The Real Culture Vultures

There is a set of serial gatecrashers who live off Delhi’s vibrant cultural life. Some of them carry cards saying ‘freelance journalist and LIC agent’

It was the launch of MJ Akbar’s new book on Pakistan at the 5 star Hyatt Regency hotel in Delhi on 11 January, and security was tight. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Democratic Alliance Chairman LK Advani and Vice-president Hamid Ansari were among those speaking on the occasion. The audience was full of important folks, the sort who frequently appear on TV screens talking about some country’s future. Midway through the event, there was a commotion outside the hall. A man was screaming at the top of his voice. The screams faded away rapidly.

After the speeches were over, and the usual round of drinks and kebabs that follow every big book launch had begun, I asked the organisers what had happened. It turned out that someone had been stopped from entering the hall. He didn’t have a proper invitation, they said. He had apparently claimed he was a journalist and raised a ruckus, but he had no valid press ID either. He was ejected physically from the hotel by police. The organisers, HarperCollins, knew the man quite well. His name is Uday. He was usually there at all their events.

I was midway through a comment on the chutzpah it takes to try gatecrashing an event featuring VIPs with the highest level of security when I saw someone I had met years ago. The man, smartly dressed in suit-and-tie, also saw me at the same time. “Are you still working for the Hindustan Times?” he asked me. I had met him a couple of times about six years ago, so I was impressed with his memory. “No, I quit,” I told him. “And you?”

He was freelancing. His name, he told me, was Kalyan. I asked him who he wrote for. He had been at The Telegraph in Kolkata with Akbar, he said. He was vague about his current assignments. The only place he would mention was the India International Centre’s journal. After sometime, he asked me where I had got my copy of the book. I had bought it, I replied. “Aren’t they giving free review copies?” he asked, and then went up to the desk where copies were being sold. I tailed him, and heard him say he was from India Today, the magazine of which Akbar is the editor. A little later, I saw him registering himself at the entrance as a journalist with The Asian Age. Shortly after, he emerged triumphantly holding a copy of the book. Then I saw him shake the author’s hand and get his copy autographed.

I had first met Kalyan in similar circumstances. It was about six years ago, at the Le Meridien in Delhi, where Khushwant Singh and Raghu Rai were releasing a book. I remembered the occasion because of an incident. People were going up to Singh, Rai and Roli Books publisher Pramod Kapoor to congratulate them. I was standing next to Kapoor when a man came up, shook his hand, and gave him a visiting card. No sooner had he turned away than the distinguished publisher began to curse impressively in a number of languages. The card said, ‘Freelance journalist and LIC agent’. The man was a gatecrasher. I had tailed him, and been introduced to his friends, including Kalyan.

I would probably have forgotten him had I not bumped into him again a few days later. I was driving past Safdarjung’s Tomb, and had to stop at the traffic light. Kalyan approached me and asked for a ride. He was going to India International Centre. I was also going there. On reaching the venue, he disappeared, entering the conference room close to lunch time. He was there for lunch, and a while after. He had left after tea, as I recall. I don’t remember meeting him again. I had left Delhi for Mumbai some time later.

Now, here he was again. It seemed a good time to find out if one of my long held suspicions was true. For years now, I’ve believed that there is a small band of ‘culture vultures’ in Delhi who live quite well off the capital’s vibrant cultural life. There’s always a conference for free lunch and a book launch for free dinner and drinks. Anyone properly plugged into this circuit, and with enough time, could easily party endlessly without ever paying a paisa.

I went to India Habitat Centre to find out if my suspicions had any basis in fact.The lady in the programmes section was thrilled at my question. “Regular gatecrashers? Of course!” She called two of her colleagues over to vent. They had been dealing with the problem for years, they said. They knew the characters quite well.

“There’s one man who comes with his pillow. He sits in talks, listens, dozes. There was an old lady who used to come every day in a taxi. She used to pack biscuits in her shawl. Perhaps she liked them a lot. There are about six people who come here every day, come rain or shine.” They are noticeably absent from events that don’t serve free food or drinks.These regulars, who are not members of the institutions they haunt, usually spend their days hopping from event to event at the cultural centres on Lodhi Road. India International Centre (IIC) and Alliance Francaise are both a short walk away from India Habitat Centre.

Lalsawmliani Tochhawng from India International Centre had exactly the same story to tell. There are at least six people who gatecrash their events every day. They arrive around lunch, and stay till tea. They had been thrown out of IIC a few times, and disappeared for a while, but always returned eventually. And she had also seen them at events at other places. The group is ethnically diverse, though most of its members are men. There is one turbaned Sikh gentleman, one African gentleman, and others from various parts of India. They come from differing economic backgrounds—not all of them poor.

Tochhawng’s particular grouse is that they wave at her when they see her. She says she has dealt with this in the past by giving bills for food and drink to those gatecrashers who wave at her.

At Alliance Francaise, Ferzina Banaji, who heads cultural affairs and communications, not only knew these characters from their descriptions but actually had photos. She showed me pictures of some of them, including Kalyan. She was particularly agitated about the matter of gatecrashers because Alliance Francaise had an especially bad experience in December 2010.

