NCR comes of age

There used to be a cliché about cities in India, back when Bombay was Bombay and Calcutta was Calcutta: that Bombay had the energy, Calcutta the intellect. And then there was Delhi, a sarkari town set in the arid northern plains,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. which supposedly had neither. That was never completely true, but now, more than two decades after liberalisation, it is slowly becoming clear how completely inaccurate that has become. True, there are scorching afternoons in the height of summer when it feels like nothing will ever move in Delhi, whether a file, an idea, or a person. But, come winter, and the blossoming of the city is evident.

Consider, for example, the space that cultural activity has staked out for itself in the past few years. In recent weekends, Delhi and its environs saw the Jaipur Literature Festival (not in Delhi,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. true, but in a place picked a short distance away, and it frequently felt like everyone from Delhi was there); the Delhi Art Fair, which took over Pragati Maidan and art galleries across the city, and even transformed the occasional private house; the International Sufi Festival at Siri Fort, of course, and the Delhi Book Fair at Pragati Maidan as well as the National School of Drama’s theatre festival just down the road; and even festivals devoted to, respectively, jazz and blues music. Two things stand out about that list. First, aside from the Book Fair and the NSD’s theatre festival, nothing in that list was in existence a bare decade ago. And second, most of those are not organised by the government, as was common in Delhi once, but by the private sector, and supported by advertising, ticket sales, or the sale of goods. And for every International Sufi Festival that is government-run, there’s a Jahan-e-Khusrau, at Nizamuddin’s tomb, which isn’t. Once, perhaps,Come January 9 and chip card driving licence would be available at the click of the mouse in Uttar Pradesh. not so long ago, Delhi was a sarkari city where the main cultural activity was carefully manoeuvring yourself on the Indian Council for Cultural Relations’ invitation list, or ensuring your bureaucrat friend sent you a pass or two. Somehow it has grown past that without even noticing.

Indeed, Delhi has become the location not just of independence from the state in cultural terms, but of contestation of the state. When the anti-corruption crusaders led by Kisan Baburao Hazare began their agitation, it was in Delhi that they saw the most response; Mumbai let them down badly. Nor was that a one-off; that middle-class Delhi is willing to protest was underlined by the events of last December. And, as this newspaper reported recently, even the space of ideas is no longer monopolised easily by the government. The Brookings Institution’s high-profile move into India recently has been preceded, in fact, by several Indian think tanks essentially severing themselves from the government’s umbilical cord — reducing their dependence on state grants drastically, and making up the difference by private contracts. And the fast-growing presence of, for example, Shiv Nadar University and Jindal Global Law School on the National Capital Region’s perimeters suggests that even the academic space will no longer be monopolised by direct beneficiaries of the state.

Delhi’s slow development of the attributes of a real city is far from complete. There are still too few safe public spaces, for example, and the state needs to do a better job with security for women. Yet it is no longer contestable that Delhi has thrown off the shackles of empire and socialism, and is now as dynamic as Mumbai ever was, as bubbling with ideas as Kolkata — and probably more than both. India’s capital is now its capital in truth for the first time in hundreds of years.

At the Ministry of Science, Mrs. Roboto is playing with a hologram in her office when she receives a call from Olivia, realizes that her office might not be the best place to have this particular conversation, and explains that she will call her back once she leaves the office. Soon after, Kahl Himmler and some Brown Shirts storm into her office, question Mrs. Roboto’s loyalist secretary as to Mrs. Roboto’s whereabouts, and then hook up some sort of thingie to the office windows so as to listen to Mrs. Roboto’s phone call from the past, sure.

Mrs. Roboto meets the Fringies and Michael in Brooklyn somewhere, and informs them that she has a super secret black lab nearby that they can use. Pacey and Mrs. Roboto then have a heart-to-heart about Bishop and his intention to have Mrs. Roboto remove his brain pieces as soon as the plan is complete. Pacey is all: Don’t do it! even though he’s been though this with Bishop once before and it was really for the best, I think we can all agree. But Mrs. Roboto argues that Bishop understands that anything worth fighting for comes at a cost. Because foreshadowing.

Only problem with that: Kahl Himmler has gathered all the Ministry of Science employees for a little questioning, having correctly guessed that Mrs. Roboto had some inside assistance. Uh-oh!

And that’s why when Mrs. Roboto tries to call her minion, he can’t exactly take her call. Looks like the Fringies will just have to break into the joint and steal the thought helmet themselves. With AsteriskAstrid’s remote help (because they had to give her something to do in this episode), they bust into the warehouse and then rummage around it for a while looking for the thought helmet. Meanwhile, in a room overlooking the warehouse Kahl Himmler has decided to conduct his interviews, and just as the Fringies are getting their hands on that thought helmet, Olivia notices Kahl Himmler squishing around in Minion’s head.

Fortunately, Minion doesn’t know anything about Mrs. Roboto’s super secret black lab. Unfortunately, Mrs. Roboto can’t stay put, and tries to call the Fringies, allowing the Brown Shirts to locate her. GOOD JOB, DUMMY. WELL DONE. The Fringies “rescue” Minion, and he’s like, yeah, thanks for shooting those guys in the face to release me, by the way, they’ve tracked Mrs. Roboto, so.

Mrs. Roboto,They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. having compromised her location, assures Michael that everything is totally cool, no worries.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. In exchange, he touches her face and she is all ZOMGBBQEPIPHANEEZ. Michael then looks towards the security cameras where the Brown Shirts and Kahl Himmler are headed their way. Mrs. Roboto hides Michael, somewhere, just as Kahl Himmler and his Brown Shirts storm the joint and start tearing the place apart looking for the Fringies.

As for the rest of this episode, it was a plot-driven one, and thus there’s not much to unpack. Not to be a whiny complainer, always, but aside from Mrs. Roboto’s demise, and the always heartbreaking flashes of Bishop’s past, this episode left me a little cold. I am irritated to no end by the contrivance that Michael suddenly can no longer communicate with Olivia because ?? I understand that in terms of plot, it would be considerably less interesting to have Michael just suddenly start jotting down clues for the Fringies to follow in their pursuit of the plan, as he did in “Inner Child,” but I’m not a little irritated that they couldn’t come up with even a plausible explanation as to why he couldn’t. Did it have something to do with the different timelines? Was it because Olivia had depleted her stores of Kortexiphan? WHO KNOWS? But maybe they should have come up with something, anything, to help explain it.