like THATONLY By Manjul

Taking off from where I left the last time thenhere are a few quick ways how you can be-come a sommelier.

Start a Wine Club: Nothing can announce you asa veritable vino faster than this. Gather somefriends, get a gaudy business card proclaiming your-self king of all things wine this side of Alpha Cen-tauri, fool some unsuspecting wine supplier intohanding you a few bottles, serve some, sell the rest,click lots of pictures, put it on a website or Facebookor both, and wait for the invites to turn up.

Organise a Wine-something: Dinner, tasting,soirée, gala, fest — let’s just collectively call them‘shindig’. So what if you started out being an eventmanagement outfit; all is acceptable, unless it isunacceptable, in which case reword it.

Buy a Pin/Badge: Iam sure that pet shopssell sommelier pins. Ifnot yet, then they soonwill and it would lieright next to the warn-ing signs: “Warning,sommelier on the loosein this restaurant”.The social animalswouldn’t mind gettingthemselves a nifty littlewine badgeroo whilegetting some Fido-feed.In fact, they have agreat deal in the offing where in exchange for yoursoul and integrity they give you a shiny pin shapedlike a corkscrew, an euphemism for what verb-ac-tion you are meting out to the real sommeliers.

Print a Certificate: The fake passport/driver’s li-cence/ration card racket will soon be found to beless lucrative than this one because the agentsstand to make far more money for much lesserwork. Aim for gothic fonts; they always look moreconvincing. Claim titles that make it seem as if youdon’t just taste wine but create the grape itself.

Travel Abroad: I think it is accepted in India thatif, during your foreign travels, you cross a wineshop or transit through a wine-making country orjust somehow manage to touch the in-flight drinksservice trolley which had some wine stocked in it,then you are, for all purposes, a sommelier. If youhave worked on a cruise then you are a grand som-melier. And, if you studied abroad, then you aredefinitely good enough to teach others back here.

Cross-mesh References: This is a neat trick. Onceyou have anything that could remotely connect youto wine, join a modest set-up. A small winery, animporter, whatever. From there, the rise is easy. Aslong as you come from something that resemblesa wine outfit, people will hire you. Why? Becausethere aren’t many qualified wine professionalsaround, so anything half resembling a sommelierwill do. If you ask me, the only thing in greatershortage than such self-baked sommeliers areprostitutes and drug-peddlers with a sense for hon-est business practices. Oh wait, you never asked.Now you know, nevertheless.

But you know what folks, I laud each and everyone of these “counterfeit catadors” (Spanish for‘taster’ and I had to use it for reasons of allitera-tion). Consider this the epiphany of one of the dy-ing species, but if they managed to turn even onenon-vino to wine, no matter how much they cheat-ed the system or true sommeliers, they still un-knowingly rendered a service to the wine world.But I just thought that you, dear reader, shouldknow the difference. Next time you attend a lousysession, don’t be too quick to blame wine. Instead,just know that you have been served a tasting por-tion of un-sommellerie!Email: s_magandeep@dnaindia.net

Tigers are being killed well within the Ranthambhore reserve

Suparna Thombare

Ibelieve that a city’s nightlife speaks a lotabout the spirit of the people and the place.I had heard a lot about Berlin as an emerg-

ing nightlife destination in Europe fromfriends, in online reviews and travelogues. SoI signed up to take the pub crawl to check it outfor myself when I got there.

We reached the square in front of the desig-nated cafe to start the pub crawl. It was close totwo degrees and the wind chills weren’t help-ing either. My friend and I were wrapped in lay-ers from head to toe but still couldn’tbeat the chilly weather. Beer was thelast thing on our mind. But in keepingwith German tradition, our welcomedrink at the crawl was a pint of Berlin-er. Shivering with cold, we gulped it down.Germans drink beer— come rain, come snow,they just drink beer!

Our guide was a young Australian girl whohad fallen in love with Berlin and stayed back.During my visit I heard many stories of peo-ple who had stayed back in this city. Not be-cause they got good money or good jobs, butbecause they fell in love with Berlin. Most ofthe city’s buildings and facades of monu-ments were rebuilt in heritage style and itwas hard to tell that all this was just 20 yearsold. Rents were low and life was comfortable.Berlin’s unpleasant past with Hitler andWorld War II seemed to have made the localsmore helpful towards and acceptable of out-siders.

Our crawl group was a complete mix, justlike the local population. First, I noticed abunch of loud Irish men who had come to thecity for a bachelor party. Second was a groupof Dutch men, relatively quiet and soft spo-ken.Our guide told us that Berlin pubs are openall night,smoking is allowed inside and you caneasily take one for the road if you don’t finishyour drink when you leave the pub. That’s as

free as it can get for a partygoer, I thought. Sowe hit the first pub. It was a dimly lit, tiny wa-tering hole.Everyone ordered another beer andgot a free round of two shots. I noticed a guyfrom Israel. He had had a fight with his friendand decided to join the crawl alone. Well, fromthe way he was sulking I thought he was gayand had had a tiff with his boyfriend. Anyway,we got to hear a lot about his views on the Pales-tine problem, and how nightlife rocked in TelAviv too.

