To everyone’s surprise, price tagged at $ 2 Billion, Antilla (named after the mythical island) is in India and is World’s First Billion Dollar Home. Indeed, like its name, it houses stuff that surrounds myth!

Owner is India’s richest, Mukesh Ambani of Reliance fame whose net worth was 43 Billion in March of this year and was the 5th richest in the world.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air.

When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing four years of design and construction, it will be 27 story and 550 feet high (height which normally houses 60 floors) with 400,000 square feet of interior space. Click on the picture to see the video.

However, all of this has not been without its share of controversies. Antilla is being built on land sold to Ambanis’ to be used as orphanage by Waqf Board.The land measuring 11793 sq yards was sold in 2004 by the trust for a charitable purpose of looking after the destitutes and orphan children belonging to the Khoja Mohammedan community. The land was given to the Maharashtra State Board of Waqf by Jivagi Raje Scindia in 1957. The MoU was signed with four companies namely Antillia Commercials, Saphire Realtors, Rockline Constructions and Baun Foundation trust.

The Waqf Board has told the Supreme Court that it sold the property thinking it was to be used for an orphanage and that commercial buildings are not allowed on Waqf land. Property having a market value of Rs 400 crore was sold only for Rs 21.05 cr to M/s Antillia Commercial, a company of Reliance group of Industries. Rs 16 crores were also paid to Waqf Board for No Objection Certificate.

The Supreme Court on Friday decided not to intervene in the construction of the building on Waqf board land in Mumbai and has directed the matter back to the Bombay high court.

Critics have also said that showing off such extravagant wealth in a country rife with poverty is insensitive and ethically questionable. This is excessive and ostentatious given that more than 65 percent of Mumbai’s 18 million residents live in tenements.

Features which have made it the world’s best:

• The first six floors will be reserved for parking alone, and that too for cars belonging only to Mukesh’s family. Space for a total of 168 imported cars has been earmarked here.
• Where possible, the designers say, whether it’s for the silver railings, magnificient crystal chandeliers, woven area rugs or steel support beams, the Ambanis are using Indian companies, contractors, craftsmen and materials firms.

  

• Elements of Indian culture juxtapose newer designs. For example, the sinks in a lounge extending off the entertainment level, which features a 65 seat movie theater and wine room, are shaped like ginkgo leaves (native to India) with the stem extending to the faucet to guide the water into the basin.
• The top floors of entertaining space, where Ambani plans to host business guests (or just relax) offer panoramic views of the Arabian Sea.
• No two floors are alike in either plans or materials used. If a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn’t be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition.
• Atop six stories of parking lots, Antilla’s living quarters begin at a lobby with nine elevators, as well as several storage rooms and lounges.
• Down dual stairways with silver-covered railings is a large ballroom with 80% of its ceiling covered in crystal chandeliers. It features a retractable showcase for pieces of art, a mount of LCD monitors and embedded speakers, as well as stages for entertainment. The hall opens to an indoor/outdoor bar, green rooms, powder rooms and allows access to a nearby “entourage room” for security guards and assistants to relax.

• On the health level, local plants decorate the outdoor patio near the swimming pool and yoga studio. The floor also features an ice room where residents and guests can escape the Mumbai heat to a small, cooled chamber dusted by man-made snow flurries. Each family member has a separate gymn here.

• For more temperate days, the family will enjoy a four-story open garden. In profile, the rebar-enforced beams form a “W” shape that supports the upper two-thirds of the building while creating an open-air atrium of gardens, flowers and lawns.
  
• Gardens, whether hanging hydroponic plants, or fixed trees, are a critical part of the building’s exterior adornment but also serve a purpose: The plants act as an energy-saving device by absorbing sunlight, thus deflecting it from the living spaces and making it easier to keep the interior cool in summer and warm in winter. An internal core space on the garden level contains entertaining rooms and balconies that clear the tree line and offer views of downtown Mumbai.
• Antilla’s shape is based on Vaastu, an Indian tradition much like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially through the building by strategically placing materials, rooms and objects. At Antilia, the overall plan is based on the square, which is Vaastu’s basic geometric unit, and a garden level occupies the tower’s midsection, the point where all energies converge according to the Vaastu Purusha Mandala.
• The 27-story building is eco-friendly, with hydroponically grown plants cooling the building and filtering its air, limiting the need for air-conditioning. With vertical gardens, you can use the whole wall almost like a tree and increase the green area of the site by five or 10 times over what it would be if you just did a green roof.

The four floors at the top, just below the hellipad that provides a view of the Arabian Sea and a superb view of the city’s skyline, is where Mukesh with his wife Neeta, their three kids and Mukesh’s mother Kokilaben, will reside. Nearly 600 people would attend to the six in the family.

