Monthly Archives: October 2019

Equestrian: Fouaad Mirza wins gold at Olympic qualifying event

Karnataka (under research project), Leaders, Sports, World Opinion, , ,

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

Fouaad is currently the highest ranked in Group G for Asia Pacific Zone with 34 points on Fernhill Facetime, 30 points on Touchingwood and at present qualifying his third horse, Dajara.

Fouaad Mirza will next compete at the events in Montelibertti ITY CCI3*S (Italy) and Le Pouget FRA CCI4*S (France). - SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Fouaad Mirza will next compete at the events in Montelibertti ITY CCI3*S (Italy) and Le Pouget FRA CCI4*S (France). – SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

India’s double Asian Games silver medallist Fouaad Mirza  bagged the top honours at the CCI3*S, an Olympic qualifying event, held in Strzegom, Poland.

Fouaad is currently the highest ranked individual in Group G for Asia Pacific Zone with 34 points on one horse Fernhill Facetime, 30 points on the second horse Touchingwood and at present qualifying his third horse, Dajara.

The eight-year-old Dajara, procured by the Embassy Group, is a promising German Holsteiner with an excellent track record of wins including a German National Championship, Bundeschampionat.

“I am very excited about our new horse Dajara, which has immense potential for success at the Olympics. Through the event CCI3*S, we were able to level up the horse rider combination to 4* and building up my points to qualify for the Olympics,” Fouaad said on Sunday.

Fouaad started the week with a solid dressage score of 26.8 which placed him second with a very close score to Germany’s Antonia Baumgart, who was one penalty better at 25.8.

This was followed by the showjumping event where Fouaad maintained the second position with a clear round. He finished the deciding cross-country round in four seconds over time, leading him to the gold in the Strezgom CCI3*S in Poland.

Fouaad has completed Renswoude NED CCI 4*S placed 11th, Jardy FRA CCI4*S, Strzegom POL CCI4*S placed 15th, Sopot POL CCI4*S placed seventh so far for Olympic Qualifying Events.

He will next compete at the events in Montelibertti ITY CCI3*S (Italy) and Le Pouget FRA CCI4*S (France).

source: http://www.sportstar.thehindu.com / SportStar / Home> More Sports / by PTI / Bengaluru – October 14th, 2019

Food in Indian Muslim households is beyond biryani & kebabs: Recipes are subtle, and include various vegetables

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Business & Economy, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, Travel & Tourism, , ,

JHARKHAND / NEW DELHI :

Sadaf Hussain chronicles home-made food in his new book Daastane-Dastarkhan.

​Sadaf Hussain’s charming new, first book Daastane-Dastarkhan​ has been published by Hachette India​.

Sadaf Hussain’s charming new, first book Daastane-Dastarkhan has been published by Hachette India.

Sadaf Hussain’s charming new book Daastane-Dastarkhan starts with the story of a pir who, every Thursday, visited his mother’s family in Sasaram, Bihar. But one day he appeared on a Wednesday, throwing his grandmother into panic because there was no meat for the aloo-gosht she always fed him. She had to be inventive. She used dried figs and poppy seed paste, to make a salan, threw in fried potatoes, balanced it with garam masala and chillies, and served it with rice and besan rotis. The pir was delighted: “May Allah bless you with an abundance of food and may no one ever leave your home hungry.

A recipe like this is not what many would think of as Indian Muslim food. Where is the intense meat focus? Where are the kebabs and biryanis? The problem starts with thinking there is something that can be neatly labelled Indian Muslim food. The fact that people do this might be just another way in which Indian Muslims are diminished by clubbing their many communities into one and ascribing easy stereotypes to them.

Ummi Abdulla, who has documented the food of Malabar Muslims, makes mutta mala or egg threads.
Ummi Abdulla, who has documented the food of Malabar Muslims, makes mutta mala or egg threads.

Part of the problem is that there is a market in catering to such stereotypes. Once a year during Ramzan, many people decide to have an iftar experience and go out — without fasting — to eat the rich food cooked on street sides for the occasion. But this has as little relation to regular home food in Muslim communities across India, as does a Diwali or Christmas feast have for Hindu or Christian home food.

One way people get exposed to home food of different communities is when they share food with neighbours, especially as kids. But as housing becomes increasingly segregated, this is becoming harder.

This lack of knowledge has been compounded by a curious lack of cookbooks from different Indian Muslim communities.

There are cookbooks from cities like Lucknow and Hyderabad where certain types of Muslim food dominate, but what’s presented tends to be street food or special occasion dishes, both mostly made by men. These are important, but it means that the daily, home dishes get left out.

SadafHussainMPOs14oct2019

There have been a few exceptions. Ummi Abdulla made a pioneering contribution by documenting the food of the Malabar Muslim, or Moplah, community, with all its complex interactions between the local ingredients of Kerala and influences from Arab traders.

Bilkees Latif ’s Essential Andhra Cookbook captured similar interactions from Hyderabad. Mumbai’s Inquilab newspaper brought out a collection of booklets, in Urdu and English, on Memon, Kokani, Bohra and Kashmiri food. There were a few other books printed privately or abroad, but little else.

Adil Ahmad’s Tehzeeb chronicles the home food of an upper-class Lucknow family.

Doreen Hassan’s Saffron and Pearls does the same for her husband’s family from Hyderabad, but with roots in both Persia and Uttar Pradesh. Zaiqa e-Kadwai provides a very different perspective. It is a team effort to document the food of a village in Ratnagiri district, where most of the families just happen to be Muslim, but their food is quite typically Konkani. Hazeena Syed’s Ravathur Recipes: With a Pinch of Love shows, in a very impressively produced volume, the food of this Tamil Muslim community.

 These books show the food of these communities to be, as with all communities in a region, primarily dictated by what’s locally available, but with small tweaks. As Hassan’s husband’s family shows, at a more upper-class level there were more likely to be interactions with communities across countries, and recipes travel with daughters-inlaw, who are one of the least acknowledged agents for social change.

 There is certainly a lot of meat eaten in all these communities, but the recipes are much simpler and subtler than what is served up to unthinking eaters as “Muslim” food. Meat is often cooked with vegetables as in the chuqandar gosht, beetroot and mutton; or keema kakdi, cucumbers and mince, given in Tehzeeb. There are inventive egg dishes, like boiled eggs stuffed with mince and then skewered, that Hassan discovers in Hyderabed, or eggs fried in gravy that are a favourite in Kadwai.

Other similarities might be slightly more use of some spices, like star anise, and less of others — hing rarely features since onions are widely used. Chefs will tell you that Muslims in their kitchens are particularly adept at frying, and that copper, with its excellent heat conduction, is the metal of choice for utensils. Many traditional vessels shown in these books are copper, and careful distinctions are made in types of frying: shallow, deep, braising and so on.

Books like these are important because, apart from the problems of unthinking stereotypes, the food of Indian Muslim communities faces another kind of obliterating pressure. Many cooks from the communities have gone to work in the Gulf and have picked up the kind of Lebanese-Arab food that is becoming a standard across the world. It is easy to produce, cheap and tasty enough and has the allure of being modern, rather than old-fashioned, labour-intensive home food. People shouldn’t be faulted for opting for what’s cheap and convenient, but it is important to remember, as these books remind us, that there are also other ways to nourish our roots.

NalliNihariMPOs14oct2019

source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> Business News> Magazines> Panache / by Vikram Doctor / ET Bureau / October 13th, 2019

The nihari kulcha you must have if you’re in Lucknow

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Travel & Tourism, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lucknow, UTTAR PRADESH :

While in Lucknow’s Chowk area, the quickest way to sate hunger is with a plate of Raheem’s nihari kulcha.

Raheem nihari kulcha, Umar Raza, Azam Hussain

(What’s for Breakfast? (Above) Bilal Raheem Ahmad (in blue) at Raheem’s

When Umrao Jaan was being shot in the early 1980s, the cast and crew of the Rekha-starrer film would visit Raheem’s regularly. “I was too young then, so I don’t have any memory, but my father told me that the entire cast ate at our restaurant on more than one occasion and Farooq Shaikh had loved the nihari,” says Bilal Raheem Ahmad, one of five brothers who run the restaurant now.

At 8 pm in old Lucknow’s Chowk area, Raheem’s hotel is one of the busiest spots in the area. Most customers thronging the restaurant, in a basement near the Tehseen mosque, are there for the nihari kulcha — meat stew with baked flatbread. The nihari, which is traditionally a breakfast dish, is available all day at Raheem’s. In the alley leading to the restaurant, one can smell the kulchas being baked on the tandoor from a distance. After entering the basement, the aroma changes to that of slow-cooked meat.

Raheem’s nihari kulcha.

Bilal says the delicacy has always been the bestselling item at his restaurant, which was started by his great grandfather Haji Abdul Ghani in around 1920. The family belongs to old Lucknow’s Chowk area. The restaurant started selling the nihari kulcha in the 1940s under Haji Abdul Ghani’s son and Bilal’s grandfather Haji Abdul Raheem, after whom the restaurant is named. “It was Raheem sahab who invented the ghilaf kulcha which is served with the nihari,” says Bilal, 48, who generally sits at the restaurant’s counter every day from 5.30 pm to 11 pm.

After Haji Abdul Raheem, who ran the restaurant till 1983, the restaurant was taken over by Raheem’s father Fakruddin, who managed it till 2000, after which Bilal and his four brothers — Manzoor Ahmad (60), Mohammed Usama (47), Mohammed Shuaib (40) and Zaid Ahmad (37) — run it.

“The word ghilaf means a cover. The ghilaf kulcha has two layers which makes it so special. The upper layer has flour, ghee and creamy milk, while the lower layer has flour and yeast which makes the kulcha rise. The nihari is cooked overnight, for 6-7 hours, on very low heat over wood,” says Bilal.

