An Exhibition on Holy Quran was inaugurated at the Dr Zakir Husain Library in Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) on 11 June. The exhibition, organised in collaboration with the Iran Cultural House, was launched by Prof Talat Ahmad in the presence of Masood Rezvanian, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The exhibition includes a rare collection of manuscripts of the Holy Quran dating back to the 15th century. The manuscripts, written in Arabic, are in different calligraphic styles like Naskh, Thuluth, Muhaqqaq, Nashtalique and Shibasta. Beside this, the exhibition also displays rarely published translations of the Holy Quran in several Indian languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam, and in foreign languages, including English, Japanese, French, German, Burmese, Turkish and Persian.
Calligraphy as an art form came to India during the Mughal period between 16th century and 19th century. The Mughal Empire had close ties with the Iranian Empire, which led to the cultural exchange of the art forms. This led to the spread of Iranian influence in art, architecture and calligraphy.
Among the exhibits are the smallest and the largest Quran. Other exhibits include rare Quranic manuscripts and Quran written on different materials like ivory, metal, animal skin, wood and handmade paper.
source: http://www.thestatesman.com / The Statesman / Home> Features / by Majid Alam / New Delhi / June 24th, 2018
Today’s Google doodle features legendary musician and dancer Gauhar Jaan, the first Indian to record music on a 78 rpm record, thus opening up a new avenue for Indian classical music. Gauhar Jaan was born on this day in 1873.
The illustration is by Aditi Damle, showing Gauhar Jaan with her cat, and the gramaphone in the background.
Gauhar Jan
Gauhar Jaan was born Angelina Yeoward to an Armenian Christian father and an Indian Jewish mother. Angelina converted to Islam along with her mother in the 1880s and became Gauhar Jaan. Her mother, ‘Badi’ Malka Jaan, was an accomplished Kathak dancer and singer and was a courtesan in Benaras. Gauhar learned classical music and dance from her mother. The duo moved to Kolkata later, where Gauhar learned more classical forms such as the Patiala gharana, Dhrupad, Thumri, and the Bengali keertan. She started singing songs penned by Rabindranath Tagore much before it came to be known as ‘Rabindra Sangeet.’
Her maiden music concert was when she was as young as 17 years. Gauhar began giving dance performances too after a few years. She went on to perform in many parts of India, including Mysuru, Chennai, Dharbanga, and Allahabad. Gauhar used her travels as an opportunity to learn regional art forms. She could sing in as many as 20 languages.
When Frederick William Gaisberg, the iconic recording engineer from the Gramophone Company, visited India to record Indian music, Gauhar Jaan was the first musician to accept his offer. This was at a time when her male counterparts were reluctant to accept a new technology, which they feared would spoil their voice. On the day of the trial recording, she is believed to have said “My name is Gauhar Jan,” according to Suresh Chandvankar of the Society of Indian Record Collectors.. This eventually became the label of the first Indian album. Gauhar has over 200 records to her credit. In 1994, the Gramophone Company re-released 18 of her songs as a collection.
Rajeshwari Sachdev as Gauhar.
“Gauhar Jaan was exceptional in more ways than one… she created a template to showcase something as expansive as Hindustani music in just three minutes!” said Vikram Sampath, who wrote her biography ‘My Name Is Gauhar Jaan! The Life and Times of A Musician.’ . Earlier gramaphone records would last only for three minutes and artists had to scream into horns as the acoustic technology was in its nascent stage. Gauhar’s method of recording was adopted by many women singers, which eventually led to more women taking up recording.
In the book, Mr. Sampath has chronicled the life and times of Gauhar, including her lavish lifestyle, her ill-fated relationships, and dwindling health during later years. There is an interesting story about the cat that is featured along with Gauhar in Tuesday’s Doodle. It is said that Gauhar spent ₹20,000 in the early 1900s and threw a party when her cat delivered a litter of kittens, according to historian V. Muthiah. However, she spent her last days as a court musician in the Mysore Maharaja’s palace for a sum of ₹500 per month, before she passed away on January 17, 1930.
Director Ashutosh Gowarikar has bought the movie rights for Mr. Sampath’s book, hoping to bring Gauhar’s life to the silver screen. Gauhar’s life had been enacted as a play directed by Lillete Dubey. Singer Rajeshwari Sachdev played the title role, while Zila Khan played the older Gauhar.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sci-Tech> Internet / by K. Deepalakshmi / June 26th, 2018
Shujaat Bukhari was leaving his office in Press Enclave in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk when he was shot at. He is in a critical condition, police said.
Shujaat Bukhaari is the editor of newspaper Rising Kashmir. (Picture courtesy: Twitter/Shujaat Bukhari)
Veteran journalist and Rising Kashmir editor Shujaat Bukhari was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside his office in the heart of this Jammu and Kashmir capital, police officials said on Thursday.
Bukhari, who was leaving his office in Press Enclave in the city centre Lal Chowk for an iftar party when he was shot, officials said.