The residence tower stands on Mumbai’s Altamount Road on an acre site where real estate costs as much as $1800/square foot. Mumbai is the densest city of India with almost 30,000 people per square kilometer.

The architects, Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates, the designers behind the Mandarin Oriental, based in Dallas and Los Angeles, were picked up by Nita Ambani, who was recently in news for being gifted a $59 million air jet by her husband on her 44th birthday! The jet, like their new home, was fitted with a plush bar with mood lighting, a master bedroom, showers and a state-of-the-art entertainment cabin.

The architects and designers say,”You are looking at the model for the buildings of the future.”

Read on:

Original Article At-

Shape of Now: Antilla Stands High As World’s First Billion Dollar Home

]]> http://helloji.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/ambanis-antilla/feed/ FabbiGabby Antilla as seen in artists sketch Balroom at Antilla Bathroom of Antilla Four Storey Columns Support the Garden Level Floor Plan of Health Level at Antilla Antilla is Ecofriendly Nita Ambani http://helloji.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/harsha-paints-a-social-repsonse/ http://helloji.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/harsha-paints-a-social-repsonse/#comments Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:54 +0000 FabbiGabby http://helloji.wordpress.com/?p=314

NS Harsha is a gifted story teller who captures everyday life from India as seen through the lens of news and world events on his canvas through the medium of paints and color.

Miniature art form is not unknown in India. In fact, it has been used through the ages to depict life from courts of kings to humble settings of huts or villages. However, Harsha has picked up this technique to bring to the world his observations of Indian society which at times are whimsical and at times absurd, or even tragic or significant on the world scene.

Perhaps painting is just a medium to express the philosopher and the thinker in him. Perhaps brush is Harsha’s tool in an attempt to bring a social change, and awareness and curiosity that surrounds humanity.

Through paintings or community installations, Harsha connects and engages the viewer in his thoughts as if together they are trying to find a solution to improve human condition in India or in world at large. He creates in each of his acrylic on canvas paintings intimate spaces that bring to mind the basic format of early cinema or theater halls usually found in small towns and villages. The narratives in Harsha’s satirical canvasses may unfold against painted backdrops as his figures - the Queen of England, school children, the quintessential Indian farmer figure, Hindu mythological characters, or sages and clowns - juxtaposed against them act out complex scenes before us. Painting delicate banners into his paintings, Harsha cleverly plays with text and words. Each of his works are witty, poetical, and at the same time a social response.

One of the works, Mass Marriage, which also won him UK’s prestigious 40,000 pound Artes Mundi Prize last week,at first seems a gentle and amusing narrative on Indian marriage around the world. But, on closer inspection, it also reveals loss, sadness and the complex nature of human relationships.

Rhodri Glyn Thomas, Wales’ Minister for Heritage said “I am delighted to congratulate N S Harsha on receiving this prestigious prize, it is a great achievement. Artes Mundi is an important initiative that brings together artists from across the world to engage in cultural debate and its theme of humanity allows it to capture the public imagination. The public response to the exhibition here in our National Museum, the artistic activity in communities across Wales and its work with schools and colleges is testament to that and it has become one of the highlights in Wales’ cultural calendar.”

Harsha, 39, studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda in 1995. Since then he has taken part in a variety of collaborative projects and exhibitions internationally including the Singapore Biennale 2006, the 2nd Fukuoaka Asian Art Triennial 2002 and the Asia Pacific Triennial of contemporary Arts, Australia 1999. Harsha beat off competition from eight other finalists, including a duo, to win the prize.

“I feel numb. It’s a great responsibility that’s been handed to me. Everyone believes in you and I have to take my work forward from here. It gives you strength to keep on believing. Though I have not thought how to spend the prize money, I do wish to share a part of it with the artist community,” Harsha, who lives and works in Mysore, said.

Hours after arriving in Wales last month for the opening of the exhibition of the nominees’ work, he painted a floor mural which was covered with scatter cushions to invite children to interact with his work (also seen in image on top).

The figures in Harsha’s delicate, sly and playful world are almost invariably focused on an event, animated by a mutual curiosity, pointing out something that is odd, incongruous or comically strange. For the viewer the wit resides as much in the scale of the depictions as it does in the finely summarized telling detail of the vignette.

Eleven years after she won the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things, 14 conversations (2001-2008 ) with Roy on her social and political activism appear in a new book The Shape of the Beast.

Even before The God of Small Things hit the world of fame, this female Rushdie of India attracted lot of media attention when she criticised Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen, based on the life of Phoolan Devi, charging Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning. For sometime Roy was involved as film script writer as well. She even tried her hands at acting in films. Not many remember but Arundhati Roy played a village girl in the award-winning movie Massey Sahib.

