Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
The flamingos of Sewri are captured in a stirring documentary by a sister duo
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
Ashima Narain, 31, is shooting a courting sequence of flamingos at Sewri. The problem is that the flamingos, around 20,000 of them, are walking on the sludge, which is created by the waste coming from the nearby factories. But this sludge is dangerous: if you are a hefty person and step on it, you will sink. It is like quicksand. “But I wanted to take a shot of them courting and I needed to get close,” says Ashima, who is slim and of light build. “So, just before the tide came in, I went out.” Soon, she is so engrossed in the filming she forgets that the water has started to come in. “Then I realise my feet is wet and I start to walk back quickly,” she says. “But, when I am about 15m away from the edge, I start sinking. I am holding my camera and tripod above my head and I am in sludge, which is thigh deep and I could not get out.” There are 15 men watching Ashima and they are unable to do anything, because if they step on the sludge, they will also sink.
Suddenly, one of the men has a brainwave. He goes to a nearby home and calls out to his six-year-old son. “He walks easily on the sludge and takes my camera and tripod and it is only then I could use my hands and am able to come out,” says Ashima.
Work of love
For the first-time director, this is indeed a close shave. But she smiles when she says this, because in the end, it is worth it. A commercial photographer, the idea to do a documentary on flamingos came rather accidentally, when she read in a magazine of how every year, thousands of flamingos would fly from the Rann of Kutch and, possibly, Iran to the mud flats of Sewri for several months. They came because of the prevalence of algae, which they love to eat. Ironically, the effluents and sewage that is spewed into Sewri bay accelerates this algal growth.
“When I went to see them for the first time, I was appalled,” says Ashima. “There were all these factories all around and a shipyard and beyond them was this huge mud sludge. But then you saw this sea of pink…” Ashima’s voice trails off and there is a look of bliss on her face.
“I took a year to shoot the documentary,” she continues. “Because, unlike in feature films, where you can plan the shoot because human beings are acting, we cannot tell the flamingos that, even though it is not the mating season, ‘please do the mating dance for us.’”
And she discovered one interesting phenomenon during the shooting. Whenever she wore pink, she could get much closer to them. “So I would always wear the colour pink,” she says.
Asked why she made the film, her sister Ruchi, a Bollywood director and scriptwriter, who acted as producer of the documentary, says, “Ashima felt that we had this amazing phenomenon in the city and nobody knew about it, let alone, the rest of the world. In other countries, they will just have three pelicans or tortoises and they will make a park and people will come from other countries to see them.” Interestingly, the film has been funded by the sisters themselves; Ashima saved money from the fees she got as a commercial photographer.
Desolate and silent
One hot afternoon, I do go across to see the mud flats. Of course, at this time of the year, there are no flamingos, (they come in November and return in May) but there is an Afghan moneylender, Abdul Hamid Khan, 32, who is here to collect money from the workers of the nearby Colgate factory. It is silent and a stiff breeze is blowing. There is the Sewri fort at one side and a grove of mangroves on the other and the mud flats in front of me. “The sight of the flamingos is lovely,” says Khan, 32. “I come here often to see them.”
I go down to the edge and press my feet on the sludge. It is hard and when I mention this to Khan, he laughs and says I need to go about 10 feet further and then I would sink like a stone.
Soaring sight
On another evening, I go across to Fun Republic to see Ashima’s documentary, ‘In the Pink’. It is being aired during the ‘First Films’ feature film festival. It is a moving documentary, with an excellent script by Jerry Pinto, with touches of humour and pathos, and stunning cinematography by Sunjoy Monga. The sight of flamingos in full flight makes the heart soar. It is also funny, the way they bend their knees while walking. (see box). Out of 40 hours of footage, only 24 minutes were used. However, the documentary highlighted a bit of bad news. Studies have shown that there are alarming levels of heavy metals in water and sediment, which, in turn is affecting the algae. So the question is: how long will it be before it starts manifesting in the flamingos?
After the screening, teacher Shilpa Megharaj, 27, tell me she likes the documentary. “They have covered various aspects and presented the facts well. The photography and the commentary are good.” Another enthusiast is Laxmikant Deshpande, of the Center for Environment Education: “This is one of the best education movies I have seen in a long time. It is short and to the point and easy to understand.”
So what next for Ashima? Well, she has got a fellowship from the UK government and Discovery Channel to do another documentary on the dancing bears of north India. So, after flamingos, it’s bears and it looks like, for a while, commercial photography will be taking a backrest.
Grrrrr!
Flamingo Fast Facts
There are six species of flamingos found worldwide. Out of them, two come to Mumbai: the greater and the lesser.
The former is the tallest of all the flamingos, while the latter is the smallest.
The staple diet of flamingos is algae, which contains a carotenoid pigment that turns their feathers pink.
The greater flamingo has a more varied diet of crutaceans, insects, small fish and algae.
The lesser flamingos eat more algae, and therefore they have stronger coloration.
Flamingos are born gray. It takes 3-5 years for a flamingo to acquire its pink adult colouration.
All flamingos are filter feeders. To feed, it holds its beak upside down in the water, then uses its tongue as a piston to pump water through a fine grid of interlocking hair-like structures, which trap food.
The lesser flamingo can sift through 32 litres of water an hour looking for food, although it only requires 60g of algae a day.
Flamingos are naturally gregarious birds. They indulge in flamboyant and infectious group courtship displays.
Life expectancy is about 50 years
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Monday, October 09, 2006
'Vanity publishing is the real problem'
Reproduction of this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
Veteran poet Keki Daruwalla speaks out
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
Keki Daruwalla, 69, has beads of perspiration on his forehead and is taking rapid breaths. It is clear he is unwell. In Mumbai, for a reading of his latest book, Collected Poems-1970-2005, he manages to read two poems and then feels faint. After a while, he apologises and leaves the Theosophy Hall. But the show goes on. On behalf of Daruwalla, fellow poets, Adil Jussawalla, Gieve Patel, Anju Makhija and Arundhati Subramaniam read from the book…
A couple of days later, I meet Daruwalla at his brother’s house and he looks far better. “It was a viral fever,” he explains.