It was at the opening of an art show at its Galerie Romain Rolland. Dignitaries, including the French Cultural Counsellor to India, were present, and there was quite a crowd. As the formal part of the evening ended and the party began, the organisers found their invited guests unable to get a drink. A wall of gatecrashers had surrounded the service entrance from where the wine and snacks were being brought in. A senior Alliance official decided at this point to get a glass of wine for the Cultural Counsellor and the artist whose show it was, since they had been unable to get drinks. As she was heading back with the two glasses, she was confronted by gatecrashers who snatched these out of her hands. At that point, the French decided to bid adieu to politeness and told the gatecrashers to get out. They refused, and according to Ferzina, came up with “the usual Delhi line: don’t you know who I am?” They were apparently ‘freelance journalists’ and ‘government officials’.

I figure I might as well find out if any of them is indeed a freelance journalist. I am one myself, for the moment, and there’s a very simple way of testing if this is true: I get published. There are articles in recognised magazines and newspapers that bear my byline.

There seem to be none that bear Kalyan’s. A Google search for his full name, which I have not used here, draws a blank. He certainly doesn’t write for India Today. Nor is he known to editors at The Asian Age— he doesn’t work for them. The IIC journal, which he said he wrote for, had one event clipping by him that I could find. I tried asking Kalyan himself, but the mobile number he had given me doesn’t exist. An email to the ID he wrote for me bounced.

Tracking down the man who had been detained by the police at Akbar’s launch proved easier. Uday did reply to an email asking if he crashes events. He was indignant. He said he had a valid invitation for Akbar’s book launch and had made a complaint in the matter of his detention to the Vice-president. He also said he would be speaking to Akbar about it. He suggested a meeting, but didn’t give his number. Checking back, I found that HarperCollins have initiated legal proceedings against him. The card he carried was in someone else’s name. At events with high security, however, such cards carry the name of the invitee, and a note saying the invite is not transferable.

I wrote to him again, asking for his version of events, and more information about himself. He replied saying he lives in Gurgaon with his family, and had studied at St Columba’s in Delhi. He works in London, he said, and is in the country because his mother has a head injury. He claimed he visits Delhi from Gurgaon three or four times a month, but seemed to be in Delhi every day for the next few days. He didn’t answer a question on what work he does. However, he forwarded me an earlier email with an apology from PM Sukumar, CEO of HarperCollins, which related to his being evicted from an event at the Park Hotel in Delhi. Lipika Bhushan, who handles PR and events for Harper, said he had threatened her and other staff after being taken off the invitee list—into which he had made his way by claiming to be a correspondent for The Indian Express. It turned out this was not true. He has 34 friends on Facebook, and one interest: the FBI. Sources at Habitat Centre said he comes from an affluent family, and his parents are members of the centre.

I subsequently tried speaking to some of these regulars at various other events, but they were wary of me. The bespectacled man with henna hair who shows up everywhere was there sipping wine at the launch of the Spanish literary magazine Vislumbres at Instituto Cervantes. He walked away when I said hello. He did, however, spend the evening trying to chat up pretty Spanish girls. He was there a few days later at Max Mueller Bhavan enjoying his mulled wine after a photo exhibition, and chatting up German girls. He ignored me again. The organisers at both places said they see him at their events all the time. They, however, know nothing more about him. He doesn’t speak to them either. He is simply there, circling like a sad, unwelcome bird of prey, at all their festivities.

It was his penchant for talking to pretty girls that finally helped me find out more about him. Two of my friends volunteered to speak to him after a talk by Vikram Seth at Alliance Francaise. I joined the conversation for a while. His surname is Kapoor. He took voluntary retirement from the UP government, he said. He now carries two visiting cards: one for a firm in Indirapuram near Ghaziabad that offers ‘best incentives on mutual funds, co fixed deposits, share new issues’. The other, of himself as ‘freelance journalist and art critic’. I asked him who he wrote for, but he didn’t reply. I asked him if he had read Seth, in whose honour he was quaffing wine. He hadn’t. My friend asked him if he was married, at which he became both defensive and hopeful. Yes, he is married, but he is also free.

I find the duality of the entire situation both interesting and confusing. Many of these events were open to the public. They were promotional activities. By that logic, anyone could attend. However, book launches and conferences are not langars, free kitchens. Nor are they organised to arrange a social life for those who may have none. And the organisers do have to foot the bill for the ‘free’ food and drink. They also have to deal with the dissatisfaction of their invited guests, who tend to be jostled aside by gatecrashers in the usual crush around the bar. Yet, isn’t it also a contribution to society if a few lonely people find something to eat and drink, and something to do with their time on an empty evening?

Six years ago, Khushwant Singh had written about gatecrashers at his book launch at the Meridien. After complaining that there was no way of ‘sifting genuine invitees from freeloaders’ and mentioning one dhoti-clad man who had been detained by the police for crashing an earlier event, Singh had gone on to offer free advice on the art of freeloading. ‘It is advisable to wear coat and tie and enter when the host is busy receiving other guests,’ he wrote. For crashing Punjabi weddings, he recommended a starched pink turban and joining the bhangra.

It is clear that Delhi’s freeloaders have taken his recommendations seriously. Six years on, organisers still have no option but to dance uncomfortably along with gatecrashers, now clad nattily in suits and ties.

Note: Samrat has not used full names to avoid embarrassing the families of the gatecrashers mentioned. His first novel, The Urban Jungle, published by Penguin, is now in stores

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