Breaking "news".

Your correspondent has been boring you to distraction for quite a while with the Chronicles of The Mankars at 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://tinyurl.com/48tnw4. Now he has some "news" for you to get all breathless in Bombay (now Mumbai) about. It concerns the conquest of the Fort of Baçaim (later Bassein, now Vasai) by Chimaji Appa, a Maratha (Peshwa) General in February 1739. In the success of this expedition, Khanduji Mankar, a Pathare (Pratihar) Prabhu, and Antaji Kawale, a Yajurvedi Brahmin, were believed to have played a pivotal though unspecified role. The latter was even promised the jagir of Malad but, after Bajirao I's and Chimaji's death, the new Peshwa reneged on the promise and made life miserable for the Yajurvedi Brahmins and their associates, the Pathare Prabhus. The latter community migrated to Bombay and joined the service of the Company.

In Chapter 6 of Madame Helena Patrovna Blavatsky's From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan (1879-80) http://tinyurl.com/5l3zb7, she wrote about visiting a Patara Prabhu household in the Bombay Presidency for an evening meal on a Monday (probably a shrawan Monday). A vegetarian menu, including panchamrit, a favourite of Ashu's usually included in a Pathare Prabhu marriage feast, was mentioned. According to her host, Sham Rao Bhaunathji, the Pathare Prabhus were Kshatriyas (warriors) and direct dscendents of Ashvapati (700 BC), a lineal descendent of Rama. Ashvapati was cursed, because of an unintended lapse, by Sage Bhrigu that all his progeny would perish. He, however, managed to get a part reprieve from the Sage and the Pataras became the Patans (the fallen ones) but did not entirely disappear from the face of the earth. She writes about how their current generation was living "by their pens" which is to say "occupying all the small Government posts in the Bombay Presidency, and so being dangerous rivals of the Bengali Babus since the time of British rule. In Bombay the Patan clerks reach the considerable figure of five thousand. Their complexion is darker than the complexion of Konkan Brahmans, but they are handsomer and brighter."

Blavatsky did not mention, indeed did not seems to be aware of, an alternative interpretation of the prefix Patan. It has been postulated http://tinyurl.com/6sacz7 that the prefix probably sprang from their hailing from Patan, Gujarat, and arriving in Bombay in the 13th Century during Raja Bhimdev's (or Bimb's) reign. Another theory by the art historian W E Gladstone Soloman http://tinyurl.com/3fnunj is that, in Marathi, Pathar means "table land" or flat land and these people occupying the plains of Rajasthan came to be known as Pathare Prabhus. Raja Bhimdev created twelve Kshatriya Lords (Prabhus) of the Solar Race with surnames like Ajinkya (= the invincible), Dhaiyarwan (= the courageous), Dharadhar (= the supporter of the earth), Dhurandhar (= the foremost), Gorakshakar (= the protector of cows), Jayakar (= the victorious), Kirtikar (= the illustrious), Kothare (= the administrator or manager of the store house/granery), Mankar (= the noble one), Nayak (= the leader), Rane (= the kingly lord) and Rao (= the noble lord). These surnames persisted even after they lost their warrior status and became minor officials under the Marathas and civilian officials under the East India Company. "If the sword had brought them glory, the pen now gave them wealth, and it is said that in the Eighteenth Century they were among the richest folk in Bombay." Around this time, the easy going and luxury loving Pathare Prabhus must have been nicknamed sokajis. http://tinyurl.com/3tx9dm. (The closest English equivalent for this tag is a bon vivant as well as a fop or a dandy.) Later in the British Raj, they held important offices in the Bombay Presidency as judges, educationist, lawyers, doctors, merchants, architects, artists and engineers. This account tallies with Blavatsky's.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Pathare Prabhus were reputedly the owners of prime properties in Mumbai: in Fort, on Palav (now Girgaum Road or Jagannath Shankarseth Marg), in Navi Wadi, in Laini (now Princess Street), on Girgaum Back Road (now Vithalbhai Patel Road), in Malad, Goregaon, Bhayendar, Kashi-Mira, Uttan, Uran, Kelve Mahim (now Mahim), Chene and a large part of Khar (West). They were also supposed to have built prominent Mumbai landmarks such as the Mahalaxmi Temple, Bhau-cha-dhakka (Ferry Wharf), Gora Ram Temple, Kala Ram Temple (both in Thakurdwar close to where I stay), Prabhadevi Temple (Mahim), Shri Ram Temple (Kalbadevi) and Kirtikar Market (Dadar). The Maheshwari Temple in Navi Wadi http://tinyurl.com/4grxkp (enshrining the Mankars' family deity) is believed to have a swayambhu (spontaneously created) idol. The one trait of the Pathare Prabhus mentioned by W E Gladstone Soloman http://tinyurl.com/3fnunj (p.49 ), the composing and singing of epithalamiums during the marriage ceremony, is something I can personally vouch for. Written in flowery and hagiographic Marathi, I have heard them at several weddings sung to the tune of the mangalashtakas (mantras solemnising the nuptials).