Daruwalla is sturdily built and does not look like a poet at all. When I tell him this, he laughs and says, “In An Area of Darkness, V.S. Naipaul says Indians like to play their designated roles. So, the poet has to look dishevelled and be drunk all the time. But that is not how it happens.”
He says he knows of poets who work in insurance, banking and publishing. “And, of course, there is the famous case of T.S. Eliot who worked as a director of [publishing house] Faber & Faber.” Daruwalla, himself, has retired from the Indian Police Service; he was once Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
So what are the themes he has written about? “History, myth, travel, dreams, violence, the Emergency, the inner life and landscapes,” says Daruwalla. Says poet Anju Makhija: “He is extremely prolific. The poems have strong imagery, and you can read them over and over and gain something new each time.”
Eunice D’Souza, the retired English professor of St. Xavier’s College, says Daruwalla is versatile. “He has written on a wide range of subjects, many of which no one else has dealt with,” she says.
However, one of the criticisms the Indo-Anglian poet has faced is that he is emotionally distant in his poems. “Yes, I agree,” he says. “But that is part of the culture of Western poetry. You write according to the culture that permeates you. In Indian and Asian poetry, the tendency is to write with your heart on the sleeve.”
Emotional or not, in the modern-day money-obsessed publishing scenario, poetry is way down the list, in terms of importance. But Daruwalla says this has nothing to do with the calibre of the poetry. “We have some good younger poets like Jit Thayil, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Ranjit Hoskote and Arundhati Subramaniam. Unlike our generation of poets, they can make a line sing.”
When I convey this praise to Subramaniam on the phone, she sounds surprised. After a few moments of silence, she says, “Daruwalla is being generous about us. It is rare to see this kind of generosity shown by one generation to another.”
The biggest problem for poetry, says Daruwalla, is vanity publishing. “Any rich housewife who can scribble a few words thinks she should come out with a book,” he says. “That destroys the credibility of poetry. If a reader goes into a bookstore and picks up one of these books, he will think, ‘Oh God, is this what Indian poetry has come to?’”
By now, Daruwalla begins to tire, so I pop in one last question: what role does religion play in his life? “Not much,” says this father of two daughters, whose wife died in 2000. “I am a rational man. I am reminded of the joke when [French philosopher] Voltaire was dying. A priest came to him and said, ‘You must denounce the devil.’ And Voltaire replied, ‘This is no time to make new enemies.’”
Veteran poet Keki Daruwalla speaks out
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
Keki Daruwalla, 69, has beads of perspiration on his forehead and is taking rapid breaths. It is clear he is unwell. In Mumbai, for a reading of his latest book, Collected Poems-1970-2005, he manages to read two poems and then feels faint. After a while, he apologises and leaves the Theosophy Hall. But the show goes on. On behalf of Daruwalla, fellow poets, Adil Jussawalla, Gieve Patel, Anju Makhija and Arundhati Subramaniam read from the book…
A couple of days later, I meet Daruwalla at his brother’s house and he looks far better. “It was a viral fever,” he explains.
Daruwalla is sturdily built and does not look like a poet at all. When I tell him this, he laughs and says, “In An Area of Darkness, V.S. Naipaul says Indians like to play their designated roles. So, the poet has to look dishevelled and be drunk all the time. But that is not how it happens.”
He says he knows of poets who work in insurance, banking and publishing. “And, of course, there is the famous case of T.S. Eliot who worked as a director of [publishing house] Faber & Faber.” Daruwalla, himself, has retired from the Indian Police Service; he was once Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
So what are the themes he has written about? “History, myth, travel, dreams, violence, the Emergency, the inner life and landscapes,” says Daruwalla. Says poet Anju Makhija: “He is extremely prolific. The poems have strong imagery, and you can read them over and over and gain something new each time.”
Eunice D’Souza, the retired English professor of St. Xavier’s College, says Daruwalla is versatile. “He has written on a wide range of subjects, many of which no one else has dealt with,” she says.
However, one of the criticisms the Indo-Anglian poet has faced is that he is emotionally distant in his poems. “Yes, I agree,” he says. “But that is part of the culture of Western poetry. You write according to the culture that permeates you. In Indian and Asian poetry, the tendency is to write with your heart on the sleeve.”
Emotional or not, in the modern-day money-obsessed publishing scenario, poetry is way down the list, in terms of importance. But Daruwalla says this has nothing to do with the calibre of the poetry. “We have some good younger poets like Jit Thayil, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Ranjit Hoskote and Arundhati Subramaniam. Unlike our generation of poets, they can make a line sing.”
When I convey this praise to Subramaniam on the phone, she sounds surprised. After a few moments of silence, she says, “Daruwalla is being generous about us. It is rare to see this kind of generosity shown by one generation to another.”
The biggest problem for poetry, says Daruwalla, is vanity publishing. “Any rich housewife who can scribble a few words thinks she should come out with a book,” he says. “That destroys the credibility of poetry. If a reader goes into a bookstore and picks up one of these books, he will think, ‘Oh God, is this what Indian poetry has come to?’”
By now, Daruwalla begins to tire, so I pop in one last question: what role does religion play in his life? “Not much,” says this father of two daughters, whose wife died in 2000. “I am a rational man. I am reminded of the joke when [French philosopher] Voltaire was dying. A priest came to him and said, ‘You must denounce the devil.’ And Voltaire replied, ‘This is no time to make new enemies.’”
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
‘The book is interpreting the world in these confusing times’
Permission to reprint this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
John Makinson/Chairman and Chief Executive, Penguin Group
John Makinson, 51, was in Mumbai recently for the launch of Portfolio, Penguin’s new business imprint with the release of The High-Performance Entrepreneur (Golden Rules of Success in Today’s World) by Subroto Bagchi.
Excerpts from an interview:
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
The Economist has foretold the death of the newspaper in a couple of decades because of the spread of the Internet. What does that mean for book publishing?
I don’t think the pressures that apply to the newspaper industry apply in the same way in the book market. The book is a very different kind of product, whether it is a book read for entertainment or information.
What about children these days who go straight to the computer and avoid the book? What happens when they reach a book-buying age?
