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. 

EIPC - Developing Palliative Care in West Bengal

Watching my cousin deliver a presentation at the Nehru Centre in London on palliative care a few weeks ago, I was reminded of when we had first met.  With me growing up in the UK and he in India, we had not met as young children but when I was 19 in Calcutta, on my first trip to India for 15 years, and I think he was 12, at one of India’s public schools modelled on the UK.  As with most of the educated in India nowadays he could, even at the age of 12, discourse in perfect flawless English, Hindi, and his mother tongue, Bengali of course.  Not having much in common, I guess, at those ages we took to the roof of our grandfather’s Calcutta house to play cricket.  As in many hot countries the roofs of houses are often special places, in the city yet not in the city, your own private family space, away from the grime of street Calcutta.  Sometimes Calcuttans sleep on the roof to benefit from cooling breezes in the hottest parts of the year.  But even there one cannot escape the sounds and the smells that make up the unique experience of Kolkata, the city of joy.  Kites are flown from roofs and if there are celebrations, after an Indian cricket victory perhaps, firecrackers and fireworks are let off.

Fast forward a few years, 15 perhaps, and I am at my cousin’s home on the outskirts of Calcutta.  In the intervening years my cousin has become a doctor.  My aunt and uncle are unfailingly kind and I have brought a bottle of scotch for my uncle. A shot is called a “peg".  My uncle worked with what he called “Britishers” in the oil industry and was clearly influenced by them.  After a Bengali lunch I wander around the house and find in a glass cabinet a letter in my father’s handwriting.  Reading it I realise my cousin had asked advice about his future career, and my father had responded with strategies and plans.  I don’t know if it was my father’s influence but my cousin seemingly always wanted to be a doctor and then a surgeon.  Through hard work, and I hope some good advice from my father, my cousin achieved both his ambitions.

He passed surgeons’ exams in both India and the UK, worked as a surgeon but later switched to oncology.  Not long after my cousin came to the UK my father sadly passed away.  He had had a lung disease and was confined to bed in our house for a few weeks.  In that time my father received excellent palliative care  from the social services and care visits a couple of times a day.  His end was peaceful surrounded by members of his family.

I only mention my father’s passing as my cousin, Dr Sankha Mitra, is endeaveouring to bring high quality palliative care to West Bengal in particular and trying to change the mindset in India regarding this important facet of medicine.

Palliative care is best defined as treatment and strategies to reduce pain and other symptoms, and offer psychological, social, and emotional support holistically generally when a patient has a chronic life limiting illness or  is dying.  A couple of years ago Dr Mitra set up a charity - Eastern India Palliative Care in UK  Charity No. 1151116 (EIPC) to help fund the projects in India.

Along with the focus on EIPC the evening at the Nehru Centre included a performance by the Goan soprano, Viola da Cunha, accompanied by Yukiko Osedo, and a short performance of Tagore songs by Dr Mitra's wife, Susmita. My cousin, Sankha, was first generously introduced by Professor David Oliviere who among other things lectured on palliative care.  Sankha talked about what he and his project team  are trying to achieve in India.  I have amalgamated his presentation with my discussions with him later.

Sankha began his charity primarily because of the inequity of high  quality palliative care available to his cancer patients in Sussex and the almost negligible provision in West Bengal.  The poor in West Bengal often cannot get to a government hospital, and sadly die in great numbers in great pain through neglect.  The middle classes, although moneyed, do not really understand the concept of palliative care and therefore die in pain in ignorance.  The upper classes, as is their wont in India, throw money at the problem; patients are often kept alive on ventilators usually in great pain.  Often it is a status symbol to suggest a relative had been kept alive on a ventilator for several weeks. Private hospitals in towns and cities have no interest in offering true palliative care as they are paid at an expensive daily rate  for the use of expensive facilities like ITU and ICU.