Finally, Dr Babsaheb Ambedkar wrote in Annihilation of Caste with a Reply to Mahatma Gandhi about the Pathare Prabhu's abandoning their custom of widows remarrying as follows:"At one time the Pathare Prabhus had widow-remarriage as a custom of their caste. This custom of widow-remarriage was later on looked upon as a mark of social inferiority by some members of the caste especially because it was contrary to the custom prevalent among the Brahmins. With the object of raising status of their community some Pathare Prabhus sought to stop this practice of widow-remarriage that was prevalent in their caste. The community was divided into two camps, one for and the other against the innovation. The Peshwas took the side of those in favour of widow-remarriage and thus virtually prohibited the Pathare Prabhus from following the ways of the Brahmins." http://tinyurl.com/4dp6lc.

Time out for a personal memory before closing: At one point in her narrative, Blavatsky wrote: "At the foot of a broad, carved staircase we came across a couch or a cradle, hung from the ceiling by iron chains." This sentence reminded me of the wooden swing we used to have in the central north-south passage way in our terrace flat at 233 Khetwadi Main Road. It was rectangular with horizontal slats, made of teakwood most likely. It hung from a special beam halfway from the ceiling - I have no clue if it had been there before we moved to the flat or not, though considering that the building was originally built and owned by an Arab diamond merchant, it's more than probable that it predated us there. The swing had four brass chains. One more thing I remember about it is that it had an almost identical twin in my uncle's ground floor flat facing the Roxy Cinema http://tinyurl.com/6hfxxx where I was born. Our swing used to be my make-believe Deccan Queen. I used to play a game of Bombay to Poona on it all by myself, varying the speed and the sweep of the swing depending on whether the Queen was running on level ground or doing the ghat gradients.

Irani Cafés and I.

Right from my childhood at 233 Khetwadi Main Road in South Mumbai http://tinyurl.com/48tnw4 to this moment, Irani Cafes have been a part and parcel (takeaway?) of my life. At least three of them from those good ol’ days are extant just a five- minute walk away from my childhood home which unfortunately is extinct. The closest to the now non-existent centre of my erstwhile existence, New Yazdani Restaurant, diagonally across Dreamland Cinema http://tinyurl.com/4qyypb is now a liquor bar. This restaurant used to be a regular first port of call whenever I accompanied my father to the nearby Grant Road market, usually on a Sunday morning. I used to coax at least a rupee worth of boiled sweets out of him every time. A minute away from New Yazdani is Café Mazda Restaurant at the corner of Pauwala (literally unleavened bread maker) Lane and New Charni Road (now Raja Ram Mohan Roy Marg). I don’t remember ever stepping into this eatery as a child or as a grown-up, come to think of it. In the opposite direction on the same road http://tinyurl.com/3wbmt3 at about the same distance is Cosmopolitan Restaurant & Stores at the junction of New Charni Road and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Road (earlier known as Sandhurst Road). We used to sometimes do emergency shopping there: eggs, butter, loaves of pau (unleavened bread) supposedly a Bombay specialty, khara (salted) biscuits and stuff like that. Its next door neighbour is Famous Pharmacy under the same Irani management. The distinguishing mark Cosmopolitan and Famous shared was Mr Muchchad (Rustom Khodabux Irani), the unsmiling but jovial man with a gargantuan moustache who worked behind the counter at both the places. We used to rib him about his proud possession. He took it in his stride unsmilingly.