He says, one of the most important aspects of his restaurant is the tehzeeb (etiquette). “We never return a customer without serving them. There are several madrasas for the poor near our restaurant. My grandfather Haji Abdul Raheem had written two points in his will — one was that we must always serve the poor and, second, that we will never ever compromise on the quality of the food. We are doing everything to follow his orders and hence, did not open a single branch,” says Bilal with a smile, while he returns change to 14-year-old Owais, who studies at the Furqania madrasa next to the Tehseen mosque.

The madrasa student says he comes to the restaurant almost every second day. “I get my own tiffin box and get one kulcha and some nihari for Rs 20,” says Owais, who belongs to neighbouring Barabanki district and stays at the residential madrasa.

The mutton nihari and two kulchas are priced at Rs 148, while the buffalo nihari and two kulchas for Rs 83. The paaya nihari, both mutton and buffalo, comes for an additional Rs 20. In between serving the evening crowd karara (crispy) kulchas, Habib Ahmad (62), who has been working at Raheem’s for the last 45 years, says, “The paaya nihari is mostly made with meat from the calf area.” The restaurant also sells mutton biryani for Rs 300 with four “big” pieces of mutton. Another bestseller is pasanda. A plate of nihari and two kulchas used to be sold at Rs 1.40 in the early 1980s when Habib started working there.

Bilal says, till date, the restaurant buys raw spices and uses them only after getting them cleaned and ground. “Our nihari has around 95 types of spices. We put them in a potli (bundle) and drop them into the nihari when the cooking starts. The recipe was given to us by our father, who got it from his grandfather Haji Raheem sahab,” says the co-owner. The meat used to make the nihari is bought daily. No artificial ingredients are used, and “it is only cooked in a copper deg (cauldron) with kalai (a layer of tin) on the outside. The kalai is a must for slow cooking. It doesn’t let the food burn,” he says, with a wry smile, before adding, “I can’t tell you what our spices are.”

Waiting for their “wholesome meal” at the restaurant are childhood friends — Umar Raza (44) and Azam Hussain (42) — both tailors. but Raza is getting annoyed by the delay, their order — two plates of steaming hot paaya nihari with a sprinkling of green coriander and chilli on top and one kulcha each — finally arrives and they start guzzling the food. They say they have been coming together to the restaurant for the past 15 years. “It is a filling meal which is the secret to our great health,” says Hussain, pointing to Raza’s bulging tummy.

Bilal says, people from “far-off” places come during Ramzan, when the restaurant remains open from iftar (meal eaten to break the fast) to sehri (pre-dawn meal before the fast). “Ramzan is when Lucknow and Chowk has the highest number of visitors. All the tables are occupied through the evening and nights,” says Bilal, adding that the next generation will continue to serve the food the way it has been served for almost a hundred years.

This article appeared in the print edition with the headline ‘A Plate of Sunshine’

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Eye / by Asad Rehman / October 13th,2019

Maratha blood and Persian veins

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Karnataka (under research project), Leaders, Travel & Tourism, World Opinion, , , , ,

KARNATAKA :

A detail of the ‘House of Bijapur’ genealogical painting depicting most of the rulers of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
A detail of the ‘House of Bijapur’ genealogical painting depicting most of the rulers of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
  • Although the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur was formally Muslim, it was influenced by multiple religions and different identities
  • Such complicated realities were not unusual in the subcontinent, from Vijayanagar in the south to further north in Kashmir

In 1680, a few years before emperor Aurangzeb swallowed up the sultanate of Bijapur, two court artists in that city produced a striking genealogical painting. Rich in quality, with ink, watercolours, as well as gold and silver generously employed, the picture shows all the rulers of the doomed Adil Shahi dynasty, save for one who was blinded and discarded for not being up to the mark.

In the centre, on the throne, for instance, sits Yusuf, the man who sailed from Persia and founded the house with his Maratha wife in the 15th century: In a mark of the kingdom’s allegiance to the Shah of Iran (as opposed to the Mughals), Yusuf is shown receiving a key of sovereignty from the Iranian emperor. Then there is Ali, who appears in armour—a symbol of the role he played in the defeat of Vijayanagar in 1565—just as there is the boy-king Sikander, the smallest figure in the group, who would spend much of his life as Aurangzeb’s dethroned prisoner.

Created on the eve of the kingdom’s demise, the painting is at once a family tree but also, as one scholar puts it, a “painted curtain call” for the extraordinary Adil Shahi dynasty.

But the portrait is significant also in another way, in that it depicts the contrasts that can develop in the same ruling house and in interpretations of its official ideology. The Adil Shahi state was formally Muslim. From the start, however, it was influenced not only by multiple religions but also by different identities. So, for instance, Ismail (reign 1510-34) chose to highlight the family’s Persian heritage—he made his troops wear Iranian uniforms and himself adopted the 12-pointed cap, a reference, as the scholar Deborah Hutton notes, to the 12 imams of Shia Muslims.

Ibrahim II (reign 1580-1627), on the other hand, was Sunni and is depicted in a style associated with the Indian faction at court, a reflection of his own attitudes. He was, for example, not only a lover of Marathi (much to the horror of a Mughal envoy, who found Ibrahim’s Persian weak) but also a great admirer of Hindu traditions. It was he who proclaimed himself son of Saraswati and Ganapati, studied Sanskrit, and went to the extent of renaming Bijapur “Vidyapur” to honour his favourite goddess.

Only two generations divided the orthodox Shia Ismail from Sunni Ibrahim (who was rumoured to be secretly Hindu) but there was a world of difference in their outlook.

The Adil Shahs certainly presented themselves as good Muslim rulers—indeed, even Ibrahim’s grave carries an inscription denying rumours that he was an apostate, affirming that he was a true believer of the Prophet’s message. But as this column showed previously in the case of Hindu Vijayanagar, official identity and self-image did not preclude the absorption of multiple influences, or even contradictory practice. The Adil Shahs, even as Muslims, alternated between Sunnism and Shiism, and it was their latter identity that often supplied the Mughals an excuse to invade in the name of religion—this when even Aurangzeb, who led the final charge against the “heretics”, was himself the son of a Shia mother. Add to this a give and take of culture from not only the Marathas (including Shivaji’s father, who served the Adil Shahs) but also Ottomans, Europeans and African grandees at court, and Bijapur was confirmed as an eclectic, mixed universe—one where the king had a formal identity that he could interpret strictly or with deliberate laxity, depending both on his predilections and official necessities.

But in this the Adil Shahs were hardly unique. The rayas of Vijayanagar shaped their self-image in Sanskritic terms and declared themselves consciously Hindu. And yet, one of them sought a marriage alliance with Catholic Portugal; many of them used the title “sultan”; and their sartorial tastes and everyday lives were influenced visibly by Persian culture. A raya might keep the Quran in court so that his Muslim nobles could prostrate before it, even as he destroyed mosques in enemy territory—policy depended on the context in which the king found himself. Further north, in Kashmir too, as Richard Eaton shows in his India In The Persianate Age, we witness such ironies.

Sultan Sikander (reign 1389-1413), for instance, was a destroyer of Hindu shrines and burner of Sanskrit books. But his son Zain al-Abdin (reign 1420-70), officially as devout a Muslim as his father, implemented the opposite policy: Not only did he resume temple grants, but under him the court also witnessed an unprecedented production of Sanskrit literature, as well as translation of Hindu texts into Persian for the ruler’s edification.

The greatest controversy, of course, arises in understanding Tipu Sultan of Mysore. To some, he is a giver of grants to Hindu temples and a protector of his non-Muslim subjects. Others cite his cruel conquest of Malabar, where Hindus were forced to renounce their religion, their temples demolished. But, simply put, the question is not one of either/or: The same king could act in opposite ways in different settings.

In Malabar, its chiefs and people were “infidels”, but in his settled territories in Mysore, Tipu had no qualms employing “infidel” Brahmins (including the celebrated Purniah) as officials. One was a land of conquest, where destruction of significant shrines was, to him, legitimate, while forced conversions were a method of flaunting to the Islamic world his commitment to their faith; but in his home territory, he was king in a broader sense, accepting of the land’s realities as well as its people. A villain in one reading, he could be a hero in another, employing his religious identity in different degrees, determined largely by the contingencies of politics.

It was this complicated reality that the painters of that Adil Shahi family portrait inadvertently conveyed in their work: a house of Muslim kings with Maratha blood, who cheerfully switched sects as they desired, and whose dynastic roster included all types—those whose faith guided them to extremes, and others for whom religion was more a formality, engaging as they did with a land of diverse realities.

Medium Rare is a column on society, politics and history. Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne (2015) and Rebel Sultans (2018).

Twitter – @UnamPillai

source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> Explore> Medium Rare / by Manu S. Pillai / September 05th, 2019

The gustakh director

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NEW DELHI  :

The NCPA was keen to host it and Shapoorji Pallonji, the business conglomerate, keen to finance it. And both wanted a “big production”.

Priyanka Barve as Anarkali.
Priyanka Barve as Anarkali.

Mostly, perfection is elusive, unattainable. And yet, every society, every culture has something that is, simply, perfect.

Buildings, bridges, monuments, pieces of art, a song, a book, an athlete, a sportswoman or sportsman, a performance, an inning and, sometimes, a movie.

Based on Imtiaz Ali Taj’s 1922 play about the fictional love story of Salim and Anarkali, K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam — whose shooting first began in 1946, with Nargis as Anarkali and D.K. Sapru playing Salim, but released finally in 1960 with Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Prithviraj Kapoor — is one such piece of perfection.

Feroz Abbas Khan, the first artistic director of Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre and a veteran director with several plays to his credit, including Tumhari Amrita, admits as much. “Mughal-e-Azam, from the play to the script to the screenplay is a piece of literature. The script of Mughal-e-Azam is pitch perfect… It’s one film where everything is perfect. The acting, the screenplay, the dialogue, the music, the lyrics, the performances… And it has a dream cast — you can’t get a cast like that… Madhubala ko dekhiye, aur khatam uske pyaar mein… Mughal-e-Azam ek bahut badi cheez hai,” he says.