The only German in the group was a 20-year-old boy named Victor (he could drink

legally at that age) and in typical Ger-man style he had taken it upon him-self to make the visitors feel comfort-able. Two more rounds of shots andwe were set for the next destination.

We got out and as we walked across the road, Ifelt warm enough to get rid of my jacket. I guessit was all the alcohol but I wasn’t complaining.

After we left our next pub, we realised howalive the streets were. The city seemed trans-formed in the night. There was no obvious dis-tinction between East and West Berlin. But indaytime, dark history was everywhere — in

museums, on roads, in the last existing stretchof the Berlin Wall and in the holocaust memo-rials.But at night,everything changed.The citywas modern and futuristic.

In the next pub, two Irish guys introducedthemselves as Sara and Michelle and that’swhat we called them all night. We danced, tookpictures, shared stories and Victor got usdrinks. The Israeli guy was no longer gay be-cause he danced like a man!

We left the last club wearing only T-shirtand jeans. And we walked the empty streets ofthe city with the joy of going sans layers ofclothing after freezing in the first two days ofour Berlin visit. That’s when we understoodwhy Germans drank so much beer!

And when we woke up the next morning,we were confused as to exactly how many pubswe had gone to. We didn’t remember the nameof a single one. It was all a haze. Apart fromthe momentary loss of perception, the toughGerman names had a lot to do with it too! Butwhat we did remember were Sara, Michelle,Victor, Tel Aviv and the Berliner. I guess Berlinnightlife does rock after all.Email: t_suparna@dnaindia.net

Night out in Berlin — and how

Conning conservationFashion shows in Europe and America

are tied to seasonal offerings. Henceautumn and winter, spring and sum-

mer collections are de rigueur. Along withthe cat-walks and show-stoppers, Indian fash-ion too seems to unthinkingly follow the Eu-ropean pattern. One wonders why Indianfashion designers and show managers do notwant to infuse some indigenous ideas tomake fashion a little more vibrant and giveit the much-needed desi branding. After all,fashion cannot mean Italian and French de-sign patterns being adapted through Indianfabrics and to Indian preferences.

The general lament that what you see onthe ramp cannot be worn on the sidewalk isslightly impertinent because haute coutureis essentially a statement of passion, imag-ination, extravagance and opulence. Whilemaking high street fashion accessible at thedowntown market is a business proposition,what is more relevant is whether India’s fab-ulous resources, not just in terms of fabrics,but in terms of climate, can be made into aleitmotif of design as well.

It is surpris-ing that therainy season,which is such aninalienable partof the Indiancalendar, doesnot inspire amonsoon collec-tion among ourdesigners. Itcould andshould inspiredesigners tothink of ways of

getting drenched in a downpour withoutlooking downright bedraggled. Then there isthe famous, or infamous, scorching Indiansummer which should prove as much of achallenge to the fashion designers’ imagina-tion as the rainy season. The renownedgauze-like Dhaka muslin is an example ofwhat the fabric can be made to do to meet thedemands of weather. A similar raiment re-sponse is the Lucknowi chikan.

If one digs a little more into the Indianmode beyond rains and summer, the design-ers should be able to discover the traditionalsix seasons celebrated in Sanskrit and otherIndian language literatures, the most well-known being Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara, whichis a description of grishma (summer), varsha(monsoon), hemanta (early winter), shishir(late winter) and vasanta (spring). Each sea-son should lead to a collection, and there couldbe six instead of four European collections.

This is not exactly a case for going nativeor striking a note of cultural nationalism.This should be an exercise in giving Indianfashion its own resonance, which will makeit an attractive player on the world stage aswell. The saree, the wrap-around of all sea-sons, is getting much attention from design-ers and the gliterrati all over the world. Toadd seasonal motifs to Indian fabrics will notonly make Indian fashion exotic, but alsogive it that niche value which is the hallmarkof sound business.

Need for abetter mix

Vol. 2 Issue No.238■ Executive Editor: R Jagannathan ■ Editor: Dwaipayan Bose

■ Printer & Publishers: Kamal Kant Sharma ■ Printed at Jaipur Printers,Shivdaspura Railway crossing, Tonk Road, Jaipur and

published at 10 JLN Marg, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur (Rajasthan) ■ Phone 0141-3988888, Fax 0141-2712216 ■ R.N.I. No.-RAJENG/2008/24805

another TAKE

The first page of The Los An-geles Times on Friday was agarishly multicolored imageof Johnny Depp as the MadHatter in Alice in Wonderland,superimposed over what lookslike the usual front page.

