A GOOD LIFE: Ismail Merchant

The merchant of beguiling charm

Last week in Cannes, someone rang me from London and asked by way of chit-chat: “Have you seen Ismail Merchant?”

He was a regular at Cannes and liked to meet people in the terrace restaurant of the Carlton. He was an elegant man in an elegant setting. This year, though, I hadn’t seen him.

He was not like many other Indians who move almost exclusively in Indian circles. He had easy access to American and British celebs, partly because he employed so many of them in his own movies.

Present at his Cannes party in 2000 for The Golden Bowl were Uma Thurman, the star of his movie, Harvey Weinstein, powerful and feared boss of Miramax, and Arundhati Roy, a jury member.

He was not like some other filmmakers, such as Shekhar Kapur, who has now got the reputation for announcing films which never get made.

“When Merchant Ivory announce a film, it gets made,” he told me, with just a trace of pride.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were standing at the Indian food counter at Selfridges in London, when I turned round to find Ismail. He was wearing a crisp earth-coloured kurta and was, as always, immaculately turned out. He also looked exceedingly well.

Last year in Cannes he had told me about The White Countess, which he hoped to shoot in China. Now he confided he had been to China and, although he had enjoyed visiting the country, he had found it very bureaucratic and tied up in red tape, like the India of the bad old days.

Selfridges was his local store since he had bought an apartment 30 years ago in Orchard Court a couple of minutes away. Being Ismail he had bought it very cheap. Again, being Ismail, it was beautifully decorated.

When he invited friends to dinner, which was often, he would pop out to get the ingredients fresh. He kept his cooking simple ? “one dal, one meat dish and plain white rice, served hot”. He showed me his little trick was to drop a whole lemon into the dal or the chicken during the slow cooking process.

The big names from Hollywood were so won over by his charm that they would agree to act for him for practically nothing. I don’t know why he made the switch from producing to directing but the consensus is that neither Cotton Mary nor The Mystic Masseur quite worked.

How Ismail persuaded the prickly V. S. Naipaul to grant him the film rights for The Mystic Masseur remains a mystery. Naipaul had never before agreed to any of his books being turned into films.

Permission granted, Naipaul informed Ismail. But possibly fearing he, too, like all who met this lovely man, would fall victim to his easy charm, hastily added: “But please don’t bother to come and see me because I know what you are going to say.”

SPEAK EASY: Tarun Tejpal

Tarun’s travels

Tarun Tejpal spoke very engagingly indeed when he was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s travel programme, Excess Baggage, which is presented by Sandi Toksvig, a woman with a peculiarly scratchy, manly but not unattractive voice. She gets away with it because she is so funny.

On this edition, called India and the Khyber Pass, Tarun’s fellow guests were Aline Dobbie, who was brought up in India and whose second book is called India: The Tiger’s Roar; Roy Moxham, author of The Great Hedge of India and Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire (the last time I met him he was headed Kerala way to write a book on south India); and Jules Stewart, author of the Khyber Rifles.

The Tehelka man got to plug his debut novel, The Alchemy of Desire, a little ? I will certainly buy a copy, not least because I have heard good things about it. But he was most evocative when he spoke about his house in the Himalayas, which made me want to visit it (the Himalayas, not his house). It was easy to understood why the British fell in love with the natural beauty of India.

I am glad Tarun paid tribute to Jim Corbett, of Man Eaters of Kumaon fame (in Kenya, where Corbett lived after leaving India at Independence, I made it a point to search out his grave as a kind of homage to a man who answered the call of the wild in India ).

All on the programme agreed that unless something drastic was done, the tiger would disappear from India. India without tigers is a bit like the Indian cricket team without Sachin. But I guess that day is fast approaching.

STAR POWER: Surina Narula (left) with Nandita Das at Cannes

Herb cure

If Kuldeep Singh, owner of the Mela restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, has his way, the next big Indian export to Britain after yoga could be Indian cuisine based on Ayurveda.

Kuldeep, who has teamed up with Dr Partap Chauhan, director of Jiva Ayurveda in Delhi (Kuldeep found him by surfing the Net), is currently holding an Ayurvedic Food Festival at the Mela and two of his other restaurants.

“The festival will focus on how Ayurvedic practice can ease and prevent three of the biggest health issues of our time ? diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mental stress,” says Kuldeep, who has done research in the British Museum library on the natural foods Indians used to eat several hundred years ago.

Ayurvedic food will surely become a money-spinner once it is adopted by the likes of Madonna.

Horse-trading

Plans for the annual Pratham Ball in London on September 24, aimed at raising money for street children in India, are already being drawn up by the hostess with the mostest, Surina Narula.

Surina, who has been in Cannes, being photographed with the likes of the lovely Nandita Das, says the surprise first prize in the raffle will be a race horse.

“It’s never been done before,” said Surina.

What’s the name of the said horse, I asked.

“Owner’s Choice,” Surina replied promptly.

“That’s a good name,” I said, revealing my total ignorance of racing.

To me one horse looks much like another (the exception being the Lone Ranger’s Silver).

Surina explained patiently that the choice of name would be left to the new owner.

“But Owner’s Choice is not a bad name,” she conceded.

Leading a horse into the Ballroom of the Dorchester for the bidding might be possible but getting Indians to bid ?20,000 plus might be harder.

SHOW TIME: Shah Rukh Khan

Tittle tattle

An even more important person was there, too, in the shape of Shah Rukh Khan who announced he found the show “wonderful”.

Camilla disappointed assembled folk by not wearing the green sari which the dabbawallahs of Mumbai have been so kind as to send her. But she is clearly learning the art of diplomacy.

Backstage she met the cast and confided: “My favourite novel is The Far Pavilions.”