And yet, Khan dared to touch this piece of perfection, this sacrosanct icon.

In 2004, Khan was watching the colour version of Mughal-e-Azam when he had an audacious thought: It’s structured like a play and can be staged. But then there were other thoughts. “Sheesh Mahal kahan se aayega?”

It was something he wanted to do, but it didn’t seem possible. It needed a financier with deep pockets and deeper love for Mughal-e-Azam, a stage large enough, skilled production and lighting designers… And, yes, there was also a sense of what a gustakhi it would still be.

“You can do things which, agar nahin bhi theek hua toh log aapko muaf kar denge. Isme toh muafi ki koi gunjayesh hi nahin hai. Sazaye maut!” says Khan.

So for years, the idea of staging Mughal-e-Azam stayed in some corner of his head, circling around his restless to do a huge production, till a casual discussion at Mumbai’s NCPA sometime last year took him to Shapoorji Pallonji, the producers of the film who owned the rights.

The NCPA was keen to host it and Shapoorji Pallonji, the  business conglomerate, keen to finance it. And both wanted a “big production”.

The sense of what a gustakhi it was now became a motivator.

“Gustakhi nahin… bewakoofi. Dekhiye aisa hai, ke aapki jo imagination hai, uska size chota kyun hona chahiye? Usmein toh koi paise lagte nahin hain? You have to aspire to be the biggest, the best, and then, somewhere between reality and utopia, you may get to the point of possibility… For me, unless I feel that this is going to go to a point that it could be the biggest disaster, unless I feel that it is something that is really challenging me, toh maza nahin aata mujhe.”

The challenge was to recreate the magic of Madhubala-Dilip Kumar romance, the high drama of a kaneez challenging Akbar the Great in bhari sabha, to pull off in two-and-a-half months of rehearsals what K. Asif had taken 14 years to do.

How do you do that, even if you find the same white ostrich feather and can play the recording of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan sahab? And are lucky enough to find an art designer who can simulate the heady dazzle of Sheesh Mahal which, in the original, required the headlights of 500 trucks?

You don’t. Because you can’t.

Because of the limitations of stage and time, because it’s all live, and because you have neither Dilip Kumar nor Madhubala, you don’t go for drama.

So Khan did the next best thing. He took 38 kathak dancers, added live singing and turned the epic romance into a stunning, spectacular musical.

With 350 cast and crew, 550 dresses, The Great Mughal became The Grand Musical which has run to full houses for four seasons (about 57 shows) in Mumbai, and, since September 9, has had packed shows at the 2,000-seater Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

According to Wikipedia, the premiere of K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam was held at the 1,100-seater Maratha Mandir in Mumbai where the Sheesh Mahal, transported from the studio, was on display. Outside the hall stood a 40-foot cut-out of Prithviraj Kapoor, and the film’s reels arrived on an decorated elephant, accompanied by the sound of bugles and shehnais.

In Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Khan had to remake all his sets from scratch because the stage here is 60 feet, whereas NCPA’s was 36 feet.

And to make the experience palatable and comfortable for the audience, who would be paying anywhere between `500 to `10,000 for a ticket, he had to redo the carpeting, improve the air conditioning, paint the facade and get the loos fixed.

The response has been so overwhelming that Khan has had to extended the Delhi schedule, adding five more shows over three days.

Mughal-e-Azam, the two-hour-15-minute musical is an opulent, nostalgic dance-drama which is beautiful and mesmerising when it’s singing and dancing. Its spectacle is spectacular.

But in moments of intimacy, in scenes with dialogue, it irritates those who have watched Dilip Kumar and Prithviraj Kapoor go head-to-head, and that despite a Salim (played by Dhanveer Singh), whose dialogue delivery and body language are mostly impressive.

The play’s scale is both, its strength and weakness.

The stark sparseness of two characters talking on a huge stage, arriving immediately after sensational dances that rise to an impressive crescendo, needed more drama. But that’s missing.

The actors, though well-rehearsed and speaking in trained diction, often sign off on a lame note. The exits are limp, especially Akbar’s. Anarkali’s body-language and energy is often the opposite of what’s required. In Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya, there was no defiance in her body movements, and in a dramatic scene, Salim walked as if on a languid stroll in a park.

Admittedly, this is nitpicking. These are just tiny details. But these small, careless moments get magnified when all that is happening on a 60-foot stage is two characters talking, or an angry Salim walking, and yet his heel-toe movements say nothing.

As Khan himself says, “Ek second bhi hamare liye agar galat hoga, ek empty second can become a minute on stage.”

But, he adds, his musical play works well at both levels — spectacle, and when it’s sparse — and that’s why it is so successful.

Khan credits that to the dialogue which, he says, at once have scale and invoke personal intimacy. “Jab Jodha bolti hai ke, ‘Hamara Hindustan koi tumhara dil nahin ki laundi jiski mallika bane’, and Salim says, ‘Mera dil bhi aapka Hindustan nahin jispar aap hukumat karein…’ Yeh kya hai? Large and personal. It’s in the dialogue.”

But then adds, “See, I’m never going to be totally happy. Because I think there’s still room to do better. But I think, finally, a nice balance has come and the girls are absolutely brilliant.”

After the scene where he irritates with his listless walk, Salim faints and falls so perfectly that it gets a round of applause. And then another song-dance comes on, and the play rises. Till it dips, to rise again… So it goes, dipping and rising, leaving you at the end with admiration for Salim, Anarkali’s live singing, a smile for the chirpy Suraiya, but above all teary-eyed respect for the 38 kathak dancers who create moments so perfect and magical with their feet and ghungroos that Lachhu Maharaj would be proud.

Feroz Abbas Khan attends most rehearsals, often with his eyes closed. Listening and moving his arms around, like a music conductor. He’s simultaneously conducting and imagining the rest — music, lights, costumes, the backdrop, the screens, the impact and the applause.

During the shows he makes notes in his diary under each character’s name and after the curtain call these notes are handed over.

“Har ek character ke naam pe notes bane hote hain, aur hamein end pe woh notes milte hain, ki, okay, tum yahan kamzor the, tumhein ye better karna hai… Mujhe last mila tha ki main jhuk ke chal raha tha… energy kam lagi,” says Dhanveer Singh.

The Mughal-e-Azam script that Khan loves so much was also subjected to his directorial nitpicking.

Khan, who has worked on women empowerment in entertainment, and whose TV serial on DD, Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon, is one of the most watched TV shows in the world, refused to let his female characters be shown as less than his male characters, whatever the hierarchy, situation.

“In the film Saleem slaps Anarkali. Bahar usko jootiyan pehnati hai… I cannot, just cannot, I cannot do this… Mere liye yeh gawara nahin tha ke main aaj ke time mein yeh karoonga. After all, it is imagined history,” says Khan.

So he took these bits out and added an extra dollop of chutzpah and ambition to Anarkali.

Khan’s Anarkali owns her ambition with impressive spunk when she wears the crown and says, “Hindustan ki Mallika toh main hi banongi.”

“Jodha also gives it to Akbar, nor does Anarkali stop at it. When she says, ‘Shahenshah ki behisaab baksheshon ke badle mein, yeh kaneez Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar ko apna khoon maaf karti hai’, she doesn’t do it, pithy — Ki, ‘Maaf karti hoon’. Aise nahin. She’s (he gestures) “Jaa! Teri kya aukat hai. GO!”

“Ab dekhiye, yeh meri choice hai. Jo main kehta aa raha hoon, even for entertainment, you don’t necessarily have to do good, but you can do a little bit not bad. Maine jhapad nikal diya, toh play kuch kum hua kya?”

Priyanka Barve and Dhanveer Singh as Salim.
Priyanka Barve and Dhanveer Singh as Salim.

But before these girls, and boys, can flex and flaunt their characters’ chutzpah on stage, they had to undergo some mind games, or what Khan calls “exercises”, for him to gauge whether they can act, and if they can, then “kis gehrai tak”.

Khan, says Singh, is the kind of perfectionist who will not let his actors go to the next word till the previous one is to his satisfaction.

“Unko agar 100% chahiye, toh unko 100% hi chahiye. 99.9% bhi nahin chahiye.”

Khan is not short tempered, says Singh, “but everything about him is grand… unka gussa bhi, pyaar bhi, daant bhi”.

“Woh Mughal-e-Azam se itni mohabbat karte hain ki woh kehte hain, ‘Main kuch bhi bardasht kar sakta hoon, lekin Mughal-e-Azam itni bhi kutahi (negligence) nahin bardasht kar sakta’.”

This perfection ki khoj began early for Khan, and those he thought were not up to putting in the work, or would get distracted by the glamour were weeded out. Like a B-grade Hindi film star who was pretty, a decent dancer and a very decent singer, but had “started celebrating playing Anarkali without going through the process”.

Worse, she wanted to be treated like a star. “She was told in advance ki yahan, if I tell you to come at 8, and you come at 8.05, the gates are closed. You are standing out.”

The starlet was let go. She didn’t have it in her to become Feroz sahab’s Anarkali.

The ones who stayed had to go through the “exercises” for Khan to see if he could actually make them act.

Apart from the basic requirements of the play — that the girls had to be very good singers, very graceful — what was especially important to Khan was that they be sensitive enough to be prodded to become actors if they were not already. And many were not.

“They need to have the sensitivity for me to take them to those areas… they should be neither very cold nor very knotted, because then I won’t be able to access them,” says Khan.

Accessing, he says, is very important because “if you stop yourself from feeling, then how will you believe”.

