming, like a traumatic dark cloud, this is a novel about the adjustment and readjustment to life after conflict, its all-consuming nature and the indelible marks it leaves behind. Yet there is a sensual homeliness about the novel that offers warm, safe spaces among the shadows of the past.

Nostalgia, captured in snapshots or literal photographs in many instances, creates, confers and confirms memories. History is the ghost that haunts the characters’ present, whether through conflict, grief or remembrance.

This is a beautifully sensory novel about humanity, existence, and memory over the “long exposure of time”. The distance between people manifests across eras and places, but the novel also grasps at the closeness of human relationships. The characters are not still, they represent a peace that holds us in a quiet nostalgic reverence for the past. They are each held not only by individual bonds and relations, but by the silent claim that history’s spectre makes on us all.

By Sarah Trott, Senior Lecturer in American Studies and History

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey’s Orbital skilfully exposes the human cost of space flight, set against the urgency of the climate crisis. While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six cosmonauts hurtle around Earth on the International Space Station.

Their everyday routine of tasteless food and laboratory work is in stark contrast to the awesome spectacle of the blue planet, oscillating between night and day, dark and light, where international borders are meaningless.

While they teach laboratory mice to orient themselves in micro-gravity, they rigorously document their own bodily functions to satisfy some “grand abstract dream of interplanetary life” away from “the planet held hostage by humans, a gun to its vitals”. These are humans, Harvey tells us, “with a godly view that’s the blessing and also the curse”. Harvey has written a novel for the end of the world as we know it. The hope it offers is that we might learn to know it differently.

By Debra Benita Shaw, Reader in Cultural Theory

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

This is a quietly extraordinary novel. The narrative is stripped to bedrock and yet, paradoxically, is as complex and fertile as the compost that forms one of its primary metaphors.

The narrator, unnamed and middle-aged, leaves Sydney, Australia, and her job at a threatened species centre. She leaves her home, her husband and friends, to go to a small religious community retreat in the outback where she grew up. Three visitations disturb the nuns: a plague of mice, the return of the bones of a murdered sister and the reappearance of a former schoolmate.

Here the narrator confronts her memories of grief, loss and guilt and addresses the question of how to live in the world. How can we recognise our responsibilities to each other and to the natural world of which humans are inescapably a part? What really matters?

Praying, one of the nuns tells the narrator, is “admitting yourself to otherness … it’s hard labour”. With its attention to the work of contemplation, Wood’s novel itself takes on the devotional quality of prayer.

By Diana Wallace, Professor of English Literature

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Sadie Smith is an American spy tasked with infiltrating Le Moulin, a utopian commune in southwest France accused of perpetrating violent acts in its quest to protect the environment. A nuanced, often hilarious novel about community, the tale is narrated by a character who is a self-serving individualist.

Sadie may be ready to lie and deceive for the right amount of money. Yet she’s also able to listen and even question her own beliefs as she religiously reads the emails sent to Le Moulin by its eccentric mentor, Bruno Lacombe, who lives in a cave and praises the lifestyle of the Neanderthal.

But Le Moulin’s apparent utopia is deeply flawed. The leader, Pascal, is an upper-class Parisian more interested in becoming a guru than challenging the rampant sexism, classism and ageism in his commune. Kushner offers us a sharp look at the European identity from the point of view of an outsider, and doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable.

By Inés Gregori Labarta, Lecturer in Creative Writing

Manjeet Ridon, Associate Dean International, Faculty of Arts, Design & Humanities, De Montfort University; Debra Benita Shaw, Debra Benita Shaw is Reader in Cultural Theory in the School of Architecture and Visual Arts, University of East London; Diana Wallace, Professor of English Literature, University of South Wales; Emily Zobel Marshall, Reader in Postcolonial Literature, Leeds Beckett University; Inés Gregori Labarta, Lecturer in Creative Writing, Lancaster University, and Sarah Trott, Senior Lecturer in American Studies and History, York St John University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘ED Hai Toh…’: How Washing Machine Politics Rinsed Maharashtra

‘There is only one solution now. We have to join hands with Modiji and the BJP. Even Pawar Saheb knows this, only he can’t seem to make up his mind.’

The following is an excerpt from Rajdeep Sardesai’s book, 2024: The Election That Surprised India.