The two policemen who were guarding him are also injured, they added.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> India / by PTI, Srinagar / June 14th, 2018
RICH DIET: A handwritten cookery manuscript containing a glimpse of the menu from England’s first Indian restaurant has sold for $11,344 (Rs 7.6 lakh) at a London book fair.
It refers to dishes like “pineapple pullaoo” and “chicken currey” from the Hindoostane Dinner and Hooka Smoking Club, opened in 1809 at Portman Square, London, by Sake Dean Mahomed, whose roots lay in Bihar.
“This is the first known record of a priced menu from Britain’s first Indian restaurant – at a time when printed menus were rarely available,” said Brian Lake of Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers in London, which sold the volume at the ABA Rare Book Fair to an American institution last month.
The manuscript, titled Receipt Book 1786 on the front, also contains handwritten recipes and receipts. It includes a two-page “bill of fare” from Hindoostane, listing 25 Indian dishes with prices.
These include makee pullaoo (1.1.0 pounds), pineapple pullaoo (1.16.0 pounds), chicken currey (0.12.0 pounds), lobster curry (0.12.0 pounds), coolmah of lamb or veal (0.8.0 pounds), together with breads, chutneys and other dishes.
It ends by noting that there are “various other dishes too numerous for insertion”.
Towards the end is a recipe “to make a curry powder”, attributed to Lord Teignmouth (1751-1834), who was governor-general of Bengal between 1793 and 1797 and later became a patron of Mahomed’s restaurant.
Mahomed went bankrupt in 1812, and the eatery struggled on as Hindostanee Coffee House under a new management before disappearing in 1833.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> India / PTI / June 04th, 2018
In the heart of Hazratganj, at the cut which turns into Lalbagh, stands a large bank. The cars and two-wheelers parked there spill onto the road. There are vendors, mechanics, and just people waiting to go back into the bank when the clerk beckons them. The atmosphere looks like any bland public sector office.
However, a few steps into the compound will lead you to a large colonial-era house. The exterior is yellowing, the plaster is coming off but the sheen of its wooden door frames is intact. The windows, too, retain the same glass, broken at several places but reflecting, literally, the charm of what the house must have seen through the years.
Called No. 2 Mall Road by the family that lived there and generations after it, the house did not belong to ordinary people. It was the abode of one of the finest writers Lucknow has produced.
Author Attia Hosain was born in that house in 1913 and lived there for the first 19 years of her life. Traces of the house are found in her only but much acclaimed novel, ‘Sunlight on a Broken Column’. It is also part of the Masters’ in English syllabus at Delhi University.
“The front part was my grandfather’s domain — a big study filled with books. Here he entertained visitors. The rear part of the house was my grandmother’s domain. Behind the house was a garden. There was a second house, called the small house, but in fact two stories high, and each of the children had their own rooms,” says Shama Habibullah, Attia’s daughter, now 75 years old. She is a filmmaker and lives in Mumbai. She spent a large part of her childhood there.
The house was sold to government in 1956. Attia’s older brother sold it because zamindari was abolished and no one had the means to maintain a house of that size. Besides, he was nominated for foreign service and had to leave India. “No matter how much we miss it, at that time, selling the house was the best solution and it was the right thing to do,” says Shama.
Eighty-six year-old Shahid Mushir Kidwai was born in No. 2 Mall Road in 1929. “I lived there for the first 10 years of his life. I used to go to La Martiniere College from there,” says Kidwai, the son of Attia’s eldest sister. Attia khala is special to him. “She loved me dearly. When my mother was carrying me, she felt it would be a daughter but Attia khala said she would have a son. When I was born, Attia khala was delighted.”
Kidwai vividly remembers Attia’s wedding in 1933. “Her husband Ali Bahadur Habibullah’s family lived across the street in Hazratganj. He was my aunt’s son. We used to have lot of fun running across both houses. It was a beautiful wedding.” Many characters in Attia’s stories are people Kidwai saw in his childhood. “From a servant we had to a pet dog, many have figured in her stories on some form or the other,” he says. Not only the family, but several homeless and destitute people lived in that house, that had exquisite Carrara marble floors. “After it was sold, whenever my mother, her siblings or their children passed by that side in Ganj, they never looked at the house. Such was the pain of losing it,” he says. “It is a period piece. It could have been a heritage building. Now, there is a garbage heap in front of it. People spit against the walls. It is sad,” says a family member.
Attia left India in 1947 when her husband was sent on an assignment to England. However, they never knew they wouldn’t come back. “The Partition of India was a major setback to her. She was distraught. She didn’t want to see the pain of partition in India. Hence, she stayed in Britain.
But Lucknow never left her,” says Shama. There is a poem, The City, by CP Cavafy. That best describes her bond with Lucknow, she says. The memories of Lucknow that Attia instilled in Shama are what brought Shama back to India. In the 1990s, when she was not in the best of heath, there were restrictions on her food. However, during a trip to Lucknow, she asked for kebabs and they did her no harm. Instead, she gained healthy weight and felt much better. “It wasn’t disease but the atmosphere that made her unwell. The atmosphere of Lucknow cured her,” says a member of the family.
Attia died in January 1998 in England.
