One of the world’s great tourist traps, a Victorian relic, comes to India.
Madame Tussauds, the world famous waxwork “museum”, opens in Delhi this summer, though no precise date has yet been announced. It’s a wonder it has taken so long. Tussauds, a fusty Victorian relic that is a worldwide phenomenon, an accoutrement for aspiring “global” cities. Four Chinese cities have a Tussauds, five if you count Hong Kong. In London, where the first Tussauds opened its doors to the public in 1836, people of South Asian origin make up about 14 per cent of the population. Indian pop culture, or at least Bollywood, is intrinsic to London and thus represented in Tussauds in a way that Chinese culture, for instance, is not.
Waxworks of film stars are common. Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan are obvious candidates. But Aishwarya Rai was in Tussauds before Shah Rukh. Others include Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Kareena Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, even Katrina Kaif. A wax model of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unveiled last April, while Sachin Tendulkar has been on display since 2009. The first waxwork of an Indian in Tussauds was, of course, Mahatma Gandhi, though not until the 1960s. Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi have all been memorialised in wax. More unexpectedly, so has PV Narasimha Rao.
This story is from the April - June 2017 edition of The Indian Quarterly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April - June 2017 edition of The Indian Quarterly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Image-Maker
Sukumar Ray’s most vivid images were saved for his classics of nonsense verse, but his singular eye, writes Nabarupa Bhattacharjee, found its earliest expression in photography
The Nawab's Last Sigh
Rudely awakened by the fact of independent India, an aristocrat in Meerut clung to his past. Now, he tells Sunaina Kumar, all he has left are his memories of a glorious age.
The Guest
Vaiyavan is the nom de plume of MSP Murugesan. Born in 1936, he did sundry jobs before obtaining postgraduate degrees by correspondence and then served as an English and Tamil teacher till his retirement in 1996. His writing career began in 1956. Multifaceted and prolific, he has to his credit a long list of short story collections, novels, plays, literary essays, poems and children’s stories. He has won several awards including Tamil Nadu government awards for best book on culture (1982) and best science book (1992) and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for active participation in neo-literacy activities (1996). In his short stories and novels, Vaiyavan revels in a zest for life. Humaneness is the hallmark of his work, as the pain and pleasure, trials and tribulations of people in different rungs of society are described in minute detail. —CGR
The Birth of an Anthem
From right-wing slogan to moving patriotic song and now back to Hindu nationalistic war cry. Rimli Sengupta on the evolution of Vande Mataram
The Birth of a Parent
The beginning of a new life can create other strange new lives, reflects Manidipa Mandal
The Unknown Soldier
One man wondered and worried about his disappeared brother all his life.His granddaughter continued the search. Preksha Sharma resurrects a man and his story
The Art Scene
For the new kid on the block, it certainly has pedigree. The Centre for Con-temporary Art, housed within Delhi’s Bikaner House complex, finally opened its portals to welcome art aficionados during this year’s edition of the India Art Fair. Nature Morte was invited to stage the centre’s much-awaited inaugural show, an opportunity the gallery found too irresistible to pass up. The ambitious exhibition it mounted, The Idea of the Acrobat, occupied both floors of the recently renovated building and brought together the works of a dozen well known artists in a multitude of media. The line-up included Bharti Kher, Atul Dodiya, Dayanita Singh, Shilpa Gupta, Ayesha Singh, Khyentse Norbu and LN Tallur to name but a few.
Long, Long Ago
Arundhuti Dasgupta and Utkarsh Patel recount obscure creation myths from around the world, many echoing each other
Family Business
AT THE DINDUKKAL BUS DEPOT, the abortionist pushed her way through the crowd thronging the bus and finally managed to board it. She placed her travel bag beside her on the seat, calling out to her niece to hurry up. The young woman renewed her efforts to break free of the tangle of limbs and claim the seat reserved for her.
A Goan Childhood
Fragments of memory of a time long gone, from a life lived far away. By Selma Carvalho
