The Attenborough heirlooms
Brothers in caste, creed & deeds...

(column by Anu Gulmohar)

They are perhaps the most famous brothers in the living memory of the British; where one was labelled as the most trustworthy public figure in a poll; the other claims the same faith among his peers and admirers of his school of work. Though their life’s work has been dedicated to subjects as different as chalk and cheese, their single-minded obsession with the same, is a direct give away to the fact that these two stalwarts are kinsman in spirit as much in body.

While Richard Attenborough, born on August 29, 1923, was the eldest of three siblings, David Attenborough was three years his junior and the middle child. Their father, the principal of University of Leicester, set high benchmarks for his three sons. Where Richard, a laggard in studies, wished to pursue acting, he set him the challenge of winning the much sought after Leverhulme drama scholarship from The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. David on the other hand faced the test of winning the open scholarship in order to attend the natural science trips at Cambridge. And so they set forth upon their journey uphill, though opting for two entirely different trails.

An 18-year-old Richard made his professional debut on stage and a year later in 1942, he enacted the role of a deserter in, In Which We Serve. From there on he would go on to epitomise the English wimp in the chunk of his films of the next two decades. He pursued roles of darker hues too, such as that of Pinkie the Hoodlum in Brighton Rock (1947). He also starred in Satyajit Ray’s 1977 movie – Shatranj Ke Khiladi. In 60s, he divided his attention between acting & production and along with writer/actor Bryan Forbes, he set up Beaver Films. In the late 60s, he began to direct movies too and his very first – Oh, What a Lovely War! – garnered much acclaim. Three more directorial ventures followed in the 70s followed by his magnum opus Gandhi (1982), which bagged three Oscars, including one for Attenborough as the Best Director.

Unlike his brother, David showed no inclination in getting in the front or at the back of the camera and completed his graduation in 1942 in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University. He started out editing children’s science text books & in 1952 he moved to BBC. Initially, he became a producer in the Talks Department; the head of his department disapproved of his teeth, which discouraged him to get in front of the camera but it wouldn’t be long before he managed to produce and present the three part series – The Pattern of Animals – during the making of which he met Jack Lester. The result of that association was Zoo Quest, which upon Lester’s illness, Attenborough would go on to anchor. As the show steadily rose to become Britain’s most popular wildlife show, so did Attenborough’s career graph. In 1952, he became responsible for introducing his countrymen to colour television as Controller of BBC2. Eight years after he took on editorial responsibilities of both the BBC networks as Director of Programmes, he grew jaded of his routine and decided to introduce some colour into his life too – he resigned and returned to making programmes! Based on South Asia’s natural history, Eastwards with Attenborough became the first of several series that include the 1979 13- part series, Life on Earth, his ode to Antarctica – Life in the Freezer (1993) – among many others. v Old age hasn’t slowed down the Attenborough brothers at all. In his 70s, Richard starred in movies like Jurassic Park (1993), Miracle on 34th Street (1994) & Elizabeth (1998). Going strong in his 80s too, his latest directorial offering, Closing the Ring, will premier on September 14, at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Equally robust, 2000 witnessed David Attenborough in State of the Planet, which focussed on the environmental crisis and more recently in Sharing Planet Earth that aired on June 24, 2007.

The Attenborough brothers have received many prestigious honours too, where Richard was knighted in 1976, Sir David was awarded the Order of Merit in 2005. On the face of it Richard & David Attenborough are siblings who couldn’t be more disparate and though their routes differed, their final destination was the same – the hearts of their audiences and the minds of generations to come.

(End of Anu Gulmohar column)

Tilt the hilt of tilting!
The might of knights kept alive through jousting...

(column by Swati Hora)

Virtues of courage, justice & kindness blended with honour and brewed with hearty amounts of courtly love concoct a personality trait irresistible to the ladies. Albeit now steadily on the decline, chivalry was once a code of conduct and thus, a way of life for knights in the medieval ages. It also is perhaps solely responsible for the perpetual longing in women for their ‘knight in shining armour’, which after all is, a history proven possibility. These days the closest the ladies can get to ‘knights’ is at The Lulworth Castle from July 22 to August 28, 2007, which provides a medieval village setting for Jousting Shows, and there Knights of Lulworth battle twice everyday.

A European sport from the medieval times, jousting celebrates the valiancy of knights. Two armoured knights with a weapon in one hand (most oft en a lance), perched upon their steeds, ride towards each other aiming to un-horse the other. Where the lance is made of wood (solid oak in the past), the stunt of un-horsing the opponent was known as tilting. Armed with a weapon (lance, dagger, axe or a sword), the combatant doesn’t get many chances for performing except for three encounters in each phase.

During yesteryears, the game wasn’t as popular in martial sports category but once it was introduced in the tournaments, there was no looking back. The castles and palaces were improvised by adding a tiltyard for holding jousting competitions. The game soon started to render huge sums to the knights who took up the challenge of participating in this dangerous game. Hungry for riches, Henry II of France and many others lost their lives. That could be one crucial reason why the International Jousting Association, which governs modern day jousting, gives no points for un-horsing the rival and awards it instead for breaking the tip of the wooden lance.

While Chronicles of Froissart give a written account of medieval jousting, the same can be seen and experienced in today’s Renaissance fairs and festivals. Those who get intrigued by the courage and romance of the Middle Ages shouldn’t miss the feats of arms by the Knights of Lulworth, though no more performed for rescuing dainty damsels in distress!