In 2013, Shama and her brother filmmaker Waris Husein organized a small function to mark her centenary year. That was their last visit to Lucknow. There were films, book readings and recordings at the event. About the house, Shama says, “The house is a symbol of a Lucknow kept alive only in writings and memories. Attia took these memories to the world. She made the story of her displacement a story of everyone else.”
Attia’s works Phoenix Fled, 1953 Sunlight on a Broken Column, 1961 Cooking the Indian Way, 1967 Distant Traveller: New and Selected Fiction, 2013 (Chapters from an unfinished novel and unpublished stories)
The last work The last literary piece Attia created was not written but recorded by her. It was for a compilation called “Voices of the Crossing”. It was about the impact of Britain on writers from Asia. Due to ill-heath and failing eyesight, Attia recorded the chapter “Deep Roots” and it was transcribed and printed in big fonts for her to verify. She spoke of Partition in it. “This can be termed her last work,” says Shama
Shakespearean Urdu at BBC Attia was a born actor, Shama says. Working for the Urdu Service of BBC in England, Attia was once playing Lady Macbeth. The iconic dagger scene, Shama says, is one she can never forget. “Khoon, khoon”, she went. This was Shakespearean Urdu I was listening to on BBC.” She adds in the same breath that it was unfortunate that AIR, in 1995, could not record her when she visited Lucknow. “My mother and I went to AIR for a possible recording show but they said their tape recorder wasn’t working!”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Lucknow News / TNN / January 17th, 2016
Attia Hosain, writer: born Lucknow, India 20 October 1913; married Ali Bahadur Habibullah (one son, one daughter); died London 23 January 1998.
The people who came to see Attia Hosain honoured at a book launch a few weeks ago could have been forgiven for expecting a subdued and fragile old lady. After all, Hosain was 84, had had a long and turbulent life and for years had been in poor health. The launch demanded nothing of her but that she sit on stage as a sort of icon and accept the homage of her admirers, while her daughter – the film producer Shama Habibullah – read from one of her mother’s early World Service pieces.
But Hosain was not one to sit back passively letting encomiums wash over her. Despite her physical difficulties, she immediately engaged with her audience, vividly sharing her emotions and memories. Her indomitability and eloquence swept problems aside, with a degree of hauteur and a magnificent sense of style.
Those qualities must have stood her in good stead. She was born in 1913 into an aristocratic family in Lucknow – a city that is a byword for Muslim scholarship and culture. From her father she inherited a keen interest in politics and nationalism. From her mother’s family of poets and scholars she drew a rich knowledge of Urdu, Persian and Arabic. Her knowledge of English came from an English governess, and subsequently as one of the few Indian girls at an English medium school. She was the first woman from her background to take a degree at Lucknow University.
From early on she was a communicator, first through feature articles for Indian papers, the Pioneer and the Statesman, and membership of the radical Progressive Writers’ Movement. The fiction came later, as a result – she recently speculated – of politics and dislocation.
In 1947, when India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Hosain was in London with her husband, who had been posted the year before to the High Commission. The division of the two countries and the separation of two religious communities caused her great pain. Immensely proud of her heritage as both a Muslim and an Indian, she chose to remain in England and bring up her daughter and son – now the film director Waris Hussein – on her own. The change brought her a career as a regular broadcaster with her own women’s programme on the BBC World Service and a new perspective.
But the sense of damaged cultural roots never fully died away. “Here I am, I have chosen to live in this country which has given me so much; but I cannot get out of my blood the fact that I had the blood of my ancestors for 800 years in another country.” It was that, she said in her last piece – to be published in an anthology later this year – that drove her to write.
In 1953, Chatto and Windus brought out her book of short stories Phoenix Fled. Eight years later came Sunlight on a Broken Column, an evocative and carefully detailed novel which traces, via the story of young Laila, a society in transition. It was over 20 years, however, before the book was widely recognised. Brought out of oblivion by Virago in their splendid Modern Classics in 1988, it re-established Attia Hosain in the public eye and gave her a platform which she embraced with zest.
– Naseem Khan
source: http://www.independent.co.uk / Independent / Home> News> Obituaries / by Naseem Khan / February 05th, 1998
Muslim women who were at the forefront of the nationalist and feminist discourse in the country, during and after the independence movement, were eventually overlooked or excluded from the mainstream narrative.
MWF exhibition featured 21 Muslim women who contributed to nation-building during and after the independence struggle. Credit: Khushboo Kumar
New Delhi:
Most Indians today may not be aware that the national flag was designed by a Muslim woman, Surayya Tayabji, an active member of the Indian National Congress. Jawaharlal Nehru assigned this task to Tayabji, and it was her idea to replace the symbol of the charkha used and popularised by Mahatma Gandhi with that of Ashoka Chakra at the centre of the flag. Tayabji felt that the charkha, a symbol of the Congress party, might appear partisan.
Narratives like this – often forgotten or lost in public memory – were the central theme of a colloquium that was organised by the Muslim Women’s Forum (MWF), an organisation engaged in the advocacy of Muslim women’s rights. Titled ‘Pathbreakers: The Twentieth Century Muslim Women of India’, the colloquium held in partnership with UN Women showcased the achievements of 21 Muslim women in various spheres of public life during and after the independence struggle.