The challenge for book publishers is to make the product attractive to children who are used to working in a screen-based environment. So, that means, the use of design, illustrations and graphics in books. Of course, there is more competition in the form of play stations and televisions. But Harry Potter has shown one thing: the right book can appeal to young people in enormous numbers.
How big is the audio book market?
The audio book market is starting to show a lot of growth. And that is partly because of the format change from cassette to CD. The application of audio that is really starting to grow is the downloadable audio. So, audio books that can be listened on MP3 players and Ipods have become a big growth market. However, the numbers are small. Our sales are around a million dollars, in a business worth more than a billion dollars. So, it has to grow a lot.
Does that mean, there is no market for it?
No, it will grow at different speeds in different areas of the market. For example, the downloadable audio for travel publishing is doing well. If one is visiting Mumbai, it will be very attractive to walk around with an audio product, telling you where you are, and where you need to go. However, it is a complement, rather than a substitute for the travel guide. A lot of the applications of audio will supplement books.
What are the global trends in publishing?
There is a big demand globally, and certainly in this country, for intelligent non-fiction. Books like The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen have become bestsellers in India and globally. We live in a confusing and fast-moving world and these books help to interpret that world to people who are, at some level, confused.
Another trend is the hold that one generation of American airport best-selling writers had on a global audience, authors like Stephen King, John Grisham and Danielle Steele, is dipping; because readers are becoming more experimental. Rather than read the fourth book of a particular author, they might try a new one.
Word of mouth is very powerful in propelling a book to bestsellerdom. And that is a significant trend.
There is an increasing focus by publishers on a limited number of best-selling authors, in terms of how they allocate the marketing support. If you take the new Vikram Chandra book, globally, this is huge and every publisher of that book around the world is putting in a lot of marketing investment behind that book in order to make it a success.
Is it true that self-help books are one of the biggest sellers?
Self help books have always been an important category. People have always looked at these books as a way of improving themselves. Whether it is in their personal lives or business performance or in how they raise their children, books are a good guide on how to lead a better life. If you look at the market in China, self-help books are a tremendously important category. The Chinese have a huge appetite for self-improvement.
Is there any particular reason?
They are very ambitious for their children. So, there is a big market for books that tell them how to educate their children, how to equip them with skills, whether it be the English language or technology or business information that will enable them to live more prosperous or fulfilled lives.
Which is the hottest market for Penguin worldwide now?
India is hot. Penguin is, by a long way, the leading English language trade publisher in the country. This year, we have had a 27 per cent growth, as compared to last year, and this is the highest percentage of growth in the world for us. What is helping is the rising prosperity, the growth of the middle class and the increasing use of English.
Yet, if a book of fiction sells 5,000 copies, it is regarded as a best seller.
Traditionally, 5,000 copies is regarded a bestseller. As a rough mean, that stays the case. What has happened now is the big brands have become much bigger. Which means, Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games has already sold 20,000 copies. Earlier, this would sell a total of 10,000 copies.
Portfolio: this new business imprint. Do you feel there is a market for business books in India?
There is a huge market. We are aiming it at business people and those who have an interest in business. There is an interest in India, in what makes businesses successful in the enterprise economy and what that means for India. Outside India, there is an enormous interest in the Indian economic success story. What we are hoping with Portfolio here is not just that we will bring some of the books that Portfolio in the US has published successfully to India but there will almost certainly be a worldwide audience for some of the books that we originate in India.
John Makinson/Chairman and Chief Executive, Penguin Group
John Makinson, 51, was in Mumbai recently for the launch of Portfolio, Penguin’s new business imprint with the release of The High-Performance Entrepreneur (Golden Rules of Success in Today’s World) by Subroto Bagchi.
Excerpts from an interview:
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
The Economist has foretold the death of the newspaper in a couple of decades because of the spread of the Internet. What does that mean for book publishing?
I don’t think the pressures that apply to the newspaper industry apply in the same way in the book market. The book is a very different kind of product, whether it is a book read for entertainment or information.
What about children these days who go straight to the computer and avoid the book? What happens when they reach a book-buying age?
The challenge for book publishers is to make the product attractive to children who are used to working in a screen-based environment. So, that means, the use of design, illustrations and graphics in books. Of course, there is more competition in the form of play stations and televisions. But Harry Potter has shown one thing: the right book can appeal to young people in enormous numbers.
How big is the audio book market?
The audio book market is starting to show a lot of growth. And that is partly because of the format change from cassette to CD. The application of audio that is really starting to grow is the downloadable audio. So, audio books that can be listened on MP3 players and Ipods have become a big growth market. However, the numbers are small. Our sales are around a million dollars, in a business worth more than a billion dollars. So, it has to grow a lot.
Does that mean, there is no market for it?
No, it will grow at different speeds in different areas of the market. For example, the downloadable audio for travel publishing is doing well. If one is visiting Mumbai, it will be very attractive to walk around with an audio product, telling you where you are, and where you need to go. However, it is a complement, rather than a substitute for the travel guide. A lot of the applications of audio will supplement books.
What are the global trends in publishing?
There is a big demand globally, and certainly in this country, for intelligent non-fiction. Books like The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen have become bestsellers in India and globally. We live in a confusing and fast-moving world and these books help to interpret that world to people who are, at some level, confused.
Another trend is the hold that one generation of American airport best-selling writers had on a global audience, authors like Stephen King, John Grisham and Danielle Steele, is dipping; because readers are becoming more experimental. Rather than read the fourth book of a particular author, they might try a new one.
Word of mouth is very powerful in propelling a book to bestsellerdom. And that is a significant trend.
There is an increasing focus by publishers on a limited number of best-selling authors, in terms of how they allocate the marketing support. If you take the new Vikram Chandra book, globally, this is huge and every publisher of that book around the world is putting in a lot of marketing investment behind that book in order to make it a success.
Is it true that self-help books are one of the biggest sellers?
Self help books have always been an important category. People have always looked at these books as a way of improving themselves. Whether it is in their personal lives or business performance or in how they raise their children, books are a good guide on how to lead a better life. If you look at the market in China, self-help books are a tremendously important category. The Chinese have a huge appetite for self-improvement.