It could, Sankha believes, be so different.  West Bengal had up to now no real palliative care facilities.  With support from UKDFID and partnerships in India and with funding from his charity EIPC , Sankha is bringing - still in a limited way - palliative care.  There are a number of major obstacles: while morphine is cheap it is almost unavailable because of the draconian opioid drug rules from 1985 and few pharmacies stock morphine.  Government hospital doctors are not trained in palliative care, nor are nurses and social workers.  And  the regional government and Health Ministry have not been as helpful as anticipated.

So, to try and inculcate and develop a palliative care mindset Sankha has set up a training centre to train doctors, nurses and social workers.  What he has found is that there are almost no local volunteers to be found in a region where poverty is endemic (in the UK for example one would find volunteers relatively easily).  With funds from a number of sources a training centre has been set up in a not for profit Cancer Centre in Thakurpukur near Calcutta. The Training Centre has facilities for nurses and social workers to stay, lecture halls and computer facilities. Volunteers have come from the UK and all over India to assist in the training.  But one issue has been that local doctors are not keen  to be dedicated to palliative care;  often doctors would prefer to spend time in their own lucrative private clinics and practices.  Eventually Sankha intends to have 14 training centres attached to government hospitals, 18 local palliative care clinics in each district of  West Bengal and train up 1000 doctors, nurse and social workers.

These EIPC clinics are often very basic by Western standards but providing minimum standards are met they are a huge improvement on any existing facilities and care.

Interestingly Sankha gave his presentation at the Nehru Centre almost at the same time as the House of Lords was debating assisted dying in the UK which is a related topic within the scope of palliative care.  It is widely felt that the law is perhaps lagging behind public sentiment and that assisted dying, within strict parameters, should be made legal.

But back to West Bengal.  There are still many obstacles to ensuring palliative care is widely available.  The charity needs to be able to scale effectively and ensure sustainable funding for sustaining the centres.  The project will be a mix of government funding, charitable funding, NGOs and with help from (Western) volunteers.  The private sector, including the Narayana Health  Foundation, has shown an interest in developing its own palliative care model, but a business model not a charitable one.  Sankha also wants to try and set up a social enterprise model, one that is profitable, so that profits can be used to set up and run further clinics.  There has also been a strategy of informing and educating, in schools, so that the next generation can raise  awareness  of the availability and benefits of palliative care.

Perhaps I am biased because Sankha is my cousin and the project is active in my parents’ home state of West Bengal, but it is heartening to know that his enthusiasm and drive has already resulted in many receiving high quality palliative care when none existed.  Yes, there are many obstacles to be overcome but making a start is often the hardest part: making alliances, partnerships, and getting the message out – the evening at the Nehru Centre was a part of this process.

Palliative care is a relatively basic and relatively cheap  healthcare provision but one clearly that the Indian state is currently unable to deliver.  So it is up to charities and perhaps businesses to step up; it requires simple facilities and by most healthcare standards basic nursing and medical care.  Social enterprises are one facet of the overall equation but perhaps also some kind of insurance model may need to be fully explored.  Sankha would also like his project to be the model for palliative care clinics all over India.  This might be the greatest legacy for such projects, in shaming governments at all levels in creating high quality medical services provision in a country that is growing strongly, and sadly exports many of its doctors and nurses who cannot find worthy jobs and careers at home.

http://www.eipc.org.uk

To donate to EIPC: 

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=Z3WDL4BEMNMFJ 

Girl Summit 2014 - London

I had my first serious relationship at the age of 17. If anyone had suggested that we get married at that point, my reaction would have been one of complete horror and bewilderment.  Why on earth would I want to do that?  I had plans – to go to university, to travel, to pursue a career, to meet interesting people, to get out of the suburban mundanity I had been brought up in.  Marriage was nowhere on my agenda.  As with many teenage relationships, it didn't last and we split up after 18 months.  By the time I eventually had my son at the age of 35, I had lived a bit, pursued some of my ideals and dreams and was ready to take on the responsibilities of parenthood.  I could also be a better mother because of my education and life experience.