“The most fundamental thing in acting is believing. When I look at an actor, I first understand the person, what’s gonna tick with him or her, and then trigger that. According to what the person is, I tailor my exercises…”

These exercises, which often push his actors to a point of breakdown, are necessary, he says, to also see if there is vulnerability.

“I don’t like sure-footed characters. Jab tak usmein vulnerability nahin hai, usmein aap ko dimension nahin milta hai. Jab woh bolta hai, ‘Taqdeerein badal jaati hai, zamana badal jaata hai, mulkon ki tarikh badal jaati hai, Shahenshah badal jaate hai… Magar mohabbat jis insaan ka daman thamti hai, woh insaan nahi badalta…’ Jab-tak usmein vulnerability nahin hogi, toh kahan se bolega?”

The applause will come, he says, because these dialogues were written for wah-wah and taaliyan, but without vulnerability in the character, “dialogue bus dialogue reh jayenge.”

After much insistence, Khan reluctantly relents and agrees to share one exercise.

“Bahut saari exercises hain, but I’ll just give you one example. It’s very interesting. This girl, Bahar, the second Bahar, I told her, tomorrow you come, I’m going to do some exercises with you… I had a girl with her. So you take her to a place, a room, where she has come to meet somebody. She meets somebody, and the guy says, I’m going to come back, I’ll leave you here. Then it’s dark… And then somebody comes and puts a cloth around her eyes and then on her mouth and now she is put around a chair and then… I’m giving her the suggestion that five men are now abusing her. One after the other, one after the other, one after the other… It’s all imagination. So I start saying that… they are abusing her, and abusing her… I keep seeing her, and putting up the temperature… to see how far, because some of them refuse to do anything. They think, it’s fun, nothing real. And some of them start believing, get affected immediately, so I know I need to stop there… This girl broke down very badly and for another hour
she just could not get over it. So I realised that she has that sensitivity.”

Zil-e-Elahi, as Khan’s actors refer to him behind his back, narrated two more exercises which were, thankfully, slightly less scary.

Boys get different types of exercises because “Ladkon ki sensitivity bahut kum hoti hai. Ladkon ko zayada waqt lagta hai. Unko bahut mujhe le jana padta hai, but le jata hoon unko bhi main.”

All this because, Khan believes, “agar aap nahin jalenge, toh audience kaise jalegi, zara mujhe bataiye…”

“Jab tak tum khud ko Salim nahin samjhoge, tum kuch kar nahin paoge. Jab tak tum us mohabbat mein nahin jaloge, toh dekhne waale nahin jalenge. Feroz Sir ki is line ne mujhe bahut help ki. Woh paseena jab tak mein apne hathon mein, body mein jalan mehsoos nahin karta hoon toh us din mujhe lagta hai ki maine achcha nahin kiya,” says Singh.

“Main sab ko ye kehta hoon. It’s a simple line… It goes to the heart of the problem. Like, for example, I also tell them, aap ko karna kya hai, aap soch leejiye — you want to impress or you want to actually express…”

Most of Feroz Abbas Khan’s actors picked one. The gustakh director decided that he would do both.

Mughal-e-Azam
Director: Feroz Abbas Khan
Presenters: NCPA, Shapoorji Pallonji
Cast: Nissar Khan (Akbar), Dhanveer Singh (Salim), Priyanka Barve and Neha Sargam (Anarkali), Ashima Mahajan (Bahar), Sonal Jha (Jodha)
Costumes: Manish Malhotra
Production Design: Neil Patel
Projection design: John Narun
Lighting design: David Lander
Choreography: Mayuri Upadhya
Music: Piyush Kanojia

Shows at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Sept. 22, 23, 24, at 3 pm and 7 pm (except on Friday)

source: http://www.asianage.com / The Asian Age / Home> Life> Art / by Suparna Sharma / September 22nd, 2017

Now, learn about Hyderabad’s Hayat Bakshi Begum through virtual reality experience

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, Travel & Tourism, Videos, World Opinion

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

The HDW, which has been organized by the Telangana government in partnership with India Design Forum (IDF) and the World Design Organisation (WDO), is being held parallelly with the World Design Assembly
The HDW, which has been organized by the Telangana government in partnership with India Design Forum (IDF) and the World Design Organisation (WDO), is being held parallelly with the World Design Assembly
  • A trailer titled, ‘Ma Saheba – The queen of Hyderabad’, explores 360-degree VR animation as the latest technology of film
  • The technology enables the viewer to visit the Qutb Shahi tombs (necropolis) from the comfort of their own location, interacting with the landscape as if almost they were physically present there

Hyderabad:

A team from the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad’s (IIT-H) department of design has created a Virtual Reality (VR) experience for an oral historical narrative of Begum Hayat Bakshi, one of the most influential historical figures of the Qutb Shahi dynasty (1518-1687), which founded Hyderabad (in 1591).

The story of Hayat Bakshi Begum is considered to be of women empowerment, given that she lived through the rule of three kings of the Qutb Shahi dynasty. A trailer titled, ‘Ma Saheba – The queen of Hyderabad’, explores 360-degree VR animation as the latest technology of film. Begum was the daughter of Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah (1580-1611), the founder of Hyderabad.

She was married to Mohammed Qutb Shah (1612-26), the nephew of (and king after) Mohammed Quli Shah. After the death of her husband, though her son Abdullah Qutb Shah (1626-71) became king, Hayat Bakshi Begum had a considerable influence over the affairs of the Golconda (or Qutb Shahi) kingdom, which was founded in 1518. The VR oral history narrative will be available for the public on 11 and 12 October in Hyderabad, as part of the ongoing (9 to 13 October) Hyderabad Design week (HDW).

The HDW, which has been organized by the Telangana government in partnership with India Design Forum (IDF) and the World Design Organisation (WDO), is being held parallelly with the World Design Assembly, which will be held in Hyderabad on 11 and 12 October.

“Using the premier technology in immersion, IIT-H developed a virtual exploratory landscape which lets the user experience the historical monuments (tombs, where the founders of Hyderabad and others from the kingdom are buried) of Qutb Shahi like never before. The use of virtual reality-based technology to preserve and explore history is a method that provides results with almost lifelike experiences,” said a press release from IIT-H on Wednesday.

Speaking about the initiative, Prof. Deepak John Mathew, head, department of design, IIT-H said, “This project is initiated with the support of the Design Innovation Centre at IIT Hyderabad. The objective is to create a Visual Model of the monuments in India. This is the first attempt in this series. This will be exhibited at the airport as well as HICC during the WDO Conference. This is a fusion of art and technology.”

The technology enables the viewer to visit the Qutb Shahi tombs (necropolis) from the comfort of their own location, interacting with the landscape as if almost they were physically present there. The installation aims at raising awareness about the intricate history of Hyderabad. The IIT-H’s department of design undertook a high-resolution scan of the tomb complex for the project.

source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> Explore / by Yunus Y. Lasania / October 09th, 2019

Syed Mohammad ‘Rainbow’ Hadi: First man to score a Ranji Trophy hundred

Amazing Feats, Education, Leaders, Sports, World Opinion, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

Syed Mohammad Hadi was nicknamed Rainbow for his prowess in cricket, tennis, field hockey, football, table-tennis, chess, and polo.

Syed Mohammad Hadi scored 132 not out in his team’s score of 227, becoming the first ever centurion in Ranji Trophy cricket. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.
Syed Mohammad Hadi scored 132 not out in his team’s score of 227, becoming the first ever centurion in Ranji Trophy cricket. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.

One of the main issues under discussion during the July 1934 meeting of BCCI, held in Bombay, was a detailed discussion regarding the introduction of a nation-wide First-Class cricket competition, where teams representing the different local cricket associations of the nation would participate to ultimately determine the national champion. It was founded as “The Cricket Championship of India”. The tournament kicked off in 1934-35. The handsome trophy was donated by His Highness Sir Bhupinder Singh, Maharaja of Patiala, in memory of Ranji to cricket lovers all over the world.

As all students of Indian First-Class cricket history are aware, the very first Ranji Trophy match of all, between Madras and Mysore at Madras on November 4, 1934 turned out to be a bit of a letdown, the whole match being completed in one day. It remains the first of only 2 First-Class matches played in India to be completed in a day till date (the second being Saurashtra vs Baroda at Rajkot on December 5, 1959).

This match will forever be remembered for the wonderful bowling performance that resulted in a match of such short duration, 6 for 19 (out of total of 48) and 5 for 16 (out of 59) by the doyen of Madras cricket at the time, the great left-handed all-rounder, AG Ram Singh, patriarch of the first family of contemporary Madras cricket.

Perhaps a little overshadowed by AG Ram Singh was a right arm medium-pace and off-break bowler from the Mysore team, appropriately named Mysore Vijayasarathi, who picked up 6 for 23 in the only Madras innings of 130. Vijayasarathi would later cause a flutter among lovers of cricket trivia by umpiring a Ranji Trophy match between Mysore and Andhra in Dec/1960 at Bangalore along with his son, MV Nagendra.

The sad but undeniable fact was that there were no outstanding batting performances in the first two Ranji Trophy matches played.

The third Ranji Trophy match of the inaugural season began on the Friday, November 23, at Secunderabad. Hosts Hyderabad, led by Syed Mohamad Hussain, were taking on the Madras team, led by M Venkataramanjulu.

The hosts won the toss and decided to take strike. They reached a competitive score of 256 in their 1st innings, captain SM Hussain top-scoring with 80 and F Toorkey, opening the innings, making 72 runs. As if it were pre-ordained, Ram Singh captured 5 for 88. The Madras 1st innings finished at 301, with only Ram Singh (74) and Cotar Ramaswami (61) reaching double figures.

The Hyderabad 2nd innings was in disarray when the 3rd wicket fell at the team score of 12. Syed Mohammad Hadi then arrived at the crease to take strike. He scored 132 not out in his team’s score of 227, becoming the first ever centurion in Ranji Trophy cricket. This match was his Ranji Trophy debut match as well, and this century his maiden First-Class century.