(Click on the Image for a Video of an Interview with Arundhati Roy on The Shape of the Beast).

The Shape of the Beast finds Roy fulminating against the 2002 Godhra genocide, empathising with the adivasis of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and venting against the military operations in Nagaland, Kashmir and Manipur.Through this book Roy has revealed both a personal and social journey.

“In India, people who are politically radical are socially conservative and those who are socially radical are politically conservative – and I’m torn between the two. It is about the same dilemma that I face as a writer. The book is somewhere between the spoken and the written word and answers fundamental questions”, says Arundhati, the architect turned writer.

In these conversations, Roy talks about the necessity of taking a stand, as also the dilemma of guarding the private space necessary for writing in a world that demands urgent, unequivocal intervention.

Five of the fourteen conversations are with David Barsamian, an American radio producer, who has also interviewed the likes of Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Tariq Ali. Couple of years ago, Barsamian and Roy had co-authored a similar book

The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy

Says Barsamian, “She is a strong, courageous woman and has strong thoughts, as do many of the others I have interviewed. She is also mischievous and has spoken candidly on a range of issues that have mattered to her, around her,” said David Barsamian, founder of Alternative Radio.”

In these writings Roy describes her participation in a Narmada Bachao Andolan as, “absolutely fantastic.” She jokes that her Supreme Court charge for “corrupting public morality”-in the case of her novel The God of Small Things-should have been changed to “further corrupting public morality.” She calls on her training as an architect to explain what she means by the “physics of power.” Like a house of cards, she argues that “unfettered power . . . cannot go berserk like this and expect to hold it all together.”

Roy is a spokesperson of the anti-globalization/alter-globalization movement and a vehement critic of neo-imperialism and of the global policies of the United States. She is very critical of India’s nuclear weapons policies and the approach to industrialization and rapid development as currently being practiced in India.

Arundhati Roy who is also vying with Salman Rushdie for The Best of Booker, is popular for her searching and fierce prose. People do await another work of fiction from this celebrated author. Since The God of Small Things (which is now published in 32 languages), she has published two volumes of her non-fiction writing, The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001) and An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire (2005).

(The Shape of the Beast published by Penguin in hardback cover is priced Rs 499)

Mahatma Gandhi never got an opportunity to visit USA and carry out a Peace Walk on its streets. But now he will.

Mahatma Gandhi has influenced leaders and people of America as much he did every where else. He kept special contact with people in USA through his letters to them. Gandhi was aware of his fan following amongst Americans. As he admitted in one of his letters to President Roosevelt in August of 1942-

I have in America perhaps the largest number of friends in the West - not even excepting Great Britain. British friends knowing me personally are more discerning than the American. In America I suffer from the well-known malady called hero worship. The good Dr. Holmes,33 until recently of the Unity Church of New York, without knowing me personally became my advertising agent. Some of the nice things he said about me I never knew myself. So I receive often embarrassing letters from America expecting me to perform miracles. Dr. Holmes was followed much later by the late Bishop Fisher 34 who knew me personally in India. He very nearly dragged me to America but fate had ordained otherwise and I could not visit your vast and great country with its wonderful people.

Dr Holmes had even gone to the extent of calling Gandhi ‘Christ of Today.’

Even today Gandhi lives and inspires people and leaders in USA, Obama having confessed already.

Just last year ‘American Gandhi’ was embraced with huge publicity in India and abroad. No, I am not directing your attention to Martin Luther King, but Bernie Meyer, who stayed in India for 50 days and carried out many a peace march in many countries of the world. He dresses up like Gandhi, and at the age of seventy does have lot of energy. Meyer thrust himself into activism in 1965 as a young Catholic priest after being raised in a Cleveland Ohio working class family. After raising a family of three, he now spends his time portraying Mahatma Gandhi and spreading the word of peace around. On his trip to India in 2005, he was lovingly given the name ‘American Gandhi’. He maintains a blog of his peace marches.

How many more Gandhis to come?

On May 1, Dermot Butterly will leave Los Angeles to walk across the United States dressed as Mahatma Gandhi, to remind many of the inspiration of Gandhi, and help “an extraordinary group of young people” in the small village of Soro, in Orissa India.

The funds collected during the march will help in building a school, a hospital, and also offer offer help to flood victims and orphans.

The little village of Soro, has been facing extreme poverty and floods. We are coming together to help them get by and build a center where the children can learn, so that they can help to improve the lives of their community…

…Along the way I will be sharing the inspiring words of Mahathma Gandhi, and helping to raise money for the children of Soro, India.