Other women who featured in the exhibition included Saeeda Khurshid, Hamida Habibullah, Aziza Fatima Imam, Qudsia Zaidi, Mofida Ahmed, Zehra Ali Yavar Jung, Razia Sajjad Zaheer, Tyaba Khedive Jung, Atiya Fyzee, Sharifa Hamid Ali, Fathema Ismail, Masuma Hosain Ali Khan, Anis Kidwai, Hajrah Begum, Qudsia Aizaz Rasul, Mumtaz Jahan Haider, Siddiqa Kidwai, Attia Hosain, Saliha Abid Hussain and Safia Jan Nisar Akhtar.
The speakers participating in the discussion talked about the need to reclaim the lost narratives of Muslim women and take control of their representation.
Speaking on the occasion, Seema Mustafa, an Indian print and television journalist, pointed out that these women would not fit even the current stereotypical representation of hijab-clad, oppressed and orthodox Muslim women, who need a messiah to rescue them. Mustafa, in her keynote address, said that these women had broken barriers and challenged patriarchal order in their time; they followed Islam in its liberal spirit, refusing to be shackled by societal norms. Most of them abandoned the purdah system, she said.
Speakers panel for the session ‘Recognising and Nurturing Pathbreakers’ at Muslim Women’s Forum colloquium. Credit: Khushboo Kumari
Stereotypes in modern India
The speakers insisted that the reality was and still is that Muslim women, just like women belonging to any other socio-cultural group in India, do not constitute a monolithic, homogenous entity. They come from diverse backgrounds and subscribe to varying ideologies. Muslim women have been and still are writers, teachers, artists, scientists, lawyers, educators, political workers, legislators in parliament and in assemblies. The speakers said clubbing them under the generic rubric of backwardness was a misrepresentation.
As the regular use of terms like triple talaq, halala and purdah has come to demonstrate subjugation of Muslim women, Islam has acquired the status of the most oppressive religion for women, the speakers said. Muslim women have become an object of pity.
Commenting on Islam and feminism, Farida Khan, former dean of education at Jamia Millia Islamia and former member of the National Commission for Minorities, pointed out that gender oppression is common to all religions. “Why should Islam have the burden of taking on feminism?” asked Khan. She further explained that Islam should be perceived and understood in the social and historical context of the day. Every religion has to and does evolve with time.
Referring to the exhibition, Khan said, “It makes me sad to think that you need to have an exhibition and you need to project these women in a country where they should be well known, where they should be part of the mainstream, where everybody should know their names and know the work they have done.”
Gargi Chakravartty, former associate professor of history in Maitreyi College and author, said, “Muslim women’s political and social contributions in the pre-independence period during the major Gandhian movements or in the field of spreading education, or in the sphere of literary activities, cannot be erased from history.” She shared many anecdotes that came up in her own research about largely unknown Muslim women who have extensively worked among the poor throughout the 20th century and still continue to do so.
An eminent speaker at the colloquium, Rakshanda Jalil, recently wrote a book A Rebel and Her Cause on the life of Rashid Jahan. Jalil spoke of the inspiring life of Jahan, who was a doctor, writer, political activist and member of the Communist Party of India.
Farah Naqvi, member of the Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee (Kundu Committee) 2013-2014, summed up the purpose of the colloquium and the exhibition. “This colloquium is a response. There is a nostalgia about it. But it is not just about the nostalgic nawabi Muslim. It has a political purpose, the colloquium, which is that you cannot allow any one strand of history to be obliterated from this country. Any strand. It could be Muslim women today. It could be someone else tomorrow,” Naqvi said.
Questioning if Muslim women needed to be forced into a separate constituency, Naqvi said it was indeed a tragedy that these women’s contributions were not a part of mainstream knowledge – and that reflected failure on the part of Indian historiography.
Naqvi also pointed out that the undercurrent of the entire exhibition was nation-building because they were “also responding to a moment when Muslims are repeatedly being told that they are ‘anti-national’”. She further explained that against such a background, the Muslim community in general should not take the bait of proving that they are ‘good’ nationalists. Instead they should take pride in the achievements they have made in their respective spheres of work – especially for those who stayed on in India after the Partition.
Wajahat Habibullah, India’s first chief information commissioner and the son of Hamida Habibullah, one of the 21 women featured in the exhibition, talked about Partition and how it divided his family. He said, “It is necessary to remember and nurture the memories of all those Muslim women who then very consciously, despite family pressure and contradictions within the family, opted clearly to be a part of India”.
Contribution to literature, politics and education
The exhibition showed how extensively Muslim women have contributed in the spheres of politics, literature, education and social work.
Many like Saeeda Khurshid, founder of the Muslim Women’s Forum, actively campaigned for the Congress party. Hamida Habibullah was the the president of the Mahila Congress. Few like Aziza Fatima Imam, Fathom Ismail, Anis Kidwai, Siddiqa Kidwai and Qudsia Aizaz Rasul were members of the parliament and legislative assemblies for years.