The Irani Café we Mankars occasionally went to on weekends was Café Darayush, quite close to the Central Cinema. http://tinyurl.com/3qwbcg. Now it is a liquor bar, restaurant, bakery, pastry shop, all-in-one. In those days (I’m talking 1940s), they used to serve home-made ice cream made in a hand-cranked ice cream maker. Darayush then used to have “family rooms” with swinging half doors allowing a measure of privacy to courting couples. Marathi short stories of that era have quite a few references to this feature of the Irani Café.

Later in the 70s, an eatery much favoured by courting couples as well as Blitz’s Rusi Karanjia http://tinyurl.com/4zb3n9 was the open-air one storied Café Naaz on top of the Malabar Hill. Commanding an awe-inspiring panoramic view of the Queen’s Necklace, it used to serve piping hot mutton samosas to die for and even beer. Naaz closed just at the fag end of the last millennium. http://tinyurl.com/44dzbz.

Going back a few decades, though, guess what scuttlebutt of yore offered as the inside secret of the refreshing Irani chai? Opium lacing, believe it or not. About as convincing as the use of pau to pollute well water and convert those who drank it to Christianity, what?

That brings me to the all-time favourite Irani Café of mine. Café Excelsior opposite the New Excelsior Cinema near the Victoria Terminus (now Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus). Although they serve decent Mughlai and Chinese fare, my favourite dish there is the simple Mutton Sandwich which I take away often enough even now.

My other favourite takeaway Irani café is Sassanian for mutton and chicken puffs and garlic bread. I started frequenting it after the closure of Bastani opposite Kyani at Dhobi Talao where I used to buy this stuff earlier http://tinyurl.com/426k4wl.

If you’ve been wondering why this Bombay bloke has not mentioned even once brun pau (hard brown bread) smothered in maska (butter), the Bambaiya fad food for slumming preferred by the denizens of Page 3, the answer is he simply doesn’t fancy it. But somebody close to him does. Yes, whenever our son Ashutosh, who lives and works in New Jersey, drops in to see us, one of his must-visit spots is Sunshine Café at the junction of Babasaheb Jayakar Marg (Old Thakurdwar Road) and Jagannath Shankarseth Marg (Girgaum Road). That’s very close to where we live now. This restaurant with an attached beer bar also sells bread, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, pastry and so on. We shop there occasionally.

And, if you haven’t still had had your fill of my geographically, chronologically and palatably mapped memories, here is the parting shot. About eight months after I joined Everest Advertising (October 1976) situated in Kitab Mahal behind Café Excelsior, I fell ill. During convalescence, I grew a beard which is extant even today albeit in an abridged avatar. This is what came out of a close encounter of the real kind in an Irani café immediately after the said beard’s debut:

a case of mistaken identity
summarily dismissed

i met a woman
with gaps in her grin
mad enough to mistake
me for saint francis

my bald pate and beard
were the clues
she said

i soon showed her
the error of her ways
by refusing to grant
her the boon of a measly
cup of tea

surely i argued
saint francis’s munificence
cannot stoop
so low

P.S.: Famous last words supposedly heard in a Mumbai Irani café: “Khaya piyaa kuchch nahin. Sirf galas todaa. Barah anna.”] [“Ate-drank nothing. Only broke a glass. Collect 12 annas.]

Copyright © 2008 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved.

[This is my article posted at http://www.iranichaimumbai.com/ on 04.06.2008 reproduced here. At that website, you’ll find pictures relevant to the text as well.]

Purely archival. In anticipation of certain arrivals.

Now that the Mankars from New Jersey are coming to visit us – Aditi will arrive on Saturday, 7 June; Ashu the following Saturday; Avantika and Nandini, Saturday following that – I serendipitously found an old piece I had written about their Kunuchacha on 5 March 2005 in my now defunct Hindustan Times column, QuiteATake.com column. http://tinyurl.com/52cz7o. I thought I would put it here in anticipation of the girls’ arrival. Read on.