I realise now that I was lucky.  I took my freedom for granted - never questioning my ability or right to be able to choose my own partners or do what I wanted – resources permitting. All over the world, millions of children have no choice over whom or when they marry.

Child marriage is defined by Unicef as marriage before the age of 18 and considers this practice a violation of human rights.  India tops the league table of rates of child marriage. Mahatma Gandhi himself was married at the age of 13 to Kasturbai, aged only 14.

My own son is nearly 13.  He is still growing, changing and finding out about himself and the world.  Like many teens and pre-teens he spends his time at school or playing numerous video games or browsing You Tube.  The idea that he should be married at his age, or thereabouts, just seems unbelievable and very premature.

Today, Girl Summit 2014 was co-hosted in London by UNICEF and the UK Government.  Their stated aim is to end female genital mutilation, child, early and forced marriage within a generation. In 2010 13.5 million children were married before they were 18.  In the developing world 1 in 7 girls are married before they were 15, with some as young as 8 or 9.  This can have devastating consequences.  For example, in the Yemen, last September, an 8 year old girl was reported to having been married to a 40 year old groom.  During intercourse on the wedding night, the 8 year old’s uterus ruptured and she later died as a consequence.

According to Unicef figures, around 43% of women in India aged 20-24 are married before the age of 18[1].  This may be to partners they don’t know, or haven’t consented to marry.  For the boys / men it can be a burden to have to then provide for their wife and consequent children at such a young age.  For the girl / woman, however, the impact can be life altering and life constraining.  Forced into premature sexual intercourse with their husband, this can amount to rape.  Commonly the girl then stops any education and her life is taken up with childcare and domestic responsibilities, with little opportunity for herself outside the home.  Early childbirth can also be damaging for immature bodies not capable of bearing a child leading to complications and / or low birth weight babies.  The women too are also at risk from domestic violence, compounded by their vulnerable status as child brides.

This is a problem for the women in India, but also a problem for girls and women in the UK.  Every year thousands of girls in the UK face being taken out of school on ‘family holidays’ to Pakistan, India and other place, only to find out they are to be married.  This morning I was listening on the radio to the story of a woman from the UK who was married off at the age of 13 in Pakistan – against her knowledge, consent or will – only to give birth to a son at the age of 14 on returning to the UK.  At the time, no-one questioned it or raised it as an issue.  She managed to escape and, now in her 40s, campaigns against child and forced marriage – with the price of being disowned by her family.

Last year the UK government’s forced marriage unit dealt with 1032 cases.  Of these 82% of victims were female and 18% male while 15% were under the age of 15.  The cases involved 74 different countries with 43% relating to Pakistan, 11% to India and 10% to Bangladesh[2]. To a Western audience, it is inconceivable that a girl or woman should have no choice but to marry someone not of their own choosing or without their consent.  This is not a question of cultural relativity: it is a question of human rights.  It’s a gross violation of children’s rights to make them marry someone – with a sexual relationship to follow and childbirth – that usually means an end to the girl’s education and a lifetime of rape or non-consensual sex, childrearing and domestic duties.

Worldwide more than 700 million women were married as children, with 1 in 3 of them married before their 15^th birthday.  About a third of child brides live in India. Female genital mutilation (FGM) has been illegal in the UK since 1985, and since 2003 anyone taking someone out of the UK for FGM has been punishable by up to 14 years in prison[3]. Enforcement of these provisions, though, is woefully lacking to date.  A new law also came into effect in the UK on 16 June 2014 making it a criminal offence, punishable by up to 7 years in prison for parents who force their children into marriage – though it remains to be seen how rigorously this new power will be used or enforced.

In India, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act states that girls can’t get married before the age of 18 and boys before the age of 21 – although this is widely ignored.  Many campaigners were disappointed last October at India’s refusal to sign the first-ever global resolution on early and forced marriage of children led by the UN Human Rights Council.