Butterly or rather Irish Gandhi is scheduled to arrive at the White House in Washington DC on November 5, 2008. Here is a video-

Nizam of Hyderabad, is Fifth on Forbes ‘All Time Wealthiest’ list of 2008 with Net Worth: 210.8 Billion USD. Bill Gates is twentieth, Net Worth: 101.0 Billion USD. This is a list of historical figures who lived during the Industrial age, Information Age, Middle Ages, Ancient world and is solely based on net worth accumulated by inheritance or personal earnings. The estimated net worth of these people is calculated into inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars, from when historical figures were at the peak of their net worth

Last Nizam of Princely State of Hyderabad and Berar, Fath Jang Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan Asaf Jah VII, was The Richest Man in the 1940s, having a fortune estimated at $2 billion. He ruled Hyderabad between 1911 and 1948 until it was made part of India as a result of Operation Polo launched by the Indian Government.

Nizam of Hyderabad even featured on the cover of TIME magazine. While rulers of other big states like Kashmir, Jodhpur Bikaner, Indore, and Bhopal were given the title of “His Excellency” (H.E.), the Nizam of Hyderabad alone had the title of “His Exalted Highness” (H.E.H.)

During the rule of Aurangzeb’s great grandson Muhammad Shah (1719-1748), the governor of Deccan was one Nizam-ul-Mulk. In 1723 he decided to carve himself a kingdom. Another Mughal functionary, Mubariz Khan had created a near independent state in Hyderabad, which was attacked by the Nizam in 1724. After forsaking his capital in Aurangabad, the Nizam moved to Hyderabad and founded the strongest independent Muslim state of the South.

Later Nizams played puppet pawns in the hands of the British and the French of Pondicherry. After French were defeated by the British, the Nizam of Hyderabad switched his allegiance to the British and ruled till Independence of India under British protection.

When India attained her Independence, and Sardar Patel was in the process of integrating India’s princely states, Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad decided to sought accession with Pakistan or declare independence. Hyderabad was the largest of the princely states, and included parts of present-day Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra states. Its ruler, the Nizam Osman Ali Khan was a Muslim, although over 80% of its people were Hindu. The Nizam of Hyderabad kept on changing his position and Patel could take no more.

Patel ordered the Indian Army to integrate Hyderabad (in his capacity as Acting Prime Minister) when Nehru was touring Europe.The action was termed Operation Polo, in which thousands of Razakar forces had been killed, but Hyderabad was comfortably secured into the Indian Union.

Post Operation Polo, Nizam of Hyderabad had lost all its powers, and was merely a ceremonial chief of the state.

Hyderabad, over the course of seven generations of Nizams, had become the richest state of the world. However, the world related most to its seventh ruler, Mir Osaman Ali Khan who is famous for his idiosyncrasies and wealth. He negotiated with the Portuguese in the 1940s to buy Goa from them. He owned world’s grandiose treasures but lived like a pauper, smoke cheap bidhis, and wear tattered clothes.

His collection of pearls alone could fill up an Olympic size swimming pool. He gained the famous Jacob Diamond - the 400 carat diamond, double the size of the Kohinoor and world’s fifth largest, through a famous ‘Diamond Suit’ in 1892. The Jacob Diamond was later purchased by the Government of India in 1995 after a battle of 24 years with the Nizam’s trust for an estimated $13 million along with other Jewels of The Nizams, and is held at the Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai. The value of Jacob Diamond alone is 100 million pounds. The seventh and last Nizam found the duck-egg-sized diamond hidden in his father’s slippers and used it as a paperweight.

Times reported on Feb 22, 1937 - Most news stories hung on the Richest Man are chiefly chatter about how careful His Exalted Highness is with his pennies — whereas $5,000 is his approximate daily income, his jewels have an estimated value of $150,000,000, he reputedly has salted down $250,000,000 in gold bars and his capital totals some $1,400,000,000, not to mention the fabled “Mines of Golconda…

…The cash Silver Jubilee gifts to the Nizam of Hyderabad, by his subjects were expected this week to total at least $1,000,000.

Nizam’s Jewels, valued at $ 250- $ 350 million by the Sotheby’s and Christie’s, date back to early 18th century to early 20 century. Crafted in gold and silver and embellished with enameling, the jewels are set with Colombian emeralds, diamonds from the Golconda mines, Burmese rubies and spinels, and pearls from Basra and Gulf of Mannar.

While India thought they had settled all deals with the Nizams and their 200 heirs, they are back in the news.

Osman Ali Khan nominated not his son, but grandson Mukarram Jah (born in France and had Turkish mother), to be the next (and last) titled Nizam of Hyderabad. Mukarram Jah could not take the battles over his grandfather’s wealth and escaped to Australia where in spite of having the best possible education money could buy (Harrow, Cambridge, LSE, Sandhurst), he run bulldozers, married and divorced five times, one of them being former Miss Turkey. He now lives in a two room apartment in Istanbul, Turkey.