In a surprising turn of events, the visitors were dismissed for 169 in their 2nd innings. That man Ram Singh (70) scored another half-century and MJ Gopalan made 58. The man who wrecked the Madras 2nd innings was one Tata Rao (8 for 73), and Hyderabad won by 13 runs.

Born August 12, 1899 in India, Hadi was a right-hand batsman who has no record of ever bowling in this format of cricket. In a span of 1930-31 to 1940-41, SM Hadi played 24 First-Class matches aggregating 1,043 runs with a highest of 132 not out (as mentioned above) and an average of 32.59. He was to later score another century and 3 fifties, and to take 9 catches.

Hadi’s profile informs us that his father Captain Syed Mohammed, erstwhile officer in army of Hyderabad state, had passed away when Hadi was just about two years of age. Hadi’s subsequent upbringing was through the support and supervision of the family of Sir Asman Jah, former Prime Minister in the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad.

He was brought up alongside the son of Sir Jah, Nawab Moin-ud-Dowlah, after whom the famous cricket tournament was to be named and who would become a famous patron of the sports of the region. Hadi had the opportunity of learning horse riding as a youngster and was sufficiently good at soccer to play for Nizam College. In view of the boy’s obvious aptitude for a number of sports, the family of Sir Jah decided to send him over to England to continue his studies.

In the newsletter VARSITY, dated June 12, 2016 from Cambridge is an article by Matt Worth, in which he comments, “The wardrobe in his room at Peterhouse must have been bursting with light blue jackets, as he shone at polo, tennis, soccer, field hockey, cricket and table tennis. A particularly fine tennis player, it is at the racket game that his sporting career perhaps hit its greatest heights, as he played at Wimbledon five times, reaching the doubles quarter final in 1926. He also represented India at the 1924 summer Olympics and in the Davis Cups of 1925 and 1926. The run of representative appearances for his country must have more than made up for his frustration at being denied the Light Blues’ tennis captaincy on account of his nationality.” He had an MA from Cambridge and a Masters from the University of Pennsylvania.

Hadi made his First-Class debut for Hyderabad against Maharaj Kumar of Vizianagram’s XI in the Moin-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup semi-final of 1930-31, played at Secunderabad in 1930-31, under the leadership of wicketkeeper SM Hussain, who was also keeping wickets.

He was well past the age of 30 at that time, and scored 17 and 42 not out against a team captained by Jack Hobbs, and for whom Herbert Sutcliffe scored 165 in the side’s only innings of 329. Hyderabad managed totals of 265 and 194 in a drawn match that was awarded to the visiting team on the basis of their 1st-innings lead.

It may be mentioned here that Hyderabad batted against the bowling of the brothers CK and Cs Nayudu and Ghulam Mohammad, among others. An interesting sidelight of this match was the fact that while Naoomal Jaoomal kept wickets in the home team’s first innings, he not only bowled but took 2 for 7 from his 3 overs while one P Shankerdas, who was not in the playing eleven for the visiting team, was allowed to keep wickets as a substitute.

In the Ranji Trophy clash with Madras at Chepauk in December 1935, Hadi, captaining the Hyderabad team, scored 85 and 0 in a match that Madras won by 6 wickets, Ram Singh being the undisputed hero of the match, scoring 121 and 57, both not out, and taking 2 for 77 and 6 for 32.

It was at Chepauk in February 1936 that India took on an Australian team in an “unofficial Test”. The home team was led by Wazir Ali and included luminaries like Kartick Bose, Mushtaq Ali, Lala Amarnath, Amar Singh, Ram Singh, Hadi and Mohammad Nissar. The Australian team was led by the ageing Jack Ryder and included, among others, ‘Stork’ Hendry, ‘Hammy’ Love (though he did not keep wickets in this match), and the one and only ‘Governor-General’ — Charlie Macartney.

India batted first and put up 189, thanks to 45 by Amar Singh and 43 by Mushtaq Ali. Macartney took 3 for 52. The Australian 1st innings ended at 162, with a good 48 from Fred Mair. Nissar (5 for 61) and Amar Singh (5 for 54) shared the wickets.

India managed only 113 in their 2nd knock, the top-scorer being Hadi with 19 not out (he had also made 19 not out in the 1st innings). Once again, it was Macartney among the wickets with 6 for 41.

The Australian 2nd innings was an even feebler effort — 107, with the only worthwhile score being 41 by captain Jack Ryder. Nissar (6 for 36) and Amar Singh (2 for 54) ensured an Indian victory by 33 runs. It must be said, however, that for the visitors, Hendry, Ryder, Love, wicketkeeper John Ellis, Macartney, Joe Davis, and Harry Alexander were past their prime and playing their last First-Class match. For the home team, Wazir Ali completed 1,000 First-Class runs for the season, and Hadi completed 500 career First-Class runs.

It was against the old foes, Madras again, that Hadi scored his other First-Class century, in the Ranji Trophy match at Secunderabad in December 1939, with a score of 106 (his 100 coming in 120 minutes) in a total of 443. Hyderabad batted only once in a match and won by an innings and 2 runs. Ram Singh, however, had still not finished with them, capturing 5 for 136 and scoring a solid 44 in the Madras 1st innings of 262. When he had scored 81, in this match, Hadi completed 1,000 First-Class runs.

His final First-Class match, again against Madras, was at Chepauk in December 1940. As captain of Hyderabad, his contributions were 2 (out of 98) and 16 (out of 132). Ram Singh, perennial nemesis of the team, turned in another stellar performance with 27 and 53, and picked up 6 for 30 and 4 for 26, as Madras won by 254 runs.

Retirement from his active playing days did not diminish his interest in sports. Along with his step-brother, Col. Ali Raza and with Nawab Mahmood Yar Jung, SA Rahim and Ahmed Mohiuddin, Hadi founded the Hyderabad Cricket Association and Hyderabad Football Association in 1934, with himself as the first Secretary.

He became the Director of Physical Education in Hyderabad and later, Joint Secretary of Education of the Indian Government. He was National Commissioner of Boy Scouts of India and, when the All-India National Council of Sports was founded in 1959, he was the first Secretary. The runners-up trophy of the Mon-ud-Dowlah Gold Cup tournament is now called the SM Hadi Memorial Trophy.

This multidisciplinary sportsman died in his native Hyderabad on July 14, 1971 of lung cancer. For his extraordinary skill at the seven sports of cricket, tennis, field hockey, football, table-tennis, chess, and polo, SM Hadi is fondly remembered by all Indian lovers of sport as ‘Rainbow’ Hadi.

(Pradip  Dhole  is a retired medical doctor with a life-long interest in cricket history and statistics)

source: http://www.cricketcountry.com / Cricket Country / Home> English> Features> Moments in History / by Pradip Dhole / June 16th, 2016

Unique initiative of Siasat: Old Age Home inaugurated by Prince Muffakham Jah

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Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

OldAgeHome-18

Hyderabad:

Education is very essential. There can’t be anything more pleasant than the restoration of high standard of Madarasa-e-Aliya. This was stated by Prince Muffakham Jah while addressing the inaugural function of Old Age Home, “Sukoon” yesterday which was established by Siasat Urdu Daily at Vikarabad.

Prince Muffakham Jah further told that if any steps are taken for the restoration of old standard Madrasa-e-Aliya, he is ready to provide all kind of assistance.

It may be mentioned that in his welcome address, Mr. Zahid Ali Khan had recalled the good olden days spent as a students by him and Prince Muffakham Jah at Madrasa-e-Aliya.

Mr. Zahid Ali Khan mentioned that he could find no other person suitable for the inauguration of Old Age Home than Prince Muffakham Jah. He also recalled the long association of his family with the Asif Jahi rulers and said that the contribution they made for the development of Hyderabad City cannot be undermined.

Citing the modesty and humility of Prince Muffakham Jah, Mr. Zahid Ali Khan told that quite often, prince says that Hyderabad is not identified by its Biryani and Sherwani but it is known for the humility and nobility of the Hyderabadis. He further said that he salutes this passion of humility of Prince Muffakham Jah.

He told that he and Prince Muffakham Jah are the products of Madrasa-e-Aliya.

Present on this occasion were Dr. Shahid Ali Khan, Mr. Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Managing Editor of Siasat Urdu Daily, Mr. Amer Ali Khan, News Editor of Siasat Urdu Daily, Mr. Mohammed Jalaluddin Akbar, IFoS, Mr. Khudadad Khan, Mr. Syed Abdul Wahab Qadri, Mr. Aizazur Rehman Khan, Vice Chairman of Shadan Group of Institutions, Mr. Ali Masqati, Mr. Iftekhar Husain, Mr. Sarib Rasool Khan and others.

Addressing the gathering on this occasion, Mr. Zaheeruddin Ali Khan told that taking advantage of the presence of Prince Muffakham Jah in Hyderabad City, the inauguration of Old Age Home has been organized.

He further told that the Old Age Home provides accommodation for 100 persons. He mentioned that basic amenities and medical facilities will be ensured for the inmates of Old Age Home.

The audience congratulated Siasat Urdu Daily and said that the need for such a modern and well-furnished Old Age Home was deeply felt.

source: Siasat News

source: http://www.archive.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Hyderabad> Top Stories / by Sameer / April 08th, 2019

COVER STORY : Travelling in tandem

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Karnataka (under research project), Leaders, Travel & Tourism, World Opinion, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

Anjum is a self-confessed foodie, and loves cooking. In fact, she recalls, it was this love and talent that led to her meeting Omer at the restaurant: “I used to bake a lot, and market my cakes and pastries to earn my pocket money, to spend on music and clothes”

He is a descendant of the royal families of Bhopal, Pataudi and the Paigahs of Hyderabad, she is the sister of the tycoons who run one of Bengaluru’s biggest realty companies. They have now joined hands to raise the level of living in the Prestige Group’s apartments and resorts-she designs and executes the interiors, while he has set up and runs the group’s hospitality vertical

Prestige01MPOs07oct2019

Nawabzada Omer Bin Jung and Anjum Razack met on a blind date. Well, not exactly a blind date, they say: “Actually, we were set up!” says Anjum, and Omer agrees. “But she picked me up!” he adds, with a twinkle in his eye. He is being literal: “I had no car, and used to roam around in buses and auto-rickshaws when I was working with Wipro.” So this young woman whom he had never met came to his office and gave him a lift.