I am inclined to be cynical about David Cameron’s stated commitment to Girl Summit Day – given his blind spot to women colleagues in the recent past.  But let’s hope FGM and forced /early marriage will become as unacceptable as torture or imprisonment without a trial (or unfair trial) for this is what it is.

For development to be effective in India, women must be prioritised.  Women are the ones who look after, educate and care for the medical needs of our children in their early years.    By allowing women to pursue an education, freedom in whom they marry and rights within the marriage, it is a service to themselves, their children, community, husbands and humankind.  

http://tooyoungtowed.org/

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/girl-summit-2014

http://www.girlsummitpledge.com/ 

http://www.karmanirvana.org.uk/

[1] http://www.unicef.org/india/Child_Marriage_Fact_Sheet_Nov2011_final.pdf.  Accessed 22/07/2014

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27830815

[3] Ibid.

Sukanya – Highlights of Ravi Shankar’s Opera at the Royal Opera House

Late last year I had attended a presentation by David Murphy, the composer, and Amit Chaudhuri, the author who is a librettist, at the Nehru Centre in London on Sukanya, the opera that Murphy and Ravi Shankar collaborated on till Shankar’s death. You can read my review of the presentation here: http://www.indiainlondon.com/inventor-of-genius-ravi-shankars-opera-sukanya-previewed-at-the-london-nehru-centre/

I had ended my initial review by suggesting that I was looking forward to the actual production but I had not anticipated being invited to a select gathering. Following my review Murphy had graciously invited us to a highlights programme at the Royal Opera House (ROH) this week. The audience was perhaps more opera focussed than Indophile. But there were a number of leading Indian-English families there too. We were also joined by Shankar’s wife, Sukanya, who was in part the inspiration for the opera, and his daughter, Anouskha, who is a sitarist and a collaborator on the project.

Murphy began by taking us through the background to the project and how he had first met Ravi Shankar. Most of this is relayed in my earlier blog. Just to recap Sukanya is based on an excerpt from the Mahabharata and had been a potential project for Shankar for many years. He had wanted to combine Western and Eastern music, opera, dance and animation. Indeed Shankar had told Murphy that he were not a musician he would have wanted to be a film maker. Shankar had worked with Satyajit Ray on a number of projects. Tellingly Shankar did not distinguish between Western and Eastern music nor even a joint project as fusion, but just music.

The programme included four scenes from Act 1 of the opera Sukanya, which I understood has been the only Act completed to date. It also appears that Chaudhuri’s libretto is still in the draft phase. The Linbury Theatre in the ROH has a small stage and at first I thought the sheer range of performers would overwhelm the production but I worried unnecessarily. The Indian musicians, with the shehnai, whose sounds I love, sitar, mridangam and table, took centre stage, with younger musicians from the London Philarmonic Orchestra on either side, the soprano and tenor towards the front, and a dance floor.

I found the entire production utterly spellbinding, and some of the comments I heard beside me included “fantastic” and “brilliant”. Each of the Western and Eastern traditions took priority at times but when they combined there was a driving beat, and it did not seem incongruous, but in fact blended superbly. Equally the combination of a soprano and tenor together with Eastern music worked amazingly well. When the classical Indian dancers came on it was almost sensory overload, one almost did not know where to look. There was also the animations, created by 59 Productions, which were projected onto a screen behind, and some of the transparent walls between the performers. But the overall effect was of a production that was seamless and near flawless both in execution and quality. I am not an opera buff but I could recognise the high quality of the soprano (Susanna Hurrell) and tenor (Amar Muchhala). At times Muchhala sounded like a Qawwali singer which greatly added to the atmosphere.

It seems that the completed production will be performed at some point in 2015. I am anticipating seeing this work, with its unique combination of music, opera, dance and animation. My only caveat would be that perhaps this intimacy could be never be replicated on the larger stage; nevertheless worth waiting for.

http://ravishankaroperaproject.org/

www.davidmurphyconducts.org

www.amitchaudhuri.com

www.anouskhashankar.com