Nizam of Hyderabad is reported to have impregnated 86 of his mistresses, siring more than 100 illegitimate children and a sea of rival claimants.

However, Jah has not been able to escape it all. He has four sons and a daughter from his five wives. The eldest of them, Azmet Jah , a cameraman in Hollywood who has worked with Steven Spielberg, Richard Attenborough, Nicolas Roeg , hopes to come back to Hyderabad.

“I am determined to maintain what has been saved. We’ll not make the same mistakes again.”

His mother Esra has been visiting Hyderabad and overlooking the work of restoration of Palace Chowmahalla which was compared to the Enchanted Gardens of the Arabian Nights.

India is now on its way to make a final deal with the Nizams. Today, Government of India agreed for an out-of-court settlement with Pakistan and descendants of Nizam of Hyderabad. Mir Osaman Ali Khan had on September 20, 1948 transfered one million pounds maintained in the account of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s government in National Westminster Bank to an account of Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, the then Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain, as the Nizam dithered over which of the two new nations to join. He then cabled the bank to freeze the transaction when pressured by the government of India.

In 1957, after several rounds of litigation between the Nizam and the Pakistani government, the case reached Britain’s House of Lords, which ruled that the account could only be unfrozen with the agreement of all the parties. (Click on Picture on Right for the document).

The amount has grown to about 30 million pound sterling and New Delhi intends to broker a compromise with the two heirs of the Nizam of Hyderabad and Pakistan. Will it be easy?

Mr Muhammad Safiullah, cultural adviser to the Nizam’s Trust, said,”Mir Osman Ali Khan’s grandsons Shahmat Jah, Mufakham Jah and Mukarram Jah, granddaughter Fatima Fouzia and other family members have all staked claim to part of the funds. Since there’s no Nizam government now, the Nizam’s trust and his legal heirs will also get a part of the money. The ruler wanted to help the nascent Pakistani government in 1948 as it had no money to pay even the salaries of its employees.”

Nizam’s heirs do not wish to share the money with either India or Pakistan. “The money is ours and we alone are the legal heirs. Once the matters become clear, we will lay claim,” they say.

Almost sixty years after Independence, and 37 years after Indira Gandhi abolished the Privy Purses, our fascination with the fortunes of India’s maharajahs and nizams has not abated it seems!

Click on the picture to see some recent pictures of the royal family’s visit to Hyderabad.

“In the silence of the night when I take a break from my work, and sit alone in the balcony, I see a young boy with a bag on his shoulder and a drawing board in his hand. Black clouds cover the sky while people take shelter from the rain, but the boy sits on the steps of the monument under an open sky - and the rain pours. The streets are full of crowds and everyone is running. He does not know for what? He is sitting on the huge iron pipes at Metro Railways, placed on the mud hills on the sides of Park Street. He sits for hours - from evening to midnight - with no one to ask for any explanation! Freedom?

A feeling, which he cannot explain but which makes him wander and sketch even late into the Durga Puja evenings. He has a desire to be involved with color and brush, an interest to see people with their peculiarities. He even has a pain for ruined houses, the whisper of their doors and windows. These keep taking this boy away from himself towards an unknown world. He is walking in the silence of the night with his bag on his shoulder and a board in his hand; he goes far and fades away.

The fire of the cigarette touches my finger and shakes me. I put it off and stop introspecting. I make believe that I am still that young boy painting innocently. I sit before my blank canvas and go ahead with my work.”

These are the words of the young phenomenon, Sanjay Bhattacharya, who took the art world by storm barely a decade or so back and is regarded as one of the youngest masters of the Indian art scene today.The exquisite detail and form, the delicate treatment of light and shade, the absolute realism in his paintings are nothing but sheer ecstasy for the viewer. He had the rare distinction of being the only artist below forty who could sell his art in the open market at fabulous prices.

He refuses to be restricted by the limitations of media, but embraces freedom in an evocative manner to speak to the viewer about the drama in the lives of people, be they hunched and crowded in cities like Kolkata or spread in the hinterland. Sanjay Bhattacharya has painted in oil, water color, acrylic and has in recent past did sketches. But like most artists from Bengal he too is known more for water colors and oil works. Sanjay’s figurative images are quite close to those found in the works of the Dutch realist painters or the French 18th century painters.

Sanjay’s brush has the power to command President(s) of India and other political personalities to sit still for hours . His brush with the political personalities began with the late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, whose wife Sonia Gandhi commissioned to him a series on her late husband for the India House in London. After which President Shankar Dayal Sharma and President KR Narayanan expressed desire to be portrayed on his canvas.