It was a mid-summer evening in May 2023. Despite the air-conditioning in the Nashik hotel room, NCP leader Chhagan Bhujbal was sweating profusely. As he sipped a glass of his favourite whisky, he looked and sounded anxious. He had a greying beard, tired eyes and a gaunt look on his face; the spring in his step that had characterized his adventurous political career was missing. Just a few days earlier, he had received yet another notice from the ED in an alleged money laundering case. The original case had been filed in 2016, and the matter had been dragging on ever since. Accused, along with his son and nephew, of irregularities in awarding contracts worth over Rs 100 crore to a Mumbai developer, Bhujbal had already spent two and a half years in jail before he was
granted bail. The lengthy period in jail had adversely affected his health, and he was constantly popping pills. ‘I can’t sleep at night just thinking of my days in prison. I am seventy-five now, but they [the ED] are still gunning for me,’ he moaned.

2024: The Election That Surprised India, Rajdeep Sardesai, HarperCollins India, 2024.

‘But you are such a senior leader. I am sure Sharad Pawar will help you,’ I responded. ‘When you are in trouble, you are alone in life. Who was there to assist me when I was in jail? Matlabi hai saari duniya (The world is selfish),’ Bhujbal lamented, asking his aide to prepare another round of drinks. He recalled how Anil Deshmukh, former home minister and another senior NCP leader, was released after spending thirteen months in jail on money-laundering charges. Upon his release, Deshmukh had alleged he was made an ‘offer’ in jail to join the BJP if he wanted ‘protection’ from the law. ‘Ab woh mujhe bhi Deshmukh ji ki tarah phasana chahate hain (Now they want to trap me like Deshmukh),’ alleged Bhujbal.

Bhujbal, who is a former Maharashtra deputy chief minister, joined Pawar when the latter broke away to form the NCP in 1999. He started his career in the Shiv Sena as one of Bal Thackeray’s key lieutenants. Bhujbal grew up in extreme poverty, living in a tiny one-room tenement near Mumbai’s Byculla market. His family sold flowers and vegetables on the roadside to make ends meet. Now, like so many Maharashtra politicians, he spearheads a vast business empire that stretches across several sectors, from educational institutes to real estate to agriculture. ‘I am a self-made man who has come up the hard way because of my own efforts. The only reason that the agencies are after me is because I come from a humble OBC community. Do you think they will treat any upper-caste politician like this?’ he fulminated. The OBC factor was Bhujbal’s calling card: in a Maratha-dominated political milieu, he used it frequently to emphasize his relevance.

Bhujbal’s life story is compelling; the reasons for his imprisonment less so. The charges of corruption are well-documented, but I was trying to be as empathetic as possible and listened patiently to his woes. ‘There is only one solution now. We have to join hands with Modiji and the BJP. Even Pawar Saheb knows this, only he can’t seem to make up his mind,’ he said as large plates of chicken tikka and seekh kebab were placed on the table. Bhujbal is a generous host. The whisky bottle was almost empty by now. But how will joining hands with the BJP help your case, I asked. ‘Come on, why are you acting innocent? Everyone knows what is happening,’ he retorted.

Just weeks after this conversation, in July 2023, I was woken up from a Sunday snooze by a colleague on the news desk. ‘We need you live on air right away. The NCP has split. Ajit Pawar is being sworn in along with a few more NCP leaders, all of whom are joining the Eknath Shinde-led BJP–Shiv Sena government,’ he informed me. As I scanned the names of the new cabinet ministers, one name stood out. Chhagan Bhujbal was back in government. A few days later, I met Bhujbal at his official bungalow in Mumbai’s plush Malabar Hill area. He had lived in ministerial comfort for much of the previous three decades and seemed completely at ease here—a sharp contrast to the nervous Opposition politician I had met in that dark Nashik hotel room. ‘I assume you are sleeping well now?’ I quipped. ‘Yes, yes, I am so relaxed now, I can’t tell you—it is like a rebirth,’ was Bhujbal’s cheery response. His broad smile was back.

As it turned out, the sense of relief in the Bhujbal household was not unfounded. In December 2023, the ED withdrew its petition in
the Bombay High Court seeking the quashing of a 2018 order that had granted Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer bail and allowed them to renew their passports and travel abroad. The case was for all practical purposes put in cold storage. Bhujbal was no longer a marked man.

Rajdeep Sardesai is a news anchor, journalist and author.