Kunal, Avantika's – or Tika's as the "spunky monkey" likes to call herself these days – and Aditi's uncle won the Filmfare Best Director Award for HumTum on Saturday, February 26, 2005. February 26 also happened to be Tika's twelfth birthday. Kunal proved second time lucky on that very day. HumTum was his second directorial venture, you see, after Muzse Shaadi Karogi. We were all rooting for him, of course. He was telling Ashu and Ujwal and his mother Yash just a couple of evenings before the awards night that there was simply no chance of his winning. Maybe, that was his way of mentally preparing for the unknown. Do your best and be ready for the worst.

From what I've seen of him, I've always found him to be a cool, no-nonsense sort of a guy. Ashu was telling me that despite shooting his movies at exotic locations abroad, he never overruns his budget. When he received the Scene of the Year Award, Sonali Bendre mistook him for Kunal Das Gupta. Maybe he looked more a denizen of Bhadra Lok to her than the Mumbai-born Punjab-da-puttar that he is, a Kohli.

This, I reckon, is a symptom of how low profile he is. (For instance, Saturday's Bombay Times covered all the leading contenders but somehow overlooked him.) I'm sure Kunal will go places and – what's even more important – handle success humbly and diplomatically like the cool dude that he is. He has a good sense of humour, which gives him a sense of proportion too. And, he isn't the least bit hypocritical unlike most of Bollywood. Here at movies.dcealumni.com you'll find a bit about Kunal's next project.


P.S.: Kunal’s new movie, Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, is due for an early release, I understand. He has smartly put an article on Wikipedia already .http://tinyurl.com/4dcojs. I’m sure he will be using all the social networks as well.

LOL. In the good ol' days.

Chi(ntaman) Vi(nayak) Joshi (1892-1963) must have been quite a brilliant man. Televiewers all over India came to know him as the progenitor of Chimanrao. This middle-class protagonist from pre-Independence Maharashtra made his debut on Doordarshan in the late 70s (1977 - 1979) in the epinomous Marathi serial. A week back, I was fortunate enough to pick up seven of Chi Vi's books from the Peoples Book House, Cawasji Patel Street, close to Flora Fountain, at what I thought was a bargain price. Chi Vi was a Professor of Pali and a student of the world-famous Pali scholar and associate of Gandhi, Acharya Dharmanand Kosambi http://ddkosambi.blogspot.com/search/label/Dharmanand%20Kosambi. He had worked for quite a long time in the erstwhile princely state of Baroda. What's impressive about him is that not only did he write excellent humourous prose but also he could cogently explain the theory of humour. In fact, the introduction to his book, Na Maro Pichkari (= Don't splatter me with colour/Don't spew betel juice on me), first published in 1960, is about the types and origin of comedy/humour. What also impressed me about Chi Vi's humour is that it is based on his keen observation of social phenomena and his perceptive commentary on what he has seen and experienced. While reading his Aamchaa Pan Gaon (= We too have a village), which turns the popular simple-honest-villagers-versus-crafty-venal-city-folks paradigm on its head, I was a bit surprised by something he wrote on the topic of cottage or home industries in the village, Harangaon (= Deer Village?). One of them, a hand-operated grinding wheel, was run by Saloobai, a low-caste widow. The time of the narrative was 1941-1943. Mumbai and Pune were then believed to be under the threat of Japanese bombardment. A lot of the residents of these cities had decided to migrate to their villages until the peril passed away. Anyway, Chi Vi wrote that Saloobai's was the only grinding wheel left in the village. I found it a bit odd because I clearly remember that, at home, i.e., at 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/07/morgue.html, we used to have a grinding wheel in daily use till as late as the mid-50s. That was in Mumbai, a metropolitan city. Given his accurate observation and reportage, though, my guess is he probably was stretching the point a bit. The other thing he mentioned that triggered a wave of nostalgia in me was a shopper at the weekly village bazaar planning to buy a tiny bit of opium for her child. I remember my father once nonchalantly offering me and Ujwal a miniscule black ball wrapped in a translucent tracing paper to help either Ashu or Abhi sleep. That we did not put it to medicinal use is another matter. Apparently, it was an acceptable practice to him. For all I know, I may have been an unknowing opium eater as an infant. Interesting thought, that. Two more things I remember about Chi Vi were two Marathi comedies, Lagna Pahave Karun (= Try getting hitched) (1940) and Sarakari Pahune (= State Guests) (1942) both based on material from his Chimanravache Charhat (= The long-winded tale of Chimanrao), first published in 1932. Both were directed by Master Vinayak http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0898521/ and had the cross-eyed Marathi comedian, Damuanna Malwankar playing Chimanrao and VS Jog as his body-builder cousin, Gundyabhau. I vaguely remember watching them either at Central Cinema near the Girgaum Portugese Church or Roxy Cinema near Royal Opera House.