Sanjay’s passion is to capture the drama around real life in which intimate objects figure more prominently. He plays with architectural elements to evoke reality. Like old, vacant houses. “They are of great interest to me. They tell me stories of people who lived there, who loved there, or fought there. There is a lot of colour and texture in their decaying walls, if only we took the trouble of seeing them,” says Sanjay.

His love for Kolkata is written clear on his canvas. There is Kolkata decaying, Kolkata the city of dilapidated palaces of the 19th century rich, Kolkata of the faded British grandeur. He paints and writes. His poetry has been published with the name “Visual Rhapsody”.

Student of realist painter Bikash Bhattacharya, Sanjay has surpassed the guru and has been able to cast a magic spell on each one whose eyes have taken a glance at his works. Sanjay has participated in many national and international shows and coordinated with artists, musicians, theatre personalities and did immense number of shows. His work have thus found its space in many noteworthy public and private collections in India and overseas.He endeavors to blend the inner and outer realities, or maybe confront one to another.

“How do you judge a civilisation? Kings may be forgotten, but art is remembered. The names of those artists who created that art too may not be known, but their work stands the test of time. And in this is the crux of the matter,” believes Sanjay Bhattacharya.

Says Sanjay, “If I ever write my autobiography, the last line will be: My entire life I was fed by the blind and the fools. My father used to say that you who don’t study, will learn form the sign boards. And this is what happened. All through my life I studied life through the signboards strewn across the path of my life.”

To the Hindus, the Himalayas are central to their cosmology. The peaks are the petals of the Golden Lotus which lord Vishnu created as a first step in the formation of the universe. On one of these peaks - Mount Kailash, sits Shiva in a state of perpetual meditation, generating the spiritual force that sustains the cosmos. Of the three worlds–patala (netherworld), prithvi (earth) and swargalok (heaven)–only Shiva lives on this planet and Mount Kailash is his abode.

Apparently Mount Kailash was discovered by king Gurlamandhata, after whom the highest Mt. Gurula (Mamonani) is named. At 22,027 ft, is said to have been formed 30 million years ago during the early stages of the formation of the Himalayan chain. In geological terms, Kailash stands alone, the world’s largest deposit of tertiary conglomerate.

The Vishnu Purana (approx 200 BCE) described how the world is made up of seven continents ringed by seven oceans — “The central continent has Meru at its core, bounded by three mountain ranges to the north and three to the south. One of these ranges is the Himalayan barrier, interposed between Meru and ‘Bharatha’, the Indian subconti­nent. Meru, the center, is Mount Kailash.

Mount Kailash has been one of the greatest mysteries for cartogra­phers till about 1800. All they knew was that there stood a sacred mountain, an Asian Olympus of cosmic proportions. This mountain was said to be the navel of the earth and the axis of the universe and from its summit flowed a mighty river that fell into a lake, and then divided to form four of the great rivers of Asia.The earliest European record dates to 1715, from an Italian Jesuit called Ippolito Desideri, who passed Kailash on the way to Lhasa. John Rennell, the ‘Father of Indian Geography’, in his 1782 map of Hindu­stan, followed the Hindu belief that the Ganga had its fountainhead beyond the Himalaya at the sacred Manasarovar Lake, that the Ganga flowed south till the “great chain of mount Himmaleh” and forced its way through a trans-Himalayan tunnel. It was only in 1812 when Hyder Jung Hearsey and Dr William Moorcroft crossed over the Niti Pass and surveyed the Mana­sarovar area that this geographical inaccu­racy was corrected.

Mount Kailash is situated in Tibet where it is given the dignified title of Kang Rampoche meaning ‘Precious Jewel’. Near Mount Kailash, during the geological shift in the initial stages of the formation of the Himalayan mountain chain four rivers arose from the area, flowing in four different directions : the Indus flowed north, the Karnali south, the Yarlung Tsangpo flowed east and Sutlej traveled west.

“Man likes to be at his best, but often nothing short of a Himalaya peak can extract it from him–can compel him to be fittest in body, alertest in mind and firmest in soul. So he is drawn to the mountain and the mountain makes a man out of him,” wrote Sir Francis Younghusband who had subjugated Tibet for the British and conquered the peak of Kamet.

Mansarovar was first created in the mind of Brahma. Both Kailash and Manasarovar find mention in the Skanda Purana, Vishnu Purana, Rama­yana and Mahabharata. Mansarovar, at 14,950 feet and area of 320 km is one of the highest and largest fresh water lakes in the world.

The lake is majestically calm and dignified like a huge bluish green emerald or a pure turquoise set between the two mighty and equally majestic silver mountains, the Kailash on the north and the Gurla Mandhata on the south and between the sister lake Rakshas Tal or Ravan Harda on the west and some hills on the east.