Is there any particular reason?
They are very ambitious for their children. So, there is a big market for books that tell them how to educate their children, how to equip them with skills, whether it be the English language or technology or business information that will enable them to live more prosperous or fulfilled lives.
Which is the hottest market for Penguin worldwide now?
India is hot. Penguin is, by a long way, the leading English language trade publisher in the country. This year, we have had a 27 per cent growth, as compared to last year, and this is the highest percentage of growth in the world for us. What is helping is the rising prosperity, the growth of the middle class and the increasing use of English.
Yet, if a book of fiction sells 5,000 copies, it is regarded as a best seller.
Traditionally, 5,000 copies is regarded a bestseller. As a rough mean, that stays the case. What has happened now is the big brands have become much bigger. Which means, Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games has already sold 20,000 copies. Earlier, this would sell a total of 10,000 copies.
Portfolio: this new business imprint. Do you feel there is a market for business books in India?
There is a huge market. We are aiming it at business people and those who have an interest in business. There is an interest in India, in what makes businesses successful in the enterprise economy and what that means for India. Outside India, there is an enormous interest in the Indian economic success story. What we are hoping with Portfolio here is not just that we will bring some of the books that Portfolio in the US has published successfully to India but there will almost certainly be a worldwide audience for some of the books that we originate in India.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
“Pollution and crowds made my son faint”
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
Dad defends a seven-year-old son who runs 70 km and collapses
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“Just one second,” says Padmacharan Mandal. “Mritunjay felt faint for one second and you guys in the media made such a hullabaloo. He was okay immediately.” He is talking about his son who collapsed at the 70 km mark, at Kemp’s Corner, on his run from Kalyan to the Gateway of India, a distance of 80kms on Sunday morning.
“You have to understand he is a boy from a village in Orissa,” continues Padmacharan. “All of a sudden, he is running in front of crowds, in front of such huge buildings he has never seen before and there was so much of pollution. So he fainted for one second.”
Mritunjay, who is sitting next to his father, in a blue tracksuit, says, “Just one second. My reputation has been spoiled.”
It is a big sentence for a seven-year-old. I try to visualise myself at seven and all I could recall was the desire to play football all the time and how to avoid going to school. So, clearly, this seems to be a tutored dialogue.
Padmacharan, 42, with a grey stubble, thin hair and chapped lips, looks 15 years older. He is an ayurvedic doctor and has an elder son and two daughters, besides Mritunjay. When asked whether he was exploiting his son, he says, “Not at all. He loves to run. He has been running ever since he could walk.” He says that as a doctor, he ensures that Mritunjay gets a medical check up every six months. “He is perfectly fine now.”
It’s bad manners but I lean forward and touch the boy’s forehead with my palm: he is cool as a cucumber.
“There is no exploitation going on,” says Shrikant Kumar Padhi, president of Rashtriya Oriya Yuvak Pratishtan.
In the midst of the questioning, Mritunjay suddenly starts drumming on the table with his fingers. He looks relaxed except for this tiny hint of nervousness: every now and then, his right leg twitches.
As the photographers come closer to take pictures, his father whispers something in Oriya and the son immediately comes up with the ‘V’ sign.
So what are the plans for the future?
“I want to run in the Olympic Games and win a gold medal,” says Mrintunjay. “What is the Olympic Games?” is the question put forth. For once, the boy’s eyes blink and there is a silence all around.
Dad defends a seven-year-old son who runs 70 km and collapses
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“Just one second,” says Padmacharan Mandal. “Mritunjay felt faint for one second and you guys in the media made such a hullabaloo. He was okay immediately.” He is talking about his son who collapsed at the 70 km mark, at Kemp’s Corner, on his run from Kalyan to the Gateway of India, a distance of 80kms on Sunday morning.
“You have to understand he is a boy from a village in Orissa,” continues Padmacharan. “All of a sudden, he is running in front of crowds, in front of such huge buildings he has never seen before and there was so much of pollution. So he fainted for one second.”
Mritunjay, who is sitting next to his father, in a blue tracksuit, says, “Just one second. My reputation has been spoiled.”
It is a big sentence for a seven-year-old. I try to visualise myself at seven and all I could recall was the desire to play football all the time and how to avoid going to school. So, clearly, this seems to be a tutored dialogue.
Padmacharan, 42, with a grey stubble, thin hair and chapped lips, looks 15 years older. He is an ayurvedic doctor and has an elder son and two daughters, besides Mritunjay. When asked whether he was exploiting his son, he says, “Not at all. He loves to run. He has been running ever since he could walk.” He says that as a doctor, he ensures that Mritunjay gets a medical check up every six months. “He is perfectly fine now.”
It’s bad manners but I lean forward and touch the boy’s forehead with my palm: he is cool as a cucumber.
“There is no exploitation going on,” says Shrikant Kumar Padhi, president of Rashtriya Oriya Yuvak Pratishtan.
In the midst of the questioning, Mritunjay suddenly starts drumming on the table with his fingers. He looks relaxed except for this tiny hint of nervousness: every now and then, his right leg twitches.
As the photographers come closer to take pictures, his father whispers something in Oriya and the son immediately comes up with the ‘V’ sign.
So what are the plans for the future?
“I want to run in the Olympic Games and win a gold medal,” says Mrintunjay. “What is the Olympic Games?” is the question put forth. For once, the boy’s eyes blink and there is a silence all around.
Monday, September 25, 2006
“I want to play for India once again”
Permission to reproduce this copy has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
Newly married and completely recovered from a shin injury, a confident Vinod Kambli wants to play for Mumbai first
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“I was 13 years old,” says stylish left-hand batsman Vinod Kambli. “One day, there was a match at the Azad maidan. Our team was batting and I was at No. 3. When a wicket fell, my father came into bat. He got 110 in just 60 balls, while I got out after scoring 50. Later he took eight wickets. How many sons have a chance to play with their fathers in the same game? This is one of the best memories of my life.”
We are talking in an exercise room in Leena Mogre’s fitness gym in Khar. A few minutes earlier, he had come with his wife, Andrea Hewitt, a model, whom he married on September 8.