Rasul was also the only Muslim woman member of the constituent assembly.
Sharifa Hamid Ali founded the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), with the likes of Sarojini Naidu, Rani Rajwade and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and was involved in its work alongside others like Masuma Hosain Ali Khan and Hajrah Begum – who also founded the National Federation of Indian Women.
These women actively worked with the poor and marginalised sections of society, trying to improve their access to health and education.
Zehra Ali Yavar Jung, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1973, worked to improve the condition of women detainees in Hyderabad’s prisons and presided over a women’s workshop that trained and provided employment to destitute women. Fathom Ismail helped in opening rehabilitation clinics for children suffering from polio. Anis Kidwai worked tirelessly in refugee camps after Partition.
Surayya Tayabji and the Indian national flag displayed at the MWF exhibition. Credit: Khushboo Kumari/The Wire
Mumtaz Jahan Haider, who was appointed the principal of the Aligarh Women’s College in 1937, worked for women’s education her entire life.
Sharifa propagated legal reforms for Muslim women, including raising the age of marriage and drafting a model marriage contract ‘nikahnama‘.
In the field of literature and arts, these women won multiple awards. Razia Sajjad Zaheer, the recipient of the Nehru Award and Uttar Pradesh State Sahitya Academy Award, wrote novels like Sar-e-Sham, Kante and Suman. Anis Kidwai recieved the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award.
Attia Hossain used to write for Pioneer, Statesman and Atlantic monthly and wrote several novels, most notably Sunlight on a Broken Column and a short story collection Phoenix Fled. Aliya Fyzee wrote Indian Music (1914), The Music of India (1925) and Sangeet of India (1942) with her husband.
Qudsia Zaidi wrote and translated books for children, with Chacha Chakkan ke Draamae among the most loved ones. She also founded Hindustani Theatre in 1954, the first urban professional theatre company in independent India.
Khushboo Kumari has a BTech in information technology and is pursuing an MBA in marketing from MICA, Ahmedabad. She is an intern at The Wire.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> History> Religion> Women / by Khushboo Kumari / May 30th, 2018
Shazia wanted a create a book where you feel like cooking what you see
Bengaluru’s Shazia Khan, runner-up at Masterchef 2, is out with her book What’s On The Menu
It may be easy to cook from a recipe off the Internet, or cook watching a YouTube video. But how do you know, for example, which biryani recipe to pick from the hundreds that pop up?
And therein lies the charm of a cookbook — you will go for the recipe that comes from a person you know, or whose food you are familiar with or are a fan of.
That is the logic that drove Bengaluru’s Shazia Khan, runner-up at the Masterchef India 2 series a few years ago to write What’s On The Menu? “When I started cooking, I was an amateur. I learnt from cookbooks. I wanted to write my own after Masterchef, which would feature cuisines of the world, and use easy ingredients — something that a beginner or an expert could cook from,” says Shazia smiling the smile that she was noted to flash, even under all the pressure of the TV show. “I also wanted generation-old recipes to be treasured. I wanted it to be a pictorial because it is only when you see good food that you feel like cooking.” Shazia’s food has been made more gorgeous looking by photographer Saina Jaipal.
She agrees the book is a “hotchpotch” of recipes. The book takes you through salads, soups, and sections dedicated to vegetarian, chicken, mutton, seafood, and desserts. An introductory section teaches you how to put together masalas and chilli oil and other such ingredients necessary for the dishes.
Food is something that always brought people together in her large joint family where Shazia grew up as one among seven siblings.
“Food was always a celebration and it spread a lot of happiness — something that rarely happens today among people.”
Shazia admits that food has taken on new avatars. “There is surely a food revolution. With the Masterchef craze, awareness is high. With everyone Instagram-ing food pictures, food has gone viral. People are more confident now to try new recipes. It has gone beyond being just a three-time meal. It is about being more creative and food presentation is gaining more importance.” Exposure is huge, as is availability. “When I started cooking, I didn’t even know what zucchini was. Today you will get three colours of bell peppers in your neighbourhood market.”
Having all along cooked for family and friends, it was her sons who egged her on to try for the Masterchef series. “It has almost been four years since, and I’ve done a couple of TV shows, YouTube videos and demos. I take private classes for individuals. I run summer camps,” she says, talking of the endless possibilities of what one can do these days in the food business. Shazia, who is also involved in the family-run education business, is a member of the board of management at Delhi Public School (Bengaluru/Mysuru). She hopes to start a culinary school, because “going abroad to study culinary arts is very expensive. I want to make it a finishing school for women, so they can get employment opportunities and placements as home cooks using their training. I mean who wouldn’t love to have a trained cook at home!” she says.
Kitchen talk
* Three things you will find in my kitchen: Cheese for sure! Cooking chocolate, and eggs.
* What I love eating: Thai, because it bursts with flavours.
