In his prime, as the ebullient editor of diverse magazines and newspapers, Anil Dharker had a favourite line when meeting young women of exquisite grace for the first time. “Ah, a Botticelli!” he would murmur. As far as I can remember, when I first met them in the early 1970s in Mumbai, both the Dharkers, Anil and his wife Imtiaz, were a couple out of a Botticelli canvas. If Imtiaz was as luscious as a freshly plucked peach, or a pearl newly emerged from the oyster shell of her existence in Glasgow, where Anil had gone to study engineering, he was equally elegant. If you could imagine him in doublet and leather breeches, he could have fitted into any one of the portraits by the Italian masters of the Renaissance. Small made, he had a dancer’s lightness with the roseate complexion of his Baroda Marathi elite background. His sister was indeed a talented dancer and later a writer of note. Maybe the lips were too perfectly formed and fleshy on a man; the head of curls a tad too hedonistic. But he had fine eyes that held your attention when he started to speak. Imtiaz, on the other hand, just had to be, not quite the daughter of Pakistani parents, not too British, but with the same reserve and an instinct for forming lasting friendships, because she was selective.
They become quite easily a glamour couple sheltering under the all-embracing cloak of many colours spread out for them by the likes of Alyque Padamsee. They glittered before the term became a collective. Imtiaz became a copy-writer, a poet and an artist. Anil, who had actually trained to be a specialist in air-conditioning, slipped easily into the role of a pocket intellectual, writing on diverse issues.
I met them just after they had become parents to a lovely baby girl named Ayesha. We lived in the same Malabar Hill environs. I still remember a poster that Alyque had presented to them. It showed Ayesha wearing a bathing costume and a sash as a newly crowned Miss India. Ayesha Dharker has more than lived up to her promise as a Diva of many talents.
There was also one memorable evening when we dined together at my house. The chief guest was an American professor from Yale who had been introduced to us by Jehangir Patel, the editor of Parsiana. His professor stumped us with a phrase, and he asked Imtiaz to decipher. He had written it down—“Ra-Ir-rah-ir-Rah-Rah!” No one could figure it out. It’s easy enough if you know that it represents a Japanese muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.
By the time, I met Anil again when he came to Chennai, the exquisite Botticelli years were on the rocks. The careers of both the Dharkers had prospered, but Imtiaz was ready to return to the UK.
Anil was then on the censor board for films. In this capacity he invited me over for the viewing of a film named The Passage, with Malcolm Mcdowell and Anthony Quinn in the lead roles. I didn’t realise that it would be a screening just for the two of us. Or that we would be ushered into a private row of luxurious seats at the very back of the theatre hall meant for aspiring actresses and director-producers. Or that the usher would lock us into our darkened row of seats, feeding us with chips and Fanta during the interval, and again locking us in there. Or that The Passage was filled with scenes of Malcolm Mcdowell showing off his prowess as a Nazi by chopping off Anthony’s fingers on a kitchen table, or displaying his Nazi emblemed jockstrap. Or that all we had between us were packets of salted wafer chips and bottles of Fanta. Or that I ate twenty packets of wafer chips and wedged the bottles between our seats! “Aren’t you a prude!” remarked Anil. Then again, I was no “Botticelli”.
In the interim, he had become Anil Dharker, media savant and kingmaker, with a following of devoted fans. And maybe that’s how we should remember him.