“You are twenty minutes late,” says the pony-tailed Mogre, as music pulsates from the several speakers around the gym.
Kambli smiles and shrugs his shoulders. He is broad shouldered and sleek, in white T-shirt and shorts, with silver earrings, while Andrea is slim and pretty, in black leotards.
Andrew Leipus, 36, the former physiotherapist of the Indian cricket team, waves out. Kambli raises a hand in greeting. The Australian is helping the injury-prone bowler Ashish Nehra with some weightlifting and is also guiding Kambli’s fitness regimen.
Kambli has the look of happiness of a man who has just tied the knot. Husband and wife stand so close to each other, there is no space for a knife to go through. So how does it feel to be married?
“Andrea loves me for the person I am,” he says. “We were friends earlier, but it turned to love later. In the past few years, I have gone through bad times, with a serious shin injury and jaundice. During all these times, Andrea stood beside me.”
Later, Andrea confirms what Kambli has said. “I liked him as a friend,” she says. “It turned to love when I realised what a nice human being he is. He is caring, loving and sweet-natured. And, despite all the bad times he was going through, there was always a smile on his face.”
This is Kambli’s second marriage. His earlier marriage to Nicole ended in divorce and they had no children. Understandably, a week after his wedding, he did not want to talk about it.
“It is in the past,” he says.
In and out
As for Kambli’s cricketing past, it’s been quite a few years since he played for India. So does he miss the limelight? “Not at all,” he says. “People still love me. They keep telling me I can play for the country. But my first goal is to play for Mumbai and do well and then play for India.”
It does seem like an uphill task. At 34, time could have run out for this prodigious talent. “Age is not a criteria,” he says. “I just need another chance. I have made nine comebacks so far; this is a record by itself. Whenever I was dropped from the Indian team, the Mumbai team would help me to make a comeback.”
And the feeling from Mumbai is mutual. “If he is fit and scoring hundreds, which he is capable of, he can easily stage a comeback,” says Milind Rege, chairman of the Mumbai selection committee. “He is that good. But the desire to come back has to be there. It is not enough to say ‘I want to come back’. We are all frustrated that Kambli has not started playing for Mumbai.”
Kambli’s father, Ganpat Kambli, 72, feels his son can play for India if he starts practising regularly. “There is a little over a year’s difference in age between Sachin and Vinod,” he says. “If Sachin can still play for India, so can Vinod.”
Tough life
Kambli’s initiation into cricket happened because of his father. When he was three years old, Ganpat used to take him to watch him play the Kanga League matches. His father was a bowler and Kambli would lie on the grass and sometimes go to sleep. “During the lunch break, my dad would give me his big bat, and I would start playing,” he says. “That is how I started enjoying the game.”
The turning point in his career came when, at 12, he came under the eye of famed coach Ramakant Achrekar and moved to Sharadashram Vidyamandir at Dadar, where he met Sachin Tendulkar and their destinies intertwined. They scored that memorable world record of 664 in the Harris Shield in February 1988, and things started changing. “All the breaks in our careers came after this record,” he says. Today, the childhood friends are still close. “Sachin Tendulkar is my friend, philosopher and guide,” says Kambli. “We say a friend in deed is a friend indeed and he has always been there for me. We have kept alive the friendship because we respect each other.” It has been an unusual friendship because of their differing backgrounds.
While Tendulkar had a middle class upbringing, Kambli came from straitened circumstances. His father, a machinist at Guest Keen Williams, worked in Bhandup, and the family initially stayed at Bhindi Bazar, before moving to a chawl in Kanjur Marg. Since school started at 7.20 am, he set out at 6 am. After school, he would play cricket at Shivaji Park till 7 pm, hang around with Tendulkar, eating vada pavs, till the latter went home at 8 pm. Then Kambli would go to a friend’s place and spend some more time. Because the trains were crowded, and he had a large kit bag, he would only take the last train home. “I always travelled in the luggage compartment and I can still recall the smell of the fish and the vegetables,” he says. His mother would be waiting at the station at 1 am and take him home. After a few hours sleep, he would be back on the grind.
Kambli made his one-day debut in 1991 and his Test debut in 1993. However, while Tendulkar has soared, Kambli has stuttered. “People should not compare me with Tendulkar,” he says. The striking thing about Kambli’s career was how short-lived it was, especially his Test career, which lasted around two and a half years. His one-day career totalled nine years, with many breaks in between. He would be in and out of the Indian team; there was talk that he was distracted by the glamorous life; there were disciplinary problems, too.
“Kambli did not have a mentor who could have guided him at that young age, like the way [elder brother] Ajit Tendulkar kept an eye on Sachin,” says Rege. His wife Andrea agrees. “If he had somebody to help him when he was young, he would have been able to avoid the mistakes he made,” she says.
But then, you live and learn. And the good wishes of the fans will always be with him, because he is a nice guy. As Rege says, “Even after 10 years, Kambli is the most popular guy in the Mumbai team.” So, with a little bit of luck, sustained commitment and lots of runs, he should be back: first in the Mumbai team, then Bharat Mata!
Career stats
Test debut: January 1993, Versus England
Last Test: November, 1995. Versus New Zealand
No of Tests: 17; Average: 54.20; Runs: 1084; Highest score: 227. 4 centuries. 3 fifties
One-Day Debut: October 1991. Versus Pakistan
Last One-Day Match: October 2000. Vs. Sri Lanka
ODI’s: 104; Average: 32.59; Runs: 2477; Highest score: 106. 2 hundreds. 14 Fifties
Newly married and completely recovered from a shin injury, a confident Vinod Kambli wants to play for Mumbai first
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“I was 13 years old,” says stylish left-hand batsman Vinod Kambli. “One day, there was a match at the Azad maidan. Our team was batting and I was at No. 3. When a wicket fell, my father came into bat. He got 110 in just 60 balls, while I got out after scoring 50. Later he took eight wickets. How many sons have a chance to play with their fathers in the same game? This is one of the best memories of my life.”
