My Name is Salt

I generally tend to avoid documentaries about the poor in India; often their lives are abject, harsh by our own standards and without hope. Perhaps this attitude of mine is inherited from my parents who would usually not watch programmes about India, possibly not wanting to be reminded of the country they had left behind.  TV programmes about, for example, Mother Teresa in Calcutta were inevitably shunned in our household.  I did however enjoy Born Into Brothels, an award-winning documentary set in Calcutta.

Despite my misgivings I arrived at the ICA with an open mind and was richly rewarded.  “My Name is Salt”, promoted by the Doc House, is a documentary about salt farmers in the Kutch Desert in Gujarat. I also wonder if my negative viewpoint was influenced by knowing that Soviet dissidents were often sent to salt mine gulags in Siberia.

Each year for about 8 months, outside monsoon season, 40,000 people arrive from their villages to harvest salt. The director Farida Pacha spent 3 years trying to produce the documentary and together with her cinematographer Lutz Konermann spent 60 shooting days with a family of salt farmers living with them in basic accommodation.

The opening sets the scene for the audience’s interaction with the documentary. A truck arrives – of the kind many of us have seen in India, brightly coloured with “Horn Please” emblazoned on the back – and begins unloading. Slowly but surely a small settlement is “built” of sack covered simple shacks, and the protagonist family have brought almost everything with them, from beds, to cooking equipment.  There is no narrator, no voiceover. You are your own silent narrator making sense of your observations. Just occasionally conversations, in Gujarati I think, are rendered in subtitles. The family we are following is a couple, with 4 children, a teenage boy and girl, and a younger boy and girl, together with an older man. We are not told whether he is an uncle perhaps or the father of one of the couple.

Immediately the family starts to dig a large hole close to their “home”. Without any knowledge of salt farming one wonders if the salt is below ground. Then it becomes clear: a crude pump has been buried, together with plastic and rubber piping. The pump is cleaned and fired into life. Water is pumped from underground into eight salt pans: small lakes of water, perhaps 200 by 200 feet each. Clearly it is the salt pans that are now the family’s main focus. Mounds of soil are built up to ensure no water can escape.

At face value salt farming seems so simple. Flood the salt pans, wait for the water to dry, crystals are produced, and the salt harvested. Lorries are loaded, the family is paid, they pack up and go back to their village to return the next season. But life is never so simple.

The potential problems mount up: the pump fails, and the father spends hours repairing it with parts kept one imagines over many years. A couple of salt pans fail to crystallize on time, and the family spend days it seems carefully treading the pans to compact the salt. Four members of the family tread almost as a ritual dance. And always the concern about the costs of the oil used to power the pump. The problems and issues would bind together most families but it seems there is little communication. During the Q&A Pacha is asked why there were not more scenes of interaction between husband and wife, and she answers almost brutally that few couples in India communicate. Despite the lack of communication the family does seem to work well together. There are bonds between the parents and children.  But what comes over mostly is the meticulousness of the work and in particular the patriarch's dedication. He is painstaking and perfectionist in his attention to detail, fixing the pump, seeking advice from other farmers, giving detailed instructions to family members.

In the midst of the stresses that perhaps most farmers face in one form or another there are further glimpses into their lives. Teenage boys from various settlements signal each other with mirrors; one thinks they are playing games but soon children from other settlements arrive with rucksacks, and then school for maybe 15 children begins under the aegis of a teacher in what appears to be a dedicated “building”. The children seem happy and playful. Later the whole family are dressing up, the patriarch shaving carefully, the girls and mother putting on jewellery and getting their hair braided. Are they heading to a wedding? A 3 wheel truck arrives to take the family to a nearby fair. Prayers are said, small trinkets are bought. It is a welcome distraction from the worries of the salt harvest.

There is very little of the modern world that encroaches on their lives. I wonder how if the desert is flooded each monsoon the family finds their way back to the same place each year. The father has a mobile phone, perhaps used very sparingly, but it is often the conduit for bad news; the unseen salt trader, to whom the salt is sold, needs updates and demands to know when the salt will be ready. The trader seems to ignore any problems the family has most notably the costs of the oil which will eat into the family’s profits. Pacha revealed in the Q&A that the family would make £2,000 or Rs2 lakh in a good year. In a bad year they would be indebted to the salt trader.  It’s not clear whether the family has another productive life in their village in the other 4 months of the year or that they live merely to farm salt.