Recalling the incidents of more than a decade ago, husband and wife keep bickering good-naturedly and correcting each other over details. The story that emerges is that a friend of Anjum’s said she wanted to meet her-at Casa Piccola, a restaurant to which Anjum used to supply cakes she baked. “And will you please pick up this guy Omer on the way? I want to meet him too,” she said. So an unsuspecting Anjum drove an equally unsuspecting Omer to the restaurant, where they sat and waited for the friend. When some time passed and she didn’t appear, they realised what had happened.

Was it love at first sight? “I don’t know if it was love, but I knew immediately that this was the guy I was going to marry!” she says. “My mother had always told me: ‘You should know what kind of boy you should bring home to meet me!’-and that afternoon I told her I had met the right man.”

Omer, for his part, “Enjoyed being the hunted, for a change”. They didn’t meet, or talk, for a month; but one day-just before Valentine’s Day, Anjum remembers-she and her friend were driving somewhere, when they spotted Omer walking. “We stopped, said ‘Hi!’ and gave him a lift.”

Things didn’t take very long after that. “My family doesn’t have the time for trivia!” Anjum explains. “I told my mother as soon as I got home that I had met the boy I was going to marry. I mean, we were two eligible young people in the same town. He was not of our caste of traditional business people, which was actually a plus point in his favour! Our families met, and I went through the various shredders his family put me through, then picked up the pieces-and we got engaged, then married in the next eight months.”

“We were two eligible young people in the same town. He was not of our caste of traditional business people, which was actually a plus point in his favour! Our families met, and I went through the various shredders his family put me through, then picked up the pieces−and we got engaged, then married in the next eight months.” − Anjum

Prestige02MPOs07oct2019

A few months before the marriage, they went to see Omer’s grandmother: “That was the first time I took a break from work,” she says. “Morph was still a one-person company, with only a set of carpenters to supervise. When we came back, I was broke, and went straight back to work. Side by side, I set up home and pottered around there, too.”

Anjum, the sister of the Razack brothers who run Bengaluru-based construction major Prestige group, is an entrepreneur in her own right: she set up Morph Design Company (MDC), which she runs as its Managing Director. Omer, who heads Prestige’s recent diversification into the hospitality business, comes from a long line of rulers-from the Paigahs of Hyderabad on his father’s side to a royal pedigree on his mother’s. “I have an interesting and diverse lineage. My maternal grandmother was the ruler of Bhopal with its matriarchal system. She married the Nawab of Pataudi, which was a much smaller kingdom, but both became our family’s houses. My father’s people were Prime Ministers to the Nizam of Hyderabad.” The Paigahs are a family of the senior aristocracy of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, with each of them maintaining his own court, individual palaces and a standing army of 3,000 or 4,000 soldiers.

Anjum, on the other hand, was what she calls ‘a one-woman army’ in a male-dominated business when she joined her brothers in 1993 and set up MDC. That ‘one-woman army’ has grown in 23 years to a Rs. 200-crore, 30-member team; but she continues to work hands-on with every project. “They are a bunch of kids-we are a young, growing office,” she says. “Besides, I love what I do-and I always put in 100 per cent into any assignment, because you always get only what you put in. I am also an obsessive perfectionist and would never deliver to a client what I wouldn’t live in myself.”

She had found, when she finished school, that she was in a ‘strange situation’ with not too many career options for a girl of her background-a Kutchi Memon in a typical business family, but one whose father had believed in education for his daughter as well as his three sons. “My parents have always been very aspirational for all their four children,” she explains. “We were all given education, encouraged to travel and grow-all against the norm in our community.” So after her B Com, she did a course in interiors with paint manufacturer Jenson & Nicholson. She then got a job with an interior designer in the early 1990s before joining the family business. “I jumped into the ocean headlong, without even knowing how to swim!” she says. “It was only the challenge that kept me

Prestige03MPOs07oct2019

MDC, which she established soon after that plunge, not only creates all the interiors in the Prestige Group’s developments, but also offers consultation, comprehensive planning and end-to-end design solutions for a range of other select clients for both their existing structures and new projects. She is also rightfully proud of the fact that her brothers Irfan Razack, Chairman and Managing Director of the Rs. 4,700-crore Prestige Group, and Rezwan Razack, who is Joint MD, never gave her any special privileges in business. “Even though we are a very close-knit family,” she says. “Morph is my very own, Prestige is my client. I charge design and project management fees, and for the furniture and other material I supply from either my own manufacturing units or those from whom I source them.” She does, however, describe working with family as putting her ‘between a rock and a hard place’ very often.

“My big idea was to reach out to the discerning interior design market, be it luxury or aspirational, and provide my clients with a lifestyle that they would enjoy,” is how Anjum how explains the way she approaches her work. “I wanted to introduce discerning customers to living spaces that represent and reflect their individual taste and stay relevant through changing times.” Designing an interior space, she points out, presupposes that “A design metaphor will reveal itself in every object, colour, finish and patina”. Obviously, when the idea finds expression and rhythm in such detail, the natural outcome would be a space made distinctive by its very uniqueness. “That,” she adds, “is why I do not just stop at designing the experience of an interior space, but also construct or create most of the objects that shape the design.”

“I went to boarding school at Sanawar, then Hindu College in Delhi and the London School of Economics. When I came back to India, I decided to move to Bengaluru instead of Hyderabad−it was a new city as compared to Hyderabad, and I could do anything here with its own level of decadence! Besides, my elder brother was here too” − Omer

“Good taste in interiors has come of age. The challenge lies in the fact that often, the notion of interior design stops at the placement of attractive objects in a well-designed room. While that is a mandate we can serve with ease, we challenge ourselves to give our customers much more. This we do by shaping their experience of interior space, through manipulation of spatial volume, as well as surface treatment. So, while apartments today are predicated on the optimal use of space and uniformity, our challenge is to create a unique interior space in a structurally similar landscape,” she says.

“We have also integrated backward to create a super-large vertical, with project management, sourcing and a trading company-and now even furniture manufacturing. We create 90 per cent of all the furniture that is provided in any Prestige construction.”

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From its beginnings as an in-house interior design subdivision, Morph has morphed into a fully integrated interior design firm that executes and handles projects for external clientele, too. It provides a one-point solution from design, creating a portfolio of work across apartments, villas, clubhouses, spas, resorts and hotels. Hotels, resorts or serviced apartments. “All of these need to be addressed very differently from one another,” Anjum explains. Along the way, the company has worked with globally renowned architecture firms like Dileonardo, Woods Bagot, HBA, MAP and SRSS, and executed projects as large as 2.5 million sq ft (nearly a quarter million sq m). “We have also won a lot of awards, in different areas of our work. My brothers look at me differently now!” she adds.

Describing herself as an entrepreneur at heart, not satisfied with interior design alone, Anjum says this is why she vertically integrated the manufacturing process by setting up state-of-the-art in-house factories over two decades ago, to cater to the different design sensibilities of customers, from traditional, classic to the more contemporary, experimental and eclectic. “Our products are also designed to give our clients great value for money across the entire product spectrum,” she adds.

“From a process perspective, everything from concept, drawings, prototyping, to the final production of each and every piece of furniture that we use in our projects is backward integrated,” she explains. “Our external dependence is minimal and allows us to achieve unmatched quality giving us the ability to create truly bespoke interiors, where each detail is created by us. Having control over customisation and production, we ensure that our design process is a constantly evolving and dynamic one”

“The journey has been tough-but a good tough!” Anjum smiles. “The biggest chip on my shoulder is that I didn’t go to design school. But I love working, and I have been loyal to my work.” She did, however, take a course in designing at Cornell University. “I firmly believe that you must always start from the back operations to be strong. There was a sad lack of originality and quality in the market-that’s why I started my furniture business with visits to China, Italy, Germany, Austria and Burma, getting the best rates at which I could import what I needed for each project.”

With this bottom-up organisational design approach, Anjum has been responsible for business development, strategic planning, diversification, and project management along with all other key executive functions. Her work is inspired by a diverse set of influences, both traditional and contemporary, and she references the Deco and Nouveau period styles as being particularly impactful. Firmly believing in the importance of constant evolution for prolonged success, she doesn’t hesitate to incorporate innovative materials into her projects, work with young artists and experiment with all aspects of execution.

“Some things are non-negotiable! For instance, no phones are allowed at meal time. The kids get a platform to talk to each other and us, about things that would otherwise get buried in their busy lives. There are some ground rules, and they stick to them” – Omer

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“My two new factories involve a huge investment, which means I will probably be able to break even only two or three years,” says the businesswoman, now 49. “The state-of-the-art factories have been conceived with a lot of mechanisation-manufacturing wooden joineries, handcrafted furniture, modular furniture, wardrobes, windows and kitchen assemblies. MDC also has a unit which specialises in developing soft furnishings.” Today, Anjum can proudly claim that she has nurtured MDC into one of the country’s most respected décor studios with globally recognised clientele and numerous national and international awards to its credit.

Talking of challenges, Anjum says the biggest one has always been the debate between functionality and design and how to marry them: “The aspirational customers have a relatively limited budget and want products that are aesthetically pleasing, have longevity and are easy to maintain. We have strived to address the needs of this particular segment and are happy to say that we have managed to achieve it to a very large extent.”