* What I love cooking: Modern Indian food — not twisting its taste but presenting it in a different way. My tandoori chicken roulade is a good twist to the whole grilled chicken, using the French technique to make it more healthy. My grilled semolina with mushroom is nothing but the uppit presented to look like breadsticks, with mushrooms thrown in for a twist.
* When I eat out: My husband is not a big foodie. He loves Indian or Chinese. But when we are travelling, I love to experiment, try local cuisine, learn dishes and pick up recipes.
Pumpkin and peanut subzi
Shazia shares this recipe of a subzi from her book What’s On The Menu that her father-in-law enjoys, made in his village near Mandya, in Karnataka:
(Serves: 4 to 5 )
Ingredients
Vegetable oil – quarter cup
Onion – 2, (finely diced)
Ginger paste – 1 tsp
Garlic paste – 1 tsp
Tomato – 2,
( finely diced)
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – half tsp
Fresh coriander leaves – 3 tbsp,
Pumpkin – 600 gms,
(peeled, chopped &
cubed)
Salt to taste
For the Peanut Masala
Peanuts – 100 gms, (dry roasted & skin removed)
Garlic – 10 cloves
Long, dry red chilli (Kashmiri) — 8 (dry roasted)
In a pan, heat oil. Add onions and fry till golden brown. Add ginger-garlic pastes and fry for a minute. Add tomatoes, chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, coriander leaves and fry till the tomatoes become so. Add the pumpkin cubes and sauté. Add salt and cook till the pumpkin is so and done. Coarsely grind the peanut masala ingredients and add to the cooked pumpkin. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with hot akki rotis and ghee.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Food / by Bhumika K / Bengaluru – April 16th, 2016
In an unique initiative, Yenepoya (deemed to be university), has undertaken a comprehensive study of the mushrooms present on the Derlakatte campus.
The study, which was conducted over a period of six months, has yielded rich information on the macrofungal resources of the campus. About 60 species of mushrooms have been observed on the campus, out of which about 40 have been described in the book. Out of the 40 species published, 12 species are edible, 12 species are medicinal, two species ectomycorrhizal and one species is parasitic. Two species which are rare and known to be poisonous are also recorded.
The information was documented in a ready reference book titled ,‘Macrofungal resourcesof Yenepoya University’. Yenepoya chancellor Abdullah Kunhi released the book at a ceremony held on the campus on Tuesday, in the presence of vice-chancellor M Vijayakumar and registrar G Shreekumar Menon. The book is dedicated to M Abdul Rahiman, former vice-chancellor, Kannur and Calicut Universities.
Yenepoya is the first educational institution in the region to initiate such a study of mushrooms on the campus. Though mushrooms play a unique role in the ecosystem, importance is always given to only flora and fauna, said sources. Yenepoya has initiated other similar studies to document the flora and fauna of the campus too.
The study of macrofungal life on the campus was undertaken by a research team led by K R Sridhar, Dr N C Karun and Dr Bhagya B Sharma from June-November 2016.
Yenepoya has striven to make its 32 acre campus into an eco-friendly zone. The institution has undertaken various measures for greening the campus with different landscapes like lawns, arboretum, bamboo thickets, medicinal plant garden, areca plantation and acacia grove. The campus includes a large rainwater harvesting pond, roof water harvesting facilities, waste water treatment and recycling plant, vermicompost unit and solar power generation facility. The university carries out a regular environmental audit of the campus and has an eco club for students. It is hoped that these activities will inculcate a love for nature among the students who study here, and inspire them to act as brand ambassadors for nature conservation in their future life.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Mangalore News / by Kevin Mendonsa / TNN / May 23rd, 2018
Independence and partition of India brought massive transfer of populations. Movements of refuges were on predictable, communal lines. There were just a few cases where the communal movements were in the ‘wrong’ direction. To that microscopic group of mavericks belonged Mohammed Yunus who, forsaking wealth and family prestige, left his ‘native Pakistan’ for India and turned out to be of much help to the Indian Muslims.
Yunus is so intimately identified with the erstwhile North West Frontier Province or the NWFP – now Khyber Pakhtun Khwa that it may come as a surprise to many that he was not a Pathan! Born in 1916 in Abbobtabad, his father Haji Ghulam Samdani was an extremely wealthy man owning rights over vast tracts of forest and agricultural lands in Punjab, Kashmir and NWFP. One of the biggest government contractors of his time, he owned most of the legendary ‘Qissakhwani Bazar’, the nerve center of Peshawar.
Samdani was a Mughal whose great-grandfather had migrated and settled down in Baramula, Kashmir in the latter half of the eighteenth century. One of the first from among Muslims of the region to have received western education, Samdani settled in Peshawar as a military contractor in the 1880s and never looked back. He was personally contacted by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to bail out the MAO College after the institution was in the financial doldrums following a huge defalcation by Shyam Bihari Lal, a confidante of the founder. Apart from emerging as the wealthiest man of the NWFP, Samdani struck roots in the Pashtun area through his philanthropy and marriages including in the famous Charsadda family of the ‘frontier Gandhi’ Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Indeed Yunus was the son of that mother and thus a ‘maternal Pathan’. Some space has been devoted to the family details as this has a bearing on what Yunus made of his future life.