The camerawork and cinematography in My Name is Salt are outstanding; one is almost in the desert with the family, and the intimacy of the family is portrayed without emotion. One gets a great sense of the scale of the desert and the isolation, particularly at night. The family and their nearby neighbours are alone.  Pacha describes the film as “honouring what they (the family) are doing”.

My Name is Salt is the best kind of entertainment and education: one that has you asking for more, demanding and questioning. One doesn’t pity the family but admires their fortitude, endeavour, will to get on in difficult circumstances.  Pacha said she did not want the film to be polemic and in that she succeeds; the film celebrates the salt farmers but does not blame anyone for their plight. My Name is Salt is an astonishing, compelling film marking, for me at least, a positive change in perceptions of Indian documentaries.

Chakra – Rising to the Challenge

We had been looking forward to the long Bank Holiday weekend in London for a while, and in particular eating at Chakra and the Indian YMCA in Fitzroy Square (to experience both ends of the market).  Sadly we found the Indian YMCA closed for lunch when we arrived without much hint of an apology despite explicit opening times on their website.

Chakra has a considerable pedigree run by the Vama brothers, Andy and Arjun, who previously owned the award-winning Vama in Chelsea. It is beginning to be regarded as a competitor to other well-known and established Indian restaurants in the capital including Tamarind and Benares.  Since opening on Notting Hill Gate Road it has attracted a considerable following it seems and earlier this year won the Best Restaurant award at the Asian Business Awards.

The restaurant is located close to Notting Hill Gate station and at the end of a row of local shops. It’s an area I’ve enjoyed visiting occasionally with Jamie Oliver’s Recipease nearby.  We got a warm welcome in the middle of the evening and seated immediately in plush beige leather seats and with chandeliers above us.  The restaurant is designed to replicate in food and style Moghul palaces of Lucknow, whose food is beginning to get some interest in the West.  Notably one of the Rick Stein’s India programmes was from Lucknow.

Over course of the evening the restaurant filled up with couples, and Indian families, who were probably local.  There were, we thought, a number of people from India.  Almost as soon as we sat down, and while we were perusing the menu, our first amuse bouche - a well-spiced potato cake - arrived.  Menus are always problematic for us as we have several favourites but we are also keen to try new dishes.  After ordering our food a well-presented plate of poppadoms arrived together with dips and relishes.

Although the garlic scallops were tempting for starters, I chose the ajwaini machli - strips of battered tilapia accompanied by a tomato / mayonnaise sauce with a hint of chilli.  I struggled to finish the plate - the portion too big really for a starter -  trying to save myself for the rest of the dinner.  True to form and with respect to her vegetarian past Sue chose the yam chaat - sweet potatoes with chaat, lemon, cumin and tamarind. It was an interesting restaurant variation on familiar Indian street food flavours.  The portion again was probably too large and Sue felt it could have been halved.

For her main Sue chose the Kerala prawn curry together with saag paneer, one of her and my favourite dishes.  Sue was excited when the saag paneer arrived, hoping for a rival to the saag paneer she had in Delhi (see our blog here).  While the creaminess and texture were promising, Sue felt it probably lacked the subtlety of spicing and flavour of the dish at the Hyatt with slightly too much chilli to allow the other spices to come through.  The prawn curry was decent with well cooked prawns.  My main was the dahi gohst masala - a well spiced lamb curry.  Our mains were accompanied by very well cooked rice (light and fluffy), roti and naan. In addition the raita, which is a must for me to offset hot curries, was probably the best I’ve ever had, decked with jewels of pomegranate, tomato and cucumber.

In other circumstances we would probably have enjoyed our desserts but after filling initial course and another amuse bouche of a sorbet, we were full.  The total bill with wine would have been c£120.

Overall we felt the experience to be of high quality and in some respects matching the more established upmarket Indian restaurants in London. The atmosphere was relaxing with good service and attentiveness.  We felt, however, that the food lacked the subtlety, nuances and depths that we have come to expect from some of its rivals.  Presentation was good, but could be refined.  We learnt that Chakra is due to launch a new menu later in the year and this might be the opportunity to put itself in the top tier of Indian London.

We dined as complimentary guests of the restaurant. We pride ourselves, however, always on the independence of our reviews.