We are talking in an exercise room in Leena Mogre’s fitness gym in Khar. A few minutes earlier, he had come with his wife, Andrea Hewitt, a model, whom he married on September 8.
“You are twenty minutes late,” says the pony-tailed Mogre, as music pulsates from the several speakers around the gym.
Kambli smiles and shrugs his shoulders. He is broad shouldered and sleek, in white T-shirt and shorts, with silver earrings, while Andrea is slim and pretty, in black leotards.
Andrew Leipus, 36, the former physiotherapist of the Indian cricket team, waves out. Kambli raises a hand in greeting. The Australian is helping the injury-prone bowler Ashish Nehra with some weightlifting and is also guiding Kambli’s fitness regimen.
Kambli has the look of happiness of a man who has just tied the knot. Husband and wife stand so close to each other, there is no space for a knife to go through. So how does it feel to be married?
“Andrea loves me for the person I am,” he says. “We were friends earlier, but it turned to love later. In the past few years, I have gone through bad times, with a serious shin injury and jaundice. During all these times, Andrea stood beside me.”
Later, Andrea confirms what Kambli has said. “I liked him as a friend,” she says. “It turned to love when I realised what a nice human being he is. He is caring, loving and sweet-natured. And, despite all the bad times he was going through, there was always a smile on his face.”
This is Kambli’s second marriage. His earlier marriage to Nicole ended in divorce and they had no children. Understandably, a week after his wedding, he did not want to talk about it.
“It is in the past,” he says.
In and out
As for Kambli’s cricketing past, it’s been quite a few years since he played for India. So does he miss the limelight? “Not at all,” he says. “People still love me. They keep telling me I can play for the country. But my first goal is to play for Mumbai and do well and then play for India.”
It does seem like an uphill task. At 34, time could have run out for this prodigious talent. “Age is not a criteria,” he says. “I just need another chance. I have made nine comebacks so far; this is a record by itself. Whenever I was dropped from the Indian team, the Mumbai team would help me to make a comeback.”
And the feeling from Mumbai is mutual. “If he is fit and scoring hundreds, which he is capable of, he can easily stage a comeback,” says Milind Rege, chairman of the Mumbai selection committee. “He is that good. But the desire to come back has to be there. It is not enough to say ‘I want to come back’. We are all frustrated that Kambli has not started playing for Mumbai.”
Kambli’s father, Ganpat Kambli, 72, feels his son can play for India if he starts practising regularly. “There is a little over a year’s difference in age between Sachin and Vinod,” he says. “If Sachin can still play for India, so can Vinod.”
Tough life
Kambli’s initiation into cricket happened because of his father. When he was three years old, Ganpat used to take him to watch him play the Kanga League matches. His father was a bowler and Kambli would lie on the grass and sometimes go to sleep. “During the lunch break, my dad would give me his big bat, and I would start playing,” he says. “That is how I started enjoying the game.”
The turning point in his career came when, at 12, he came under the eye of famed coach Ramakant Achrekar and moved to Sharadashram Vidyamandir at Dadar, where he met Sachin Tendulkar and their destinies intertwined. They scored that memorable world record of 664 in the Harris Shield in February 1988, and things started changing. “All the breaks in our careers came after this record,” he says. Today, the childhood friends are still close. “Sachin Tendulkar is my friend, philosopher and guide,” says Kambli. “We say a friend in deed is a friend indeed and he has always been there for me. We have kept alive the friendship because we respect each other.” It has been an unusual friendship because of their differing backgrounds.
While Tendulkar had a middle class upbringing, Kambli came from straitened circumstances. His father, a machinist at Guest Keen Williams, worked in Bhandup, and the family initially stayed at Bhindi Bazar, before moving to a chawl in Kanjur Marg. Since school started at 7.20 am, he set out at 6 am. After school, he would play cricket at Shivaji Park till 7 pm, hang around with Tendulkar, eating vada pavs, till the latter went home at 8 pm. Then Kambli would go to a friend’s place and spend some more time. Because the trains were crowded, and he had a large kit bag, he would only take the last train home. “I always travelled in the luggage compartment and I can still recall the smell of the fish and the vegetables,” he says. His mother would be waiting at the station at 1 am and take him home. After a few hours sleep, he would be back on the grind.
Kambli made his one-day debut in 1991 and his Test debut in 1993. However, while Tendulkar has soared, Kambli has stuttered. “People should not compare me with Tendulkar,” he says. The striking thing about Kambli’s career was how short-lived it was, especially his Test career, which lasted around two and a half years. His one-day career totalled nine years, with many breaks in between. He would be in and out of the Indian team; there was talk that he was distracted by the glamorous life; there were disciplinary problems, too.
“Kambli did not have a mentor who could have guided him at that young age, like the way [elder brother] Ajit Tendulkar kept an eye on Sachin,” says Rege. His wife Andrea agrees. “If he had somebody to help him when he was young, he would have been able to avoid the mistakes he made,” she says.
But then, you live and learn. And the good wishes of the fans will always be with him, because he is a nice guy. As Rege says, “Even after 10 years, Kambli is the most popular guy in the Mumbai team.” So, with a little bit of luck, sustained commitment and lots of runs, he should be back: first in the Mumbai team, then Bharat Mata!
Career stats
Test debut: January 1993, Versus England
Last Test: November, 1995. Versus New Zealand
No of Tests: 17; Average: 54.20; Runs: 1084; Highest score: 227. 4 centuries. 3 fifties
One-Day Debut: October 1991. Versus Pakistan
Last One-Day Match: October 2000. Vs. Sri Lanka
ODI’s: 104; Average: 32.59; Runs: 2477; Highest score: 106. 2 hundreds. 14 Fifties
Sun, sea, sand, surf… and danger
Permission to reproduce this copy has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
Lifeguards risk their own lives to save others but rarely get any gratitude in return
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
Gap-toothed Arvind Kelvekar, 54, will never forget this incident. “Two men were drowning at the same time,” he says. “I held both and was trying to bring them back to shore. But it was proving to be tough.” He realised he had to leave one man, in order to save the other. Both were over fifty years of age. When Kelvekar brought one man to the shore, the members of the other family said, “Why did you save this man? The good man died.”