(End of Swati Hora column)

Renaissance returns
Celebrating 60th year of cultural independence

(column by Anu Gulmohari)

Edinburgh is a charming city, with the medieval style architecture of the Old Town, the sea gulls and the cobbled road leading to the Edinburgh castle. While bagpipers keep the romanticism of the place alive through the year, summer sees a burst of performers and tourists. In step with the tradition, started in 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival kicked off on August 10 and will be on till September 2. A festival that was started 60 years ago, post the Second World War, to allow people’s spirits to heal and bloom, is today a bouquet of 10 odd festivals that includes the Military Tattoo, the Fringe, the Book, Film, Politics, Television & Jazz festivals. Attracting over three million tourists, the festival today has become serious business for the state, and it also has become the prototype for festivals around the world.

There’s classical opera and theatre at the International Festival, comedy shows at the Fringe and performances of the Military Tatoo. Celebrities are common and A list stars like Tom Hanks have already been spotted. From dark cabarets like Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea to previews of Alan Bennett’s satirical novel The Uncommon Reader, it’s all happening at Edinburgh.

(End of Anu Gulmohari column)

Sin City
Fallen women from pleasure paradise

(column by Shashank Shekhar)

“One never quite knows where evil, i.e., the vice squad is lurking in this business. The misogynists get a real kick out of surprising (shocking) you girls, when you give them the opportunity!!! . . . Therefore, you are to lock, double lock, triple lock all doors!!! . . . Figure it out, before they ‘get cha’!!!,” wrote Miz Julia in one of her ‘business tips’ to the 132 women who ‘worked’ around Washington for her firm Pamela Martin &. Indicted by a jury on federal racketeering charges Miz Julia, a pseudonym for Deborah Jeane Palfrey, is a woman who ran a high end – $300 an hour – “erotic fantasies’ service for the ‘Public Servants’ of Washington and a woman who draws an exact parallel to the Everleigh sisters of Karen Abbott’s debut non-fiction title Sin In The Second City Madams, Ministers, Playboys, And The Battle For America’s Soul.

In a sense, Abbott’s queer historical manuscript is a chronicle of times, a departure from the ‘history’s mysteries’ series to real flesh and blood tales of lowland Chicago. It transcends to the days of criminal glory of Chicago at the turn of the last century. A city notorious for having become a melting pot of crimes and for setting up of perhaps the most assured venture known to mankind – of bordellos. But here’s a den with a difference. For it’s a den run by the famous Everleigh sisters – Minna & Ada – of whose very mention spells a certain degree of class, a $50 entrance fees and opulent parlours where guests follow a code and wine replaces the reek of any hard liquor.

The sisters, on their part, perforated Chicago’s notorious Levee district – an equivalent of our red lights – by means of a porous thin sheet - successfully tucking away their past behind that veil and leaving most to ponder about. In particular for Abbott, the trace proved quite unnerving for at best she had Minna Everleigh’s dictated allegories to one Charles Washburn, who authoured Come Into My Parlor based on those parables that oft en ventured around unwarranted schmaltzy. But surely they reached the gates of Chicagoland from rural Virginia and were said to have fled abusive marriages “to vicious, violent men” only to set America’s fi nest brothel – a cathouse where ‘whores’ were treated well as compared to others down the road. Where an age limit of 18 was imposed when girls of 13 were drugged, raped and sold for $50 to enterprising Madams. By those standards, the Everleighs “ran a clean place” that forbade dealing with pimps and “beaters” and employed lasses out of their free will. They “brought a bit of decency to a profession rife with shame.”

However, beyond the Levee there was a growing movement against changes that challenged Christian America and against utter lawlessness, of which the Levee was a key bait along with its pompous sisters at 2131-2133 South Dearborn Street, its most anticipated victim.

Even though, in Ada & Minna, one found honest businesswomen who didn’t subscribe to the ‘White Slave Trade’ that eventually cornered politicians to come up with the Mann Act of 1910 that forbidding interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes, their sheer extent of bawdyhouse splendour at display with its “silk couches, the easy chairs and the grand piano, the statues of Greek goddesses peering through exotic palms, the bronze effigies of Cupid and Psyche, the imported rugs…..,” coupled with the ‘openness’ in ways of functioning, rung the death knell to the business in 1911. “The Club was the gleaming symbol of the Levee district, shining too brightly on those who operated best in the dark.”

Abbott’s selection of history to be retold lies a current flavour. “Has anything changed?” one might ask of the likes of the Everleighs or the more recent Miz Julia. Like its politicians and its wars, to put forth, a society reaps what it sows.

(End of Shashank Shekhar column)

Book Extract

“The Club was the gleaming symbol of the Levee district, shining too brightly on those who operated best in the dark.

“They were the Angels of the Line,” wrote journalist Charles Washburn, twenty- five years after the war over the Levee, “and, as angels, hated and persecuted.”

But on that fall night, as Minna Everleigh watched the reporter disappear into the murk of Dearborn Street, she did not fret about what trouble might come, or who would be behind it. She and Ada had work to do: keep books, prepare the courtesans and greet their boys, watching each man admire the seesaw sway of a girl’s rear as he followed her up the stairs. Would he like a warm bath, or something scrumptious from the Pullman Buffet, or a favor far too naughty to say aloud?

They ran the most successful – and respected – whorehouse in America, and had no reason, yet, to believe that would ever change.”