Above him is the Los Angeles Times banner,and bracketing his face are recent articles. Itwas an ad that looked in part like the frontpage of The Los Angeles Times, as the news-paper once again tested the accepted limits ofwhere ads can blur the boundary with news.

Broadsheets have generally shunned adsthat are made to look like part of a publica-tion’s front page. But traditional limits onadvertising have relaxed as newspapers strug-gle to cope with steep ad decline. “This isn'tnewspapering as it used to be,” says GenevaOverholser of the University of Southern Cal-ifornia’s journalism school.Richard Pérez-Peña, New York Times

Acceptable limits

Yet again, Ranthambhore is in the newsfor all the wrong reasons. Two sub-adulttigers were found dead last Sunday and

the forest authorities accepted that the big catsdied due to poisoning. This was the latest in aseries of mishaps that have cost Ranthambhoreat least seven tigers in the past three years.

As the news spread, officials within and out-side the forest department quickly swung intoaction. First, they told the media thatRanthambhore’s tiger population had reachedsaturation mark and that the surplus tigerswould always be at risk when they moved out.They also claimed that the only way to avoidsuch tragedies would be to shift these tigers toSariska and blamed the Centre for putting thetiger translocation process on hold. Next, theypointed fingers at a few local hoteliers who didnot want tigers to be moved to Sariska as few-er tigers in Ranthambhore would hurt theirbusiness interests.

To be fair, a lot has changed for the good inRanthambhore over the past five years. Thetiger population has bounced back inRanthambhore since 2005 when the reserverecorded just 26 tigers. Today, the numberstands above 40. But Ranthambhore tiger re-serve is spread over 1,300 sq km — too large anarea to become crowded with 40 tigers. Cor-bett National Park, for example, has more than150 tigers in as much area. So how did the stateforest bosses claim that Ranthambhore was

over-populated? Obviously, by Ranthambhore,they meant Ranthambhore National Parkwhich is just a small part of the RanthambhoreTiger Reserve.

Most of Ranthambhore’s tigers are insidethe prey-rich, well-protected 300 sq km nation-al park area. The rest of the tiger reserve —about 1,000 sq km of Sawai Man Singh sanctu-ary, Kela Devi sanctuary and reserve forests —is not protected at all and, therefore, has no nat-ural prey left. Tigers have little option herebut to feed on cattle and, in turn, invite retri-bution.

When the forest authorities say that tigersare moving out of Ranthambhore to die, tigersare only moving from one part of the reserveto another. The latest poisoning deaths were re-ported from Taldakhet, a small village in KelaDevi sanctuary and very much inside the tigerreserve. It is indeed shocking how a 1,000 sq kmtiger forest has been surrendered to grazingand encroachment and accepted by the forestauthorities as death zones.

After the Sariska lesson, authorities shouldhave tried to restore the entire reserve as primetiger habitat. Next, they should have goneahead to reclaim the corridors to Kuno in Mad-hya Pradesh to Ramgarh Bisdhari sanctuarynear Bundi for natural dispersal of tigers. Un-fortunately, they have just given up on these ar-eas and are now seeking to save tigers by air-lifting them to Sariska.

And therein lies another example of con-servation myopia. The tiger translocation pro-

gramme has been put on hold in Rajasthan af-ter three siblings were arbitrarily picked upfrom Ranthambhore to repopulate Sariska.Recently, the Centre ordered DNA tests to as-certain the breeding compatibility ofRanthambhore tigers before translocatingthem.

This embargo has further irked the state for-est bosses who were already at loggerheadswith the Centre in 2008 when National TigerConservation Authority made it mandatory topick up only floating sub-adults for transloca-tion. Tigers seek out individual territories bythe time they are three and a settled tiger, ifmoved, only tries to return.

The catch is that identifying and tracking afloater takes much longer than picking up a res-ident tiger. On top of that, the order for DNAtests has only made state forest officials moreimpatient. Good science is a must for the suc-cess of the world’s first wild tiger repopulationdrive in Sariska. But good science is often la-borious and time-consuming. So many inJaipur seem keen to exploit Ranthambhore’sfatalities to fast-track airlifting of tigers toSariska. They have even offered an imaginativetwist to this Centre-state tussle by involving “asection of Ranthambhore’s hoteliers”.

Indeed, the Ranthambhore tourism lobbymay have the clout to engage conservationistswho can influence the policies of the Union gov-ernment, but the hoteliers have little reason fortrying to plot such an ambitious conspiracy.Even if the Centre decides not to wait for theDNA test results and allows the state to resumeshifting tigers to Sariska, the 2008 directives ne-cessitate that only floaters be picked up.Ranthambhore’s tourism zone is inside thenational park area occupied by resident tigers.How can removal of tigers from non-tourismareas affect the chances of tiger sighting andtourism in Ranthambhore?