The other challenge, she says, is to provide aesthetic designs to any area. “Everyone deserves appealing spaces, regardless of its size,” she says. “We, at Morph Design Company, excel in providing just that.” Pointing out that the business also involves effectively executing two opposing areas of demand: the high-volume kitchen and wardrobe assemblies on one side, and the need for personalised and exclusive products that cater to the individual versus the mainstream on the other, she credits the nature of these challenges is what keeps her and her team striving for excellence.

Anjum is a self-confessed foodie, and loves cooking. In fact, it was this love and talent that led to her meeting Omer at the restaurant: “I used to bake a lot, and market my cakes and pastries to earn my pocket money, to spend on music and clothes,” she says. “Casa Piccola was one of my biggest customers. And so, when my friend Goga suggested meeting her there, I didn’t think it was at all strange.”

She also reads voraciously and loves to travel-collecting art and antiques from the places she visits. Her husband shares her interests-and so they pack their bags and heads off to different locales in India and abroad. The couple began with a two-week honeymoon in Africa; and because he loves surprising her, he recently took her on a road trip from Budapest to Prague via Vienna-“He made me drive!” she mock-complains- so that he could treat her to a four-hour meal at a three-star Michelin restaurant on the way.

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Nawabzada Omer Bin Jung, formally designated Executive Director, Hospitality-Prestige Group, is also the Founding Managing Director of Prestige Leisure Resorts (P) Ltd. With three decades of experience in hospitality, he is currently spearheading the Group’s foray into hospitality. “I went to boarding school at Sanawar, then Hindu College in Delhi (where he was a gold medallist in his BA, Anjum intercedes) and the London School of Economics,” he says. “When I came back to India, I decided to move to Bengaluru instead of Hyderabad-it was a new city as compared to Hyderabad, and I could do anything here with its own level of decadence! Besides, my elder brother was here too.”

After a couple of years in the finance department of Wipro, he joined his brother who has a resort in Bandipur. “Actually, it was a just a Club House; now it has been converted into the Northwest County resort,” he explains. In 1997, three years after he married Anjum, he floated the idea of helping his brothers-in-law take their construction business into resorts. “There has been no looking back since then,” he says. “We also have food courts in malls, we run franchises for Subway, Falafel and others… it’s a good mix.”

Adds his Begum: “It wasn’t an asset class at all – it was Omer’s brainchild.” He explains that because the business was totally in real estate, it had no assets on its balance sheet because all its projects were sold. “Assets are always good to have,” he says. “That’s where the discussion started. And we began to become more asset heavy.”

And so, having established Prestige Leisure Resorts, Omer now aims to set up international spas, city hotels, resorts and food courts all over India in the coming years. He is amply qualified: besides his gold-medal BA and his post-graduate Diploma in Business Studies from LSE, he also has a post-graduate Master’s Degree in Business Administration with a specialisation in Marketing, as well as a Certification in Strategic Management by Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, US.

“To excel in any field, one needs to be a team player. Managing people and ensuring employee and customer satisfaction is an integral part of being a success. We are a service-oriented industry and it is our team’s talent that decides the success of our work” – Anjum

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At Prestige, Omer has been instrumental in conceptualising and tying up with Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Singapore, for one of Bengaluru’s most beautiful spa resorts the world-class Angsana Oasis Spa & Resort; the Angsana Oasis City Spas at UB City; Hilton International for the Conrad, Bengaluru; Oakwood Asia Pacific for the Oakwood Premier Serviced Residences at UB City and the Oakwood Residences-Forum Value Mall, Whitefield as well as the 3.4-hectare Sheraton Grand Whitefield Hotel and Convention Center in the group’s Shantiniketan project; the JW Marriott Hotel in Prestige Golfshire below the Nandi Hills and the 23-storey Conrad Hotel overlooking the Ulsoor Lake. He is also the brain behind the Transit food lounge at The Forum, Koramangala.

“We have introduced some of the most reputed international brands in the world to South India, such as the Hilton Group and Marriott International for hotels; the Banyan Tree for resorts: our Angsana Oasis Spa & Resort is managed by Banyan Tree Hotel & Resorts, Singapore. We also have the Oakwood Premier Prestige Serviced Residences in our landmark development, UB City, as well as in Whitefield,” he points out. We launched our hotel, ‘The Aloft’, in Prestige Cessna Business Park in 2014 in association with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.”

Anjum also shares some of the secrets for her success: “To excel in any field, one needs to be a team player. Managing people and ensuring employee and customer satisfaction is an integral part of being a success. We are a service-oriented industry and it is our team’s talent that decides the success of our work. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that your team is motivated and happy. Finally, it is crucial to have in depth knowledge of both the industry and the products, which is only possible if you have a genuine passion for your work, as only then will you constantly strive towards perfecting your art.” Apart from this, it is paramount to believe in yourself, your abilities and objectives and have the right conviction. Life is full of complexities. Keeping things simple and using a straightforward approach helps unravel intricacies.

Her role models are her father Razack Sattar, an enterprising entrepreneur who started Prestige Fashions way back in 1956; and after his passing, her three elder brothers Irfan, Rezwan and Noaman have been her mentors, propelling her to success. “They have inspired me to keep pushing myself to achieve greater heights and are a source of constant motivation for me,” she explains. She too wants to carry on this culture of helping others: “I want to create a platform for young interior, product and furniture designers whom I will launch and mentor, to help hone their skills and realise their dreams,” she concludes.

The Jungs’ daughter Zara was born in 1999, and their son Ayaan five years later. “Kids never worried me, I enjoy them at all ages,” Omer says. And Anjum gives him ‘100 per cent for being an outstanding father’, saying: “He handles the children so well. Till date, he puts Ayaan to bed every night. He also takes his just-into-his-teens son on a fishing and hunting trip for two weeks every year.”

How did they manage everything: work, which is often 24×7, parenting- which is 24×7-and getting away for holidays? “We have a very good support system in the family,” Anjum says. “My mother has always been a big help, even though she was looking after my father who fell sick in 1995 soon after our marriage, and never recovered till he passed away in 2004. But I too never thought of multi-tasking-handling work, kids and home-as a problem. Of course, we had good staff: our maid and driver are very devoted to the family.”

Both of them are religious, and practise their faith: “We pray, fast, and go for Haj,” Omer says. Adds Anjum: “My mother was very pragmatic in her approach to Islam, though my father was more ritualistic.” According to Omer, their prayers are more for thankfulness than to ask for something. “We are so blessed,” he points out. “We have been to Arabia few times. So yes, we practise-but at the same time, we question.” Says Anjum, simply: “I like the balance.”

And the children are, fortunately, not yet growing away from their parents: Zara has her own life, but is at the same time totally plugged into the concept of family. “Some things are non-negotiable!” says Omer. “For instance, no phones are allowed at meal time. The kids get a platform to talk to each other and us, about things that would otherwise get buried in their busy lives. There are some ground rules, and they stick to them.” They are not totally happy going away on their own, but can still manage independently all over the place. Zara, for example, went to Oxford on her own for a summer course, Anjum points out. “She organised her own travel, and did very well there too-she came first in her class.”

All four of them spend a lot of time together as a family, even on holidays. “We don’t need to go out and mingle, we are very content by ourselves,” she says. “Three holidays every year are a must. We go away for the summer, Dussehra and Christmas vacations.”

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Last year, Ayaan came up with a surprising question: “Why must we always fly abroad? Why don’t we take a holiday in India?” Says Omer: “Both of us had found it very difficult earlier to wrap ourselves around a holiday in India. But after my son asked this question, we decided to go to Rajasthan-it was fun. We like our luxuries-but besides the Michelin restaurants, we also like to eat local food in different places. For example, we had a great meal of daal-bhaat at a truck stop in Rajasthan.” They didn’t of course, exactly rough it out in the desert: his royal connections ensured that they had the best hospitality in the local palaces. “India is brilliant!” Anjum says.

“Even though both of us are busy, we like to invest time in the kids as well as for ourselves together,” Omer says. “Of course, there is always a trade-off, in terms of earning less than we could if we concentrated only on our work or business. The question of what has priority in our lives keeps changing. But health, time with the children, family time, religion-they all take precedence.”

In addition to all this, Omer manages to find time to play cricket-coming as he does from a cricketing family-and golf, besides his angling and hunting which again is a throwback to his family’s traditions. “He is a ‘renowned shot’!” Anjum says with obvious pride. That, he explains, is a qualification that enables him to participate in national shooting championships. He is also interested in football, and took his son to watch Manchester United play a home match on Boxing Day last year: “There must always be an element of surprise in what I do,” he grins. “I had planned the itinerary for that trip with a gap of one day, which the rest of the family were clued in that they didn’t even notice! That was the day I just took off with Ayaan for the match.”

“We have introduced some of the most reputed international brands in the world to South India, such as the Hilton Group and Marriott International for hotels; the Banyan Tree for resorts: our Angsana Oasis Spa & Resort is managed by Banyan Tree Hotel & Resorts, Singapore” — Omer

How have they found the much-vaunted “entrepreneur-friendly” systems introduced by the government, especially that of Karnataka where they operate? “Well,” starts Omer, “When we started the hospitality business, we needed a total of 29 licenses… But today,” he pauses dramatically, and adds: “We need 29 licenses, still. The license raj has not gone away, it is only that we have learned to handle it more gracefully. The pain is still there. But we had the luxury of assets like easy access to loans and, our families.”

Anjum’s story is slightly different. “I started as a woman entrepreneur,” she explains. “That angle worked for me.” She still loves to cook; and, Omer says, “People love to be invited to our home for a meal.”