Kelvekar later discovered that the man who was saved was working in a bank while the man who died was unemployed. “I had to make a split-second decision,” he says. “I do feel bad that I was unable to save both of them.”
For Manohar Keshav Patel, 55, he remembers how, some years ago, four men were drowning. Both Kelvekar and he managed to save three of them. When he went to get the fourth, a 25-year-old, the man grabbed him and did not let go. “We were going up and down,” says Patel. “I begged him to leave me and he said, ‘No, I cannot, because I will drown’. I said, ‘My job is to save you but he did not believe me.’ Patel gave up hope but when the man swallowed too much water, “he let go of me and I managed to swim around and pulled him by his hair to the surface and later to the shore. I did CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] and that revived him. Later, I gave him a cup of tea.”
Kelvekar and Patel are one of six lifeguards, employed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, who have been doing the job on the Juhu beach for the past 29 years. Six others have retired and now another four-- Anil Vasan, 20, Rohit Patil, 19, Sunil Jadhav, 27, and Dinesh Mangela--have joined the team, on a five-month contract, at a monthly salary of Rs 6000.
On a breezy Wednesday afternoon, the youngsters come into the lifeguard’s room at the YMCA building, near the Shivaji statue, in a rush for the 2 pm shift. The room has a table, which is so rusted, it is amazing it is still standing. Rust is running riot on the steel almirahs and the lockers. A clothesline runs across the room and, through a small window, the sea breeze blows in constantly. However, in a marked contrast to the gloomy surroundings, are the brightly coloured yellow buoys and red tubes placed at one corner and they look in very good condition.
Vasan puts on a blue T-shirt. This is part of the kit given by the BMC: swimming trunks; a whistle; anti-fog swimming goggles; a pair of binoculars; a life jacket and two T-shirts.
These lifeguards were selected after passing swimming tests conducted by the Fire Brigade. Thereafter, they had to undergo a course on how to rescue people, administer first aid and CPR conducted by H2O Water Sports Complex at Chowpathy.
They had barely started work when, in a joint operation, these boys saved eight men who had come to swim in the morning and suddenly a hole was formed below where they were standing and they started to sink. When there is high or low tide, holes develop because the sand is swept away. Rohit Patil and the others rushed in and threw tubes and buoys. “I felt good when we saved them,” he says. “However, the people who we saved just walked away.”
This is one of the unusual experiences of the lifeguards. Time and time again, they have saved people but the gratitude has been desultory. “They rarely give us anything,” says Kelvekar. However, there was a businessman from Khar, who had been swimming with the help of a tube but it slipped away from him and he started drowning. “I saved him and after a few days, he came and gave me a shirt and trouser length,” he says. Amazingly, this was the only gift that Kelvekar has received in 29 years on the job.
On another day, I go across to see Dr Kiran Harsora, deputy executive health officer at the BMC, at his air-conditioned office in Lower Parel. “Owing to super-annuation and retirements, a few vacancies for lifeguards have come up,” he says. “So, we decide to fill up the posts.” So far, 23 men have been appointed and they have been distributed on the beaches on Dadar and Girgaun Chowpathy, Goregaon, Andheri, Malad, Gorai and Juhu. “This is a temporary appointment for five months,” says Harsora. “The BMC has yet to decide on whether it should have regular posts.” Harsora says there is a growing awareness in the BMC and the public about the need for lifeguards.
Advice by lifeguards
The most dangerous months: May, June and July, because there are strong undercurrents.
Just go in till the water is at waist-level and remain there. Don’t go further than that, especially if you don’t know swimming. People get excited and love to go deep.
Swimming in the sea is different from in a swimming pool. There are currents and whirlpools in the sea; in the pool, the water is still.
The most deaths take place on Sundays and public holidays.
The elusive lifeguard
On a sunny Thursday afternoon, I land up at Girgaum Chowpathy. There are the usual couples, snuggling with each other, families taking a walk and a group of schoolboys having a blast in the sea. But where is the lifeguard? I walk up and down the beach and he is nowhere in sight. I ask a group of fishermen who were having their lunch, sitting cross-legged on the sand and they tell me to go to the nearby H2O Water Complex run by actor Sunil Shetty. But the H2O employees say the lifeguards sometimes come for a chat but they usually stand on the beach. So I go back and notice a small shack on one side. I part the sack, which acts as a curtain, and ask the man who is sleeping there whether he has any idea of the lifeguards. He works for the BMC but says he has not seen him. He asks me to ask some workers who are cleaning up the beach. One of them says he sees a lifeguard in the early mornings and has not seen anybody now. From the beach, I call up Dr R.P. Dengle, medical officer, health, ‘D’ ward and he says, “A lifeguard, Kiran Gardhe, is supposed to join at 3 pm but he does not have a mobile phone. He is wearing a white shirt and shorts, with a BMC cap.” Unfortunately, I am unable to spot him. A day later, he tells Dengle that because it was low tide, he was hanging around the bhelpuri plaza. But I had wandered around the plaza and had not seen him. Dengle says there are two other lifeguards, Manoj Balekar and Santosh Patil on the roster.
Lifeguards risk their own lives to save others but rarely get any gratitude in return
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
Gap-toothed Arvind Kelvekar, 54, will never forget this incident. “Two men were drowning at the same time,” he says. “I held both and was trying to bring them back to shore. But it was proving to be tough.” He realised he had to leave one man, in order to save the other. Both were over fifty years of age. When Kelvekar brought one man to the shore, the members of the other family said, “Why did you save this man? The good man died.”
Kelvekar later discovered that the man who was saved was working in a bank while the man who died was unemployed. “I had to make a split-second decision,” he says. “I do feel bad that I was unable to save both of them.”
For Manohar Keshav Patel, 55, he remembers how, some years ago, four men were drowning. Both Kelvekar and he managed to save three of them. When he went to get the fourth, a 25-year-old, the man grabbed him and did not let go. “We were going up and down,” says Patel. “I begged him to leave me and he said, ‘No, I cannot, because I will drown’. I said, ‘My job is to save you but he did not believe me.’ Patel gave up hope but when the man swallowed too much water, “he let go of me and I managed to swim around and pulled him by his hair to the surface and later to the shore. I did CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] and that revived him. Later, I gave him a cup of tea.”
