. "I was told you're never late," Sarabhai grumbles good-naturedly. "What's worse," I tell her gloomily, "is that you'll have to pay for lunch." "Only," she dimples, "if you promise to write good things about me." Sarabhai makes an excellent enough hostess, and soon we're stretching out in the Rose Garden lawns, Bloody Marys in hand, the prospect of interesting conversation ahead of us. Sarabhai is in town to promote Darpana's 30th Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival that is being held outside Ahmedabad for the first time ever. We pay lip-service to the event "" at the Habitat Centre from January 17-19, for the record, with three plays "" but there are other things to catch up on. Ahmedabad itself, for starters.
Why did Sarabhai resist shifting to Delhi or Mumbai when she launched out on her career in 1978 (as an artiste and simultaneously as an editor with design magazine Inside Outside)? "Lalit Mansingh suggested I should shift to Delhi," she raises large eyes, "but I refused. I'm not good at socialising and being polite. And in Delhi it's very difficult to be reclusive, which I need to be, to be creative. Socialising drains my energy tremendously."
In Ahmedabad, the Sarabhais are a household name ("Ask any rickshawallah my address," she gloats), as much for their philanthropy as for their cultural personas (mother Mrinalini and Mallika together run Darpana and organise performances at Natarani on the Sabarmati's banks), but also because they have become the city's conscience, often clashing with the body politic (Sarabhai has a case in court against the government for its role in the Godhra riots in 2002), which has resulted in harassment by state authorities and umpteen visits to police stations (where she mingles with policemen for whom, ironically, her play Sita's Children has been compulsory viewing to sensitise them to social issues).
Initially, Sarabhai says, licking the salt that rims her glass of Bloody Mary off her lips, what she missed about not living in Delhi or Mumbai was the lack of avant-garde culture. "If I wanted to see something interesting "" for instance, the gourmet offering that Delhi has in its widest sense of intellectual stimulation "" then I would have to invite it there. Fortunately, I travelled a lot..."
We've ordered, rather boringly I suppose, makki ki roti and sarson ka saag, and Sarabhai starts off promptly, but only because "I don't like cold food". When she took over the running of Darpana from her mother, she opened it to more ideas of crossovers of forms, ideas and arts. "Then, in 1994, we built our own theatre where people could come, work, rehearse and present, as a result of which more collaborative work started happening."
Unfortunately, though, "The city's intellectual component has reduced," Sarabhai says. "It was a caring city, inviting of tolerance and divergence." That aspect has changed. "It's now a typically consumerist nirvana. The only things being built are malls and multiplexes, and more malls and more multiplexes," she bites into her roti. ""Only the Sensex seems to concern people. And yet, this city had the greatest families creating foundations because, according to Jain ethics, wealth was created to improve life for the less fortunate."
Activist Sarabhai is now in full flow. "Ahmedabad has become a city to spend and be seen spending," she grudges. "This was a humane city, but now it has the highest number of female foeticide. I am not," her eyes flash before I can ask, "anti-development, but it can't be all glitz and no heart. The dispossessed," she sighs, "don't count any more." Depressing? "We," she insists, "don't have the luxury to become depressed. We have to sensitise the young; only they can reach back out. Till 10-15 years ago," she continues, "people like Baba Amte were our heros. But not anymore. Today, the only heros are the rich, or Bollywood actors. Wealth is the only measuring rod of success."
If Sarabhai has been hectoring "" and I dare not intrude since she's paying for lunch "" she never loses her smile, even when she's vitriolic about the state government's latest hurdle "" an amphitheatre right next to Natarani: "Can you imagine the noise, the pollution with traffic going through on a highway barely three feet from the stage, as part of the riverfront development?" she mocks. Her remedy isn't selfish. "We need to bring back debate to the mainstream of life," she generalises; "that has stopped."
Meanwhile, because she's on a mission, and lunch is over (we're waiting for the bill), we get back on track to the reason she's in town: "Darpana's work needed to be seen together," she says, "so we thought the festival should start travelling." Delhi is the first port of call; eventually, it will travel to five-six cities every year. "A lot of our work is issue-based, but also celebratory. Culture," she insists, "can bring about social change. Which is why we're working with itinerant performers and public health workers as part of our HIV initiative with UNICEF." She's also putting together a book on textile traditions, with an accompanying book on swatches and DVDs on weavers from across the country for the Ministry of Textiles, to be distributed to 1,000 pret-a-porter, couture, and furnishings designers around the world.
Having signed the bill, I tell her the photographer's reaction to the other Mallika. "There's a downside to that," she laughs, "you'd never recognise her with her clothes on." As we walk away, there's no doubt that this is one Mallika everyone does recognise.