“We never have the time to get bored,” Anjum says. “We’ve practically grown up together, through our 23-year marriage. Both of us are the same age, so that’s almost half our lives. We have so many things in common; like, we were reading the same translation of the Quran, or The Little Prince, at the same time-but we are still as different as chalk and cheese. Of course, his stupid sense of humour sometimes irritates me, but…” To which her husband grins. And she adds: “I promise you, I wouldn’t want to grow older with anyone else but Omer.”

source: http://www.corporatecitizen.in / Corporate Citizen / Home> Cover Story / by Sekhar Seshan / Vol.3, Issue No. 2 / April 15th, 2017

Baqa Jilani: Controversial in life, and afterwards

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Baqa Jilani was the first bowler to take a hat-trick in Ranji Trophy.

Baqa Jalani. Photo Courtesy: Post Card World
Baqa Jalani. Photo Courtesy: Post Card World

Baqa Jilani, born July 20, 1911, was the first bowler to take a hat-trick in Ranji Trophy. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at a man controversial in life and death.

Had Mohammad Baqa Khan Jilani  been a more renowned person, they would probably have made a movie on him. In fact, though he did not live to see an age of 30, he had a life too eventful to ignore, both on and off the field. He played in an era when India were in its nascent stage of Test cricket, and could have had a significant career had he not been plagued by numerous physical ailments.

Baqa Jilani was a decent batsman with 928 runs at 18.56 with a hundred from 31 First-Class matches. For a man of 6 feet it was surprising that he bowled leg-breaks and medium-paced leg-cutters, but he captured 83 wickets at 19.93 with 3 five-fors and a ten-for; if we go by the usual definition of a good all-rounder (the closer the batting and bowling averages are to each other, the better the all-rounder he is) then his numbers were certainly not poor.

“There was no doubting his class,” wrote David Frith. Charlie Macartney hailed him a “champion”. Despite that, Baqa Jilani is known more for his off-the-field activities than his class.

He also played a solitary Test with not much of an impact, but more of that later.

Early days

Born in Jullundur, Baqa Jilani made his First-Class debut for Northern India in 1934-35. It was as spectacular a debut as one can think of: opening bowling he routed Sind for 114 and 155 with figures of 7 for 37 (his best figures) and 5 for 50, making it his only First-Class ten-wicket haul. Playing against Parsees in the Bombay Quadrangular next month he returned figures of 4 for 30 and 3 for 55, leading Muslims an innings victory.

Then came the big match, against Southern Punjab: Northern India scored 142 before Baqa Jilani’s 4 for 46 gave them an 11-run lead. Then, when Southern Punjab were set a target of a mere 118, he took charge: Dev Puri and Amir Elahi contributed in bowling out the opposition (that had five cricketers who played Tests at some point of time or the other) for 22, which remained the lowest Ranji Trophy score till 2010-11.

Baqa Jilani, however, stole the show with figures of 4.1-1-7-5. In the process he also registered the first hat-trick in Ranji Trophy, dismissing  Joginder Singh, Yuvraj of Patiala, and Lall Singh.

The next season started on a high note as well. Baqa Jilani claimed 2 for 45 and 4 for 16 in the first “Test” against the touring Australians at Lahore. There was also a 4 for 32 against Delhi at Kotla, and a consecutive second season with the ball earned Baqa Jilani a spot on the 1936 tour of England.

Baqa Jilani’s bowling was never the same. His first two seasons, which included 16 matches, had resulted in 66 wickets at 15.85. The next 15 yielded a mere 17 at 35.82.

The controversial Test debut

The murk of the 1936 tour has been discussed at lengths by every student of Indian cricket. Once Maharajkumar of Vizianagram had his way to national leadership, he had his way in every possible matter throughout the Test series. He led India in all three Tests and scored 33, but his antics had a deeper impact in dampening the spirit of the squad.

Sending Lala Amarnath back home was enough to set any team back, but Vizzy went a bit further: he had created a rift in the dressing-room, splitting the team into two sections. The majority of the team backed CK Nayudu as the obvious leader, much to Vizzy’s dislike: he wanted his way, and slowly created a band of loyal supporters.

Mushtaq Ali later wrote in Cricket Delightful: “It may not be possible today to apportion the respective parts played by the captain and the manager, but the job was successfully done with Nissar, Dilawar Hussain, Baqa Jilani Khan and PE Palia effectively estranged from CK Nayudu. Costly and lucrative presents were lavishly distributed to favourites by the Maharajkumar and this created further rifts in the team.”

Indian team for the Worcestershire match at New Road, 1936 © Getty Images Back, from left: Baqa Jilani, Lala Amarnath, Syed Mohammad Hussain, Mushtaq Ali, Cotar Ramaswami, Khershed Meherhomji (wk) Front, from left: Phiroze Palia, CK Nayudu, Vizzy (c), Mohammad Nissar, Vijay Merchant
Indian team for the Worcestershire match at New Road, 1936 © Getty Images
Back, from left: Baqa Jilani, Lala Amarnath, Syed Mohammad Hussain, Mushtaq Ali, Cotar Ramaswami, Khershed Meherhomji (wk)
Front, from left: Phiroze Palia, CK Nayudu, Vizzy (c), Mohammad Nissar, Vijay Merchant

One of these was Mohammad Nissar : when Vizzy was being knighted, news had gone out that Nayudu was leading Indians to a victory against Lancashire at Liverpool. Vizzy cabled Nissar to bowl full-tosses; the moment Nayudu realised what was going on, he took Nissar off, and won the match for the tourists himself in a partnership with Jahangir Khan.

This did not go very well with Vizzy. He took things a bit too far. As Mihir Bose wrote in A History of Indian Cricket, “Those in the Vizzy party received all sorts of favours including a trip to Paris and they could curry favour with Vizzy by insulting Nayudu.”

On the morning of the Test, Baqa Jilani obliged. Ramachandra Guha later in Wickets in the East: “Shute was replaced by Baqa Jilani [a vastly inferior cricketer] for the Oval Test of 1936 only because Jilani had fulfilled his captain Vizzy’s desire by abusing CK Nayudu at the breakfast table.”

Mushtaq was in agreement: “It was widely believed that Baqa Jilani Khan earned his place in the third Test by fulfilling the condition of insulting CK Nayudu in the presence of other players inside the dressing room. In fact, when the team was announced Shute Banerjee had been shown among the first eleven players with Baqa Jilani specifically mentioned as the 12th man.”

Bose’s version was the same: “Baqa Jilani did that [insulted CK Nayudu] before the Oval Test: coming down to breakfast one day he insulted Nayudu and was rewarded with his first Test cap.”

Boria Majumdar’s version in Lost Histories of Indian Cricket: Battles Off the Pitch is slightly different, but he is in agreement with Baqa Jilani’s action: “With Vizzy forever keen to humiliate Nayudu, he had even ordered Baqa Jilani to abuse Nayudu at the breakfast table promising him his maiden Test cap if he carried out the orders.”

Baqa Jilani played at The Oval — a Test that started, somewhat ironically, on August 15, exactly 11 years before India’s Independence. He conceded 55 runs from 15 overs, being at the receiving end of a majestic 217 from Wally Hammond; and as India plummeted to an innings defeat and a 0-2 loss in the series, Baqa Jilani scored four not out and 12. He never played another Test.

It was not a great tour for him either. He scored the only hundred of his career against Leicestershire, scoring 113 and taking the score from 233 for 7 to 426, and added 24* and 2 wickets for good measure. Against Gloucestershire he scored 59 not out and returned match figures of 5 for 78, but he failed in the other ten matches he played.

The final few matches and deteriorating health

Baqa Jilani career lasted for three more matches after his return. He missed the winter of 1936-37, but did a decent job the next season with 4 for 33 against United Provinces and 74 against Southern Punjab, both at Patiala. By this time illness had already been creeping in.

In Personalities of the 1936 Tour of England, Cota (or Cotah, or Cotar) Ramaswami had written of Baqa Jilani’s strange behaviour: “Nobody could say when he was normal and when he got into uncontrollable temper. He was constantly undergoing treatment during the tour.” He suffered from high blood pressure, insomnia, and somnambulism. He was also an epileptic.

In Silence of the Heart: Cricket Suicides David Frith cited more incidents: “During the Indians’ final match (of the 1936 tour), against Indian Gymkhana at Osterley, Jilani viciously hurled the ball at his friend Gopalan and displayed temper when moved from slip to cover [Ramaswami was captain for this game]. Baqa Jilani sat down in the field, kicked the ball towards the boundary instead of fielding it and deliberately threw wide of the bowler.”

Ramaswami did not react. As he wrote in Ramblings of a Games Addict, “knowing fully well that he was slightly off his head, I ignored his presence in the field.”.

He came back to play a single match — his last — in 1938-39 against Hindus in the final of the Lahore tournament but did not do much of note.

Personal life and controversy regarding death

Baqa Jilani was the brother-in-law of Jahangir Khan, and was an Extra Assistant Commissioner in Jullundur. In 1941 he suffered an epileptic fit, fell down from the balcony of his residence, and met with an instant death eighteen days before his 30th birthday. He was the second Indian Test cricketer to die after Amar Singh (who had passed away on May 21, 1940); he also remains the second-youngest Indian Test cricketer to die after Amar Singh (29 years 169 days).

The report of Baqa Jilani’s death was published in Indian Express as the same. Strangely, there were rumours that he had hanged himself out of depression.

Baqa Jalani died tragically. Photo Courtesy: Indian Express
Baqa Jalani died tragically. Photo Courtesy: Indian Express

It was not until much later that the truth came out (though Indian Express archives were always available). As Frith wrote, “The great Vijay Merchant told statistician Anandji Dossa, who told young writer Mudar Patherya, who told the author, that Jilani had suffered an epileptic fit, lost his balance on the veranda of his house in Jullundur and fallen to his death.”

(Abhishek Mukherjee  is the Deputy Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs here  and can be followed on Twitter here .)