Mohammed Yunus
After an early education in Peshawar in an opulent but deeply religious atmosphere Yunus was dispatched to Aligarh to study in ‘Minto Circle’, more correctly the AMU Boys High School from where he passed the High School examination in 1932. He thereafter joined the Islamia College on a suggestion of its former Principal H. Martin (who was then Pro Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and is remembered as the coauthor of the famous “English Grammar and Composition” by Wren and Martin). Martin had astutely sensed that Yunus with had the right background to play a major role in the public affairs of that province at a future date. Even in his teens in Aligarh he was witty and quick with repartee which lasted a lifetime. Thus when Gandhiji visited the University in 1931, Yunus somehow clambered up the stage of the Students’ Union with an autograph book in hand. The Mahatma with a frown asked him why he was not wearing khadi to which the Peshawar lad replied without batting an eyelid that he was wearing his school uniform and obtained the coveted signature. What the young Peshawari had not disclosed was that there was no objection to the uniform being made of khadi!
Freedom struggle
He passed B.A from Islamia College, Peshawar. During the college days he was associated with the khudai khidmatgar (God’s servants) movement of the ‘frontier Gandhi’ with its emphasis on non violent resistance to the Raj, its emphasis on service of he poor and social reform. Soon after College he emerged as a prominent political activist and main spokesman of the movement who was an informal representative of Ghaffar Khan with whom he had become related (in the ‘oriental fashion’) with the marriage in 1935 of his elder brother Yahya with the only daughter of the great man. Yunus emerged as a major face of NWFP in rest of the country representing the province in Congress forums and espousing the cause of its economic development. He hosted Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah during their tour of the area and was equally active in Pashto-speaking areas across the Durand line i.e. in South Afghanistan.
He also fought shoulder to shoulder with the National Conference in the Kashmir valley for involvement of people in governance. Yunus was incarcerated in the Quit India movement (1942) and was released only three years later. His reminiscences of prisons were later published in Urdu as Qaidi ke Khat (letters of Prisoners). Following his release he worked zealously against the Muslim League and its demand for Pakistan. In 1946 elections an overwhelmingly Muslim electorate elected a Congress government in the province under ‘Doctor Khan Sahib’ the elder brother of the frontier Gandhi (NWFP was the only province where the dominant community, whether Hindu or Muslim, had voted against the sentiments of the relevant community elsewhere). The government did not survive for long as the aristocrats of the province engineered large scale defections.
Yunus decided to move over to Kashmir to be at the forefront of the agitation against the Maharaja.
Independent India
On the eve of the independence, disgusted with the volte face of the ‘blue blood’ of his community and the communal frenzy he heeded the advice of Nehru and his daughter (with whom he had grown so close as to be almost a member of the family) and decided to make the ‘divided India’ his home. In doing so he was foregoing considerable a fortune – the estate of Haji Ghulam Samdani, which despite its devolution to more than a dozen offspring, was substantial. Nehru offered him appointment in the Indian Foreign Service keeping in view the fact that his proclivity to call a spade a spade would not take him high in politics. Over the years he was envoy in Turkey, Indonesia, Iraq, Spain and Algeria and served twice in the Ministry of External Affairs. In 1971 he was appointed Commerce Secretary – a position he held with great distinction till his retirement in 1974.
After his retirement he was the founder-Chairman of the Trade Fair Authority of India, a position he held till 1977 and again from 1980 till 1985 when he was nominated as Member of the Rajya Sabha for a period of six years. In 1974 when the Muslims of India were restive about the restoration of the ‘minority character’ of the Aligarh Muslim University and the then Education Minister, Prof. Nurul Hasan had made it a ‘progressive’ versus reactionary’ affair Mrs. Indira Gandhi nominated him on the Executive Council of the University where he articulated the aspirations and views of the majority of Aligarh community. It is not intended here to give a ‘low down’ on his professional achievements but mention must be made of the great institution that he built in the form of Pragati Maidan – not only a landmark in the heart of Delhi but clearly among the worlds most prolific and efficient organizers of industry specific fares. The layout, the design of the halls, the infrastructure, carefully planned trees and shrubs all bear a testimony to his loving planning and eye for details. Above all, the initial team of personnel that he handpicked turned out to be a coordinated, well-oiled machine of highly motivated professionals. The traditions and operating procedures laid down by him and his pioneer associates survive to this day and make the ITPO – the rechristened version of the TFI – a vibrant institution. Following a setback in his health Mohammed Yunus lived an increasingly sheltered life with increasingly limited mobility finally succumbing to the inevitable in 2001.
The curious reader could well ask whether what has been stated is all there is to his life or there is something special that earns him the right to be remembered a decade after his death and perpetuate his memory beyond his immediate family. The questions are natural and they deserve an answer – the answers are all in the affirmative.
There are three main reasons why Yunus deserves to be remembered by the country generally while the Indian Muslims need to be particularly aware of his life and time. These ‘reasons’ have to do with his specific achievements and traits and are: An extraordinarily forthright and brutally honest personality, standing by the Muslim community without any political agenda or ulterior motive and a great institution-builder. His ‘baby’ presently called the India Trade Promotion Organization having already been briefly referred, the rest of this piece is devoted to the first two feathers to his cap.