Impressionism, mon amour.

The centre ‘Quote of the Week’ panel in the 11 April 2008 issue (Volume 4, Number 2) of The Playgroup News tells us what happened in Ms Christa’s class. I quote from her report verbatim (including the number of dots):

Ms. Christa: What was so important about Monet’s paintings?

Class … pondering ……

Anika: Light, light was important to Monet.

Ms. Christa: That’s right. You are on it today, Anika.

I don’t know if Ms Christa listed for Anika’s class the distinguishing characteristics of “Impressionism”. This 19th-century art movement got its name serendipitously from the word coined by Louis Leroy in the course of his satiric comments in a leading art journal on Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant, 1874). Apart from brushstrokes discernible to the naked eye, open composition, everyday subjects, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience as well as unusual visual angles, perhaps the most important is the emphasis on light in its changing qualities – often accentuating the effects of the passage of time. “He pretended that he did all his work outside and on the spot, when actually he sketched rapidly in paint, then carefully finished his canvases in his studio. He even used photographs on occasion, furtively, and was furious when he was caught in the act in London while adding details to his series of pictures of the Houses of Parliament,” writes Christopher Benfey (‘Still Waters’) http://www.slate.com/id/2929/. Having no safety net in the shape of aristocratic patronage as did Degas, Manet, and Berthe Morisot, he was a cautious crowd pleaser. That doesn’t in any way degrade his work. It was first class all the way. A beacon light, shall we say?

Now, a Degas-Money-Van Gogh joke (‘Stealing the paintings') with Anika’s permission. Actually she ought not to mind living and growing up as she does in the land of the automobile.

Recently a guy in Paris nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre. However, after planning the crime, getting in and out past security, he was captured only 2 blocks away when his Econoline ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied: "I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh." http://www.ahajokes.com/pun09.html

P.S.: Here’s what I wrote to Avantika in the e-mail sending her the pdf of The Playgroup News:

Hi, Avantika. This is most amusing. Please download it and show it to Ashu and tell him we remember him talking like this as a child when he was about Armaan's age and we took him and Abhi to Jacob's house. (Jacob was an Art Director working with me in Clarion-McCann and had a ceramic studio in the same building where Yash has her office. In fact, I used to see her in the neighbouring studio of Dayaram Chawda one of whose pictures she has hung in her drawing room.)

Rock-a-bye baby.

At the foot of my bed is a steel cupboard. As I lie in bed reading, I sometimes lower the book and look up. My eyes fall on the very special baby rocker stored on top of it. This rocker was specially made when I was born in 1936 in my uncle’s house opposite the Roxy Cinema close to the Royal Opera House. At that time, my father was a Presidency Magistrate presiding at the Girgaum Police Court one the top floor of which the Mankars resided at that time before they moved to 233 Khetwadi Main Road. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/08/family-car.html. The rocker is a rectangular cage open at the top with columns on three sides and two poles at the centre of each of the shorter sides. There is a detachable strip on top resting on two knobs at the end of the poles. The aforesaid poles extend downwards and are fitted with two crescents at the floor-level end that allow it to rock without losing its balance or stability. The wood is of an excellent quality and the craftsmanship is so intricate and exquisite that the final effect is what you would call a work of art. You put a baby bed in the cage, cover it, add pillows and bolsters to make the baby safe and secure, slip a mosquito net over the top strip. Quite ingenious, what? Apart from me, several other babies have been rocked to sleep in this rocker. My three nieces: Rekha (now in New Zealand), Shubhada (still in Mumbai), Dnyanada (now a medical practitioner in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), our sons Ashu and Abhi as well as Ashu’s younger daughter Avantika (now in the US of A one and all) are the ones that readily come to mind. It’s possible that the rocker may have rocked many more infants in its seventy and odd years on Planet Earth. (In fact, Ujwal says she can think of at least two more occasions when the rocker went to homes of strangers.) Of the seven known babies it rocked, five now happen to live abroad. This may be no more than a coincidence, of course. I remember the name-giving (christening) ceremony of Ashu. The father’s and the mother’s respective sisters “give” out, i.e., announce, the names chosen by either side. (In Ashu’s case, the two names were Ashutosh, a name of Lord Shiva, and Ashish = "benediction".) Before that, the baby is lifted by one of the aunts and passed to her counterpart from under the bottom of the rocker – a somewhat dicey and risky procedure as far as the poor infant is concerned. I remember seeing this curious rigmarole on six occasions, five of them at 233 Khetwadi Main Road.