Parikrama of Mansarovar and Mount Kailash are not just an athletic feat. It is said that after its parikrama, one is freed from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. In the parikrama of Kailash (Kongrigpoke) one has to walk 55 kms. and its highest point is Dolmapass at 19000 ft. This pilgrimage has been undertaken for centuries, and was only briefly stopped between 1959-1980.

“There are no mountains like the
Himalaya, for in them are Kailas
and Mansarovar. As the dew is
dried up by the morning Sun, so
are the sins of mankind dried up
by the sight of the Himalaya.”

-Skanda Puran

Next to Mansarovar, there is another lake called Rakshas Tal. It is spread over the area of 225 sq. km. Here demon king Ravana worshipped Ashutosh Shambhu, that is why it is called Rakshas Tal or Ravanhrid. There are two beautiful islands within Rakshas Tal. A narrow hill separates Mansarovar and Rakshas Tal. A small river called Ganga-Chu joins both the lakes. Satlaj, Sindha Brahmputra etc. famous rivers originate from this region.

There are eight Buddha Gompas situated on the banks of Mansarovar. There is a vast Plane called Barkha on the north side of Mansarovar. Darchen is on the North side of Barkha. Kailash Parikrama starts from Darchen.

The journey to abode of Shiva is 1,800 km from Delhi and back, of which over 400 km are done on foot or ponyback. Mount Kailash and Mansarovar are called Kangrinboque (The Sacred Mountain) and Mapam Yumco (The Sacred Lake) respectively by the Buddhists. The Jains claim that Adinath Rishabhdeva, their first Tirthankara, attained his nirvana here. Padmasambhava, who took Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century, spent the last seven years of his life in this region. Bonpa, the ancient Tibetans, see a nine story ’swastik’ in it and consider it an abode of Damchauk and Dorge Phangmo. For believers of Hinduism, Jainism, Tibetan, Bongboism and Buddhism it is center of the world.

The management of this yatra is done by Ministry of External Affairs in Indian region through Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam, and Tibetan tourism agency in Tibet respectively. It can cost you around Rs 35,000. You can undertake this pilgrimage only after you have cleared all medical exams. It is a 26 day trip.

Today you even have the option of ‘Quick Kailash’ or ‘heli-Kailash’. Yes, aerial parikrama!

Son preference in India is a well documented fact and its implications on skewed sex ratios, female feticide and high child morality rates is no news either. For over a century India has shown marked gap in the number is boys vs girls born each year. With technological advancement this gap is only increasing.

Indians worship the goddesses in temples but kill their daughters at home. Preference for boys over girls is driven by these factors:

• Sons are expected to provide emotional and social care to parents especially in their old age as well as are responsible for their lineage while daughters will go away to other families. It appears sons compensate for the lack of social security in India.
• Only if the son light the funeral pyre can the parents ascend to heaven.
• Sons add to family wealth and property, whereas daughters will drain that in the form of dowry for marriage.
• Sons will protect the parents whereas daughters have to be protected.

Economic prosperity and growing awareness has not reduced Indians’ love for sons. Education to women has increased the number of sex-selective births. The kind of discrimination daughters will face in the family is a direct result of the sex of her older siblings. Girls with two or more elder brothers will be treated much better than a girl with an older sister.

Preference for boys has also resulted in girls being undernourished, not vaccinated, uneducated, subjected to child marriage, abuse, and a life with inferior rights. Preference for son is deeply inbred in Indian society and girls are looked upon as objects of liability to the family and society.

Even religious scriptures speak of value of sons born to a family. Manu Smriti, dated in the second century AD, which notes, “She is a true wife who has borne a son.” Another ancient text, the Atharva Veda, states, “The birth of a girl grant elsewhere, here grant a son.”

Although Hindu law officially provides daughters with equal access to property under the Hindu Succession Act of 1956, that law is easily superseded by several edicts of Hindu religious law. For example, a woman’s access to property is dependent on her father’s consent, whereas all Hindu sons have indisputable access to family property. Hindu law also notes that married women have absolutely no rights to reside on family property after marriage. In addition, whereas married daughters are considered to be part of their husband’s family and are not expected to monetarily support their own parents.

Sex selective abortions have added fuel to fire. Parents while going through abortions have been heard to say to the unborn girl,

‘We do not need you; send your brother.’

Advertisements like these are common -

It is better to pay 500 Rs. now than 50,000 Rs. later

(in dowry for the girl child at marriage)

It is difficult to ascertain statistics concerning female infanticide as this practice is carried out in remote areas and, it is assumed, never reported.