It is time to get real. The forest authoritiesneed to focus on hard ground management in-stead of taking short cuts. For starters, theycould set a deadline for reclaiming the entireRanthambhore reserve area for the tiger. If pro-tected, Ranthambhore’s 1,000 sq km death zonewill make for a bigger tiger habitat than all ofSariska (681 sq km). Guess what, tigers do notneed airlifting if they can walk free, and safe.

The author is an independent journalist and filmmaker

Jay Mazoomdaar

OPENCITY

Separatingfake from real

Counterfeitsommeliers are a dime adozen — buteven they aredoing their bitfor the wineworld

Fashion showsshould be anexercise ingiving Indianfashion its ownresonance andmaking it anattractive player

Jaipur, March 13, 2010

WEEKEND VIEWS 10I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritisand I don't deserve that either. —Jack Benny

www.dnaindia.com, epaper.dnaindia.com

Not a word about pricesLet me join the chorus of congratulations thatare being showered on Congress president So-nia Gandhi for getting the women’s quota billpassed in the Rajya Sabha and paving the wayfor “...articulate/upper-caste/upper-classwomen to grab the levers of power ...” (‘Changein the air’, DNA, March 11) and contributetheir mite to the progress of the nation. But asI think of rising prices and my daily battle forsurvival, I find my sense of elation reduced inno time. I see nothing on the horizon to war-rant hope of any relief from the spiralling costof living, not even the hollow assurances ofour politicians. Let it be said that our top pri-ority for the moment should be to arrest theprices of at least the basics and make life live-able.—Arundhati Wajge, Pune

The weaker sex?In the historic Rajya Sabha vote providing for33 per cent reservation for women in Parlia-ment and state assemblies, what was amazingwas the incredible camaraderie among the Leftand the Right parties (‘It’s done: Women’s billover the hump’, DNA, March 10). What I don’t

understand is what prevented our womenfolkfrom equipping themselves to compete withmen in the electoral process during the last 60years of India’s existence as a vibrant repub-lic where there were absolutely no restrictionsfor them to excel? When women are in the topechelons of all spheres of life, do they needreservation in government?—KP Rajan, Mumbai

IIIt is unfortunate that the policy of reservationhas taken deep roots in independent India. Theintention behind reservations was to right so-cial wrongs. The policy, instead of promotingthe right to equality, has become a gesture ofbenevolence. The time has come to take stockof the situation and decide whether to abolishquotas and give legitimate rights to worth andtalent and thereby bring equality in society, orhang on to the benevolence of the state.—RM Deshpande, Navi Mumbai

Modi matterThe ‘secular’ media seems to be euphoric overthe summons being issued to Gujarat chiefminister Narendra Modi by the Supreme

Court-appointed special investigation team(SIT; ‘Eight years after Godhra, the law calls onModi’, DNA, March 12). In the process, it ap-pears to have overlooked the snail’s pace atwhich the wheels of the legal machinery movein the country. First, the SIT is not the judici-ary. Second, even if the SIT finds incriminat-ing evidence against Modi, would that deprivehim of his constitutional right to appeal?—Arun Malankar, via email

Climate reviewIn reference to ‘UN orders review of IPCC’swork’ (DNA, March 12), it is heartening to notethat the independent scientific body includesa scientist from the Indian Institute of Science.The problem with the IPCC is that it has beenfunctioning more as a one-man panel. The In-ter-Academy Council that has been entrustedwith this job will do well to look critically atthe IPCC’s methods of data collection, analy-sis and interpretation, and the soundness of itsrecommendations. There is also need for an in-ternational body comprising geographers andglacial geologists with a brief to study climatechange and glacial-retreat.—V Subramanyan, Thane

Letters: lettersjpr@dnaindia.net

Short public memoryWith the passage of the Women’s Reserva-tion Bill in the Rajya Sabha, sycophancy inIndia has touched a new low with all andsundry falling over themselves to compli-ment Sonia Gandhi for her “skillful han-dling” of the matter (‘Sonia steels party tocounter Yadav trio’, DNA, March 10). Pub-lic memory is indeed very short for it wasthe very same Congress under the leader-ship of Sonia Gandhi that had stalled theNDA government’s repeated attempts topass this bill.—MR Hosangady, Mumbai

—Ravi Jadhav

INBOX

buzz WORDreservation rez-er-vey-shuh n

The Women's Reservation Bill beingpassed in the Rajya Sabha■ The act of keeping back or setting apart

■ A limiting condition or exception. Eg: Hehas reservations about the proposal

■ A tract of public land set apart for a special purpose

■ An arrangement to get accommodations ata restaurant or hotel, on a boat or plane.

■ The record of such an arrangement

bestCELLARSMagandeep Singh