Personality
Yunus had a unique personality which cannot be forgotten by anyone who came in contact with him. He was quite ‘direct’ in his conversations, something which Asians generally lack. This can be illustrated with a few anecdotes. In his autobiography Persons, Passions and Politics (1980, Vikas) he recounts the time he was Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs and had to deal with the local (British) representative of the Commonwealth Graves Commission and his Boss a pompous ex Brigadier of the British Army who had arrived from London ostensibly to inspect the various war cemeteries run by the Commission but really to express displeasure about Yunus’s refusal to accede to some unreasonable request of the local representative. The Brigadier, a typical ‘Colonel Blimp’ was an arrogant foul-mouthed character still carrying hallucinations of ‘Pax Britannica’ with a disdain for the former ‘subject races’. In any case, the senior officer showed his displeasure to Yunus and asked him not to repeat ‘senseless arguments’ and added to good measure that India was being ‘more mulishly unreasonable’ than Germany and Italy were during the last war. Yunus calmly heard the man and politely asked, “is there anything further you gentlemen wish to add before I give my final response’. The imperious ‘Colonel Blimp’ responded with disdain, “I am not interested in your last responses; I want the bloody thing done by tomorrow morning before I leave for home”. Our man than spoke, “You bunch of grave-diggers, how dare you compare my country to the fascists! Leave this very instant, or I will throw both of you out of this window!” He writes, “they made themselves scarce in no time; I started to laugh, and laughed uncontrollably”.
This author knows of a similar episode on the authority of a very eminent personage (a very venerable civil servant, now in his 80s who in the best tradition of the bureaucracy is loathe to be identified; for the initiated, the narrator was then a Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat). In early 1975 the Prime Minister called a meeting to discuss the ongoing agitation against amendments made in the AMU Act 1n 1965 and for declaring the University a minority institution. The meeting was briefed by the Education Minister who explained that the agitation was being fomented by ‘reactionary elements’ within the University academics who did not wish the ‘progressive forces’ to lead the institution up the path of ‘growth and academic excellence’. Yunus, one of the invitees, interjected to ask the Minister to explain who the ‘reactionaries’ were. The reply was that they were the ones who ‘raised the bogey of Islam’. Yunus abruptly cut short the Minister and said “and Prime Minister, progressives are those who eat and drink during the month of Ramadan, do not offer Namaz and drink alcohol in the evenings in the privacy of their houses while discussing how best to further the agenda of the Minister!”. There was startled silence in the room with the Prime Minister barely stifling a smile started to furiously doodle on a pad.
Yunus increasingly acted as behind the scene spokesman of Muslims in the corridors of power with no personal ambition or even projecting himself in the public. His role in highlighting indiscriminate demolitions of houses of Muslims in the name of ‘slum clearance’ in old Delhi is not too well known but is acknowledged by, of all the persons, the ‘bulldozer man’ Jagmohan in his Rebuilding Shahjahanbad . This author is personally aware of cases where he took victims of police atrocities to the Prime Minister at a time when doing so (during the emergency) ran the risk of detention without trial. His vigorous espousing the cause of Aligarh academics and students for restructuring the governance charter of the AMU is not fully appreciated. Many who were active those days now concede that with a champion like Yunus they knew they had someone from the ‘establishment’ on their side and this prevented them from developing a negative attitude towards the secular Indian State. What is more, his transparent sympathy – and empathy – made the members of Muslim middle classes look to him as the honest broker faithfully projecting their grievances without any personal vested interest. This resulted in many a simmering discontent to escalate into public agitations.
A handsome man, not very tall but an overpowering presence, he could be assertive and polite at the same time; Yunus had an endearing personality with a propensity to laugh at himself. His fund of jokes and funny anecdotes was virtually inexhaustible. He was a great motivator of men and a good judge of character. He bore personal losses with great courage and fortitude (as was evident when his only offspring Adil Shaharyar died suddenly). The personality of Yunus can be summed up by narrating a personal experience of this author. In a function of the Delhi AMU Old Boys Association both he and Yunus arrived late and occupied the last row as the proceedings were well under way. The Organizers ran to escort Yunus to the front with our man saying that he should not move for three reasons: First seeing him people will get up and disturb the speaker, Prof Moonis Raza (VC Delhi University); Second as a late comer he was in the right place, the last row, and; (turning to me) yeh bechara bhee late aya hai soche ga mujhe saza milee or Yunus ko jaza yanee aage jagah milee!! (The sentence is not very easy to translate, but it should run something like “This poor chap (the author) is a late comer, too, if I shift to the front he will think that while he is punished Yunus is being rewarded for being late – the real pun lies in the rhyming of the words ‘saza’, ‘jaza’, and ‘jagah’ which cannot be translated).
source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCirlces.net / Home> Articles> Indian Muslim / by Naveed Masood for TwoCircles.net / June 09th, 2011