Armaan: Student of the Month.

Yesterday night, Armaan told Ujwal and me over the phone that he had been selected Student of the Month. Great news, we told him. Congratulations, we said. He is truly a focussed student and, when not distracted by something or the other, he excels himself in school work. Crediting his success to the Mankar genes is a great temptation. I suspect, though, that it may not be the whole truth. (Is anything else for that matter?) Thinking about it this morning took me to my childhood at 233 Khetwadi Main Road. I was a student first at Sirdar High School http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/09/first-day-in-school.html in the 12th Lane, not more than two minutes’ walk from 233 Khetwadi Main Road once you climbed down the three floors. I was never overly eager to go to school, a reluctant scholar at best. I took to English “like duck to water” as the cliché goes. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/05/english-yes-english-grammar-no.html. In my first school where I spent seven years, I used to stand first most of the time. I also authored most of the content of the handwritten magazine in Marathi for my class. (I remember one issue where I had featured a novella of the swords-and-sorcery genre.) Later, when I enrolled in the Wilson High School also in the same neighbourhood 15 or 20 minutes’ stroll from 233 Khetwadi Main Road, my grades started slipping. This was by no means because I had suddenly grown dumb but because now the pond was larger with many more smarter fish. In my new school too, I was a reluctant scholar, not too keen about studies and not at all keen about games. I was timid, tongue-tied, well-behaved by default. I made very few friends. I remember one more thing that amazes me when I look at the way the kids who come to Ujwal for tuitions study so diligently and ferociously. I did not study all that hard. Ashu and Abhi were unlike me, probably took after Ujwal. They went to a far better school than either of us. They were outgoing and had large circles of friends and did well at studies without missing out on extra-curricular activities. I remember hordes of their pals coming home and Ujwal cooking loads and loads of food which they polished off in a jiffy and asked for more like Oliver Twist. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-is-happier-maybe-maybe-not.html. This memory comes to you by courtesy of Armaan Sood-Mankar, Student of the Month.

The black buck stops here.

I am not for capital punishment. In fact, I’m against any sort of punishment. I don’t think it works in changing behaviour. So, I am not a part of the whisper campaign that goes: Do unto Salman as he did into the black buck: shot her legs and slit her throat with a knife. My view has nothing to do with his giving away pedal bikes to street urchins or a Rs 25-lakh Mercedes to a fellow artiste or a lakh of rupees for the medical treatment of the Dalit poet who called Mumbai a whore once upon a time. To retract a bit, I first became aware of his propensity to give away pedal bikes sometime towards the end of the last millennium. On my way back from a business trip to Colombo, I had broken journey in Bangalore to visit Ashu, Nandini, Aditi and Avantika in their Koramangala residence. Salman was then shooting a David Dhawan flick there. Nandini, Aditi and Avantika had gone to watch the shooting. Avantika who used to be quite a smart tot caught Salman’s eye and fancy. Pat came a mock marriage proposal with a pedal bike thrown in as an additional incentive. I remember calling the gesture “cute” and “sweet” like everyone else. All this happened before the poor guy’s sadistic steak made a public showing: manhandling girl friends, mowing down street dwellers, slitting the throat of a member of an endangered species and who knows what else. And, yet his colleagues and fans – who, I’m sure, are all honourable men and women – say that he is a victim of celebrity, a much misunderstood person, a benefactor of humanity. Maybe I’m mistaken but I happen to strongly feel one ought to side with the Bishnois and Maneka Gandhi here.