Kelvekar and Patel are one of six lifeguards, employed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, who have been doing the job on the Juhu beach for the past 29 years. Six others have retired and now another four-- Anil Vasan, 20, Rohit Patil, 19, Sunil Jadhav, 27, and Dinesh Mangela--have joined the team, on a five-month contract, at a monthly salary of Rs 6000.
On a breezy Wednesday afternoon, the youngsters come into the lifeguard’s room at the YMCA building, near the Shivaji statue, in a rush for the 2 pm shift. The room has a table, which is so rusted, it is amazing it is still standing. Rust is running riot on the steel almirahs and the lockers. A clothesline runs across the room and, through a small window, the sea breeze blows in constantly. However, in a marked contrast to the gloomy surroundings, are the brightly coloured yellow buoys and red tubes placed at one corner and they look in very good condition.
Vasan puts on a blue T-shirt. This is part of the kit given by the BMC: swimming trunks; a whistle; anti-fog swimming goggles; a pair of binoculars; a life jacket and two T-shirts.
These lifeguards were selected after passing swimming tests conducted by the Fire Brigade. Thereafter, they had to undergo a course on how to rescue people, administer first aid and CPR conducted by H2O Water Sports Complex at Chowpathy.
They had barely started work when, in a joint operation, these boys saved eight men who had come to swim in the morning and suddenly a hole was formed below where they were standing and they started to sink. When there is high or low tide, holes develop because the sand is swept away. Rohit Patil and the others rushed in and threw tubes and buoys. “I felt good when we saved them,” he says. “However, the people who we saved just walked away.”
This is one of the unusual experiences of the lifeguards. Time and time again, they have saved people but the gratitude has been desultory. “They rarely give us anything,” says Kelvekar. However, there was a businessman from Khar, who had been swimming with the help of a tube but it slipped away from him and he started drowning. “I saved him and after a few days, he came and gave me a shirt and trouser length,” he says. Amazingly, this was the only gift that Kelvekar has received in 29 years on the job.
On another day, I go across to see Dr Kiran Harsora, deputy executive health officer at the BMC, at his air-conditioned office in Lower Parel. “Owing to super-annuation and retirements, a few vacancies for lifeguards have come up,” he says. “So, we decide to fill up the posts.” So far, 23 men have been appointed and they have been distributed on the beaches on Dadar and Girgaun Chowpathy, Goregaon, Andheri, Malad, Gorai and Juhu. “This is a temporary appointment for five months,” says Harsora. “The BMC has yet to decide on whether it should have regular posts.” Harsora says there is a growing awareness in the BMC and the public about the need for lifeguards.
Advice by lifeguards
The most dangerous months: May, June and July, because there are strong undercurrents.
Just go in till the water is at waist-level and remain there. Don’t go further than that, especially if you don’t know swimming. People get excited and love to go deep.
Swimming in the sea is different from in a swimming pool. There are currents and whirlpools in the sea; in the pool, the water is still.
The most deaths take place on Sundays and public holidays.
The elusive lifeguard
On a sunny Thursday afternoon, I land up at Girgaum Chowpathy. There are the usual couples, snuggling with each other, families taking a walk and a group of schoolboys having a blast in the sea. But where is the lifeguard? I walk up and down the beach and he is nowhere in sight. I ask a group of fishermen who were having their lunch, sitting cross-legged on the sand and they tell me to go to the nearby H2O Water Complex run by actor Sunil Shetty. But the H2O employees say the lifeguards sometimes come for a chat but they usually stand on the beach. So I go back and notice a small shack on one side. I part the sack, which acts as a curtain, and ask the man who is sleeping there whether he has any idea of the lifeguards. He works for the BMC but says he has not seen him. He asks me to ask some workers who are cleaning up the beach. One of them says he sees a lifeguard in the early mornings and has not seen anybody now. From the beach, I call up Dr R.P. Dengle, medical officer, health, ‘D’ ward and he says, “A lifeguard, Kiran Gardhe, is supposed to join at 3 pm but he does not have a mobile phone. He is wearing a white shirt and shorts, with a BMC cap.” Unfortunately, I am unable to spot him. A day later, he tells Dengle that because it was low tide, he was hanging around the bhelpuri plaza. But I had wandered around the plaza and had not seen him. Dengle says there are two other lifeguards, Manoj Balekar and Santosh Patil on the roster.
Monday, September 18, 2006
The eyes of this cop are on you
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
Sanjay Aparanti, DCP, who has recently been enforcing the High Court directive on cable operators, monitors paedophiles, prostitutes, call girls, obscene music videos, vulgar film posters and wife swapping
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“A few days ago, I was supposed to cut the telecast of Zee TV, because of its violations of the Cable Television Network Act,” says Sanjay Aparanti, 42, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Social Service Branch. “So, I despatched my team at 8 pm to do the job. I told them I would come later. At 8.45 pm, on my way to the studio, I got a call from a woman. She told me that she had heard that I was going to cut the telecast and she wanted me to do it only after 10.30 pm.” Apparently, there was a programme about 9/11, which had been aired the previous day and the second part of the programme was being telecast that night. “Mr. Aparanti, I know you are a good man and I am sure you will do this for me,” she said.
Aparanti had fifteen minutes to decide. He called the television office and was told the telecast had been stopped. He spoke to the manager of the channel and told him to resume the telecast because there was a request from ‘one of your customers’. “I wanted to give the pleasure of viewing that particular programme for, maybe, a lakh of people,” he says. The channel resumed telecast and at 9.05 pm the woman called and thanked him profusely.
Aparanti tells me he does not know who the woman is but he felt happy when he made the decision. When he reached home, he was astonished to discover that his wife and two children were watching the same telecast. “The channel was taken off the air later,” says Aparanti, with a smile.
This is one event in an incident-packed life of the cop who looks after law enforcement in the city. Aparanti keeps an eye on paedophiles, raids brothels, traps call girls through sting operations, deals with