These trends are not only prevalent amongst Indians living in India but even those residing abroad.Countries like UK and USA which have significantly large population of Indians are showing skewed sex ratios. A new 2000 Census has revealed this new development since 1990 Census. US parents have been known to prefer daughters over sons. Here are some statistics:

Gender Requested by Adoptive Parents

70-90% Girls, 10-30% Boys

Gender of Children Awaiting Adoption in U.S. Foster Care
Same ratio reported for 1998, 2000, and 2001

48% Girls, 52% Boys

Gender of Children Adopted from U.S. Foster Care, 1971-2001

64% Girls, 36% Boys

Gender of All Adopted Children in the U.S. Under Age 18
According to Year 2000 U.S. Census

53% Girls, 47% Boys

The new trends in US population ‘’suggest that in a sub-population with a traditional son preference, the technologies are being used to generate male births when preceding births are female,” co-authors Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund said of their findings, appearing in edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The normal sex ratio at birth is 1.05 boys to 1 girl and that holds for first children of these families, the researchers found. But if the first baby is a girl, the odds of a boy coming next rise to 1.17-to-1, and after two sisters the likelihood of having a son jumps to 1.51-to-1.

About fifty million women are missing in Indian population due to feticide, infanticide, and dowry murders. Realizing the crisis Indian Government has now launched cradle scheme which is an attempt to stem the practice that has killed more than 10 million female fetuses in the last two decades, leading to an alarming imbalance in the ratio between males and females in India. Under the plan the Indian government will set up a series of orphanages to raise unwanted baby girls in a bid to halt the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses.

In addition the girl child would be provided an insurance cover of 100,000 rupees at birth and the rest of the incentives would come to a cash package of about 200,000 rupees.

What is the future of Indian society? Even if the imbalance is met will Indian women ever experience gender equality? The question remains unanswered.

PBS: Missing Girls of India

Some Facts:

• India is the only country in the world where age bar for alcohol consumption is 25 years.
• It is illegal to directly or indirectly advertise alcoholic beverages in India.
• Hinduism declares alcohol consumption as one of the five heinous crimes and is comparable to murder and adultery. A drunkard is a dead body, say the scriptures.
• Broadcasting Bill of the country prohibits screening of smoking and drinking scenes and are categorized as adult.
• A prerequisite to become a congressman is to abstain from alcohol.

Mahatma Gandhi had canvassed total prohibition, and the Constitution of India endorsed, adopted, and imposed total prohibition in 1977. It lasted only two years leaving behind a few dry states like Mizoram, Manipur and Gujarat, and a couple of ‘dry’ holidays like Gandhi Jayanti and Independence day.

Yet Gujarat is one of the highest alcohol consuming states, and also the land where Malt Marches have been held to free the state of the prohibition. According to senior police officials in the state and the prohibition department, liquor smuggling business is worth more than Rs 200 crore in Gujarat and there are at least 1500 habitual offenders (in prohibition) in Ahmedabad city alone.

All Indians may not be able to afford imported wine or whiskey but they are offered a range of domestic beer like tharra, toddy, or India Pale Ale. It is not surprising to hear about drunk monkeys, elephants or even drunk rodents in India. Alcohol consumption tends to begin at age 16-18 in India and peak at 30-35. India’s 18-35 year age group is currently 247 million strong and growing at 3.4% per annum. With a net addition of another 40 million to this segment over the next five years, alcohol demand will aggregate 40 million cases over FY05-10, it added.

Alcohol consumption in India has increased by 106% in past two decades.The World Health Organisation has been constantly warning India against its ills and wants the ministry to bring consumption of alcohol under control in India. Currently, India - the world’s largest whisky market - buys 1% of the spirits and 15% of the wine it consumes from foreign suppliers; rest are domestic suppliers. India, with a wine market growing by 30% annually, represents a huge - and still largely unexplored - business potential in years to come. India’s wine market at 5 million euros, makes up less than 1 % of India’s 1.3 billion euros alcobev market.

“The entire country is drunk during New Year and Christmas. This is definitely not our culture. We are trying to ape the West and it’s ruining our health. Once awareness campaigns against alcohol are launched and I&B bans surrogate ads, consumption is bound to fall,” says Union health minister A Ramadoss.

With the alcbev industry being one of the largest tax contributors to any state government’s coffers, there might be even bigger difficulties in curbing the alcohol industry that has seen steady growth in the country.

The wine consumption in India is set to treble by 2011 to touch 17 million litres per annum. This is according to a study conducted by UK-based International Wines and Spirits Records (IWSR).

India’s wine magazine Sommelier recently interviewed Rt. Hon. Mike Rann who feels that India is a very hot market for alcohol consumption in spite of the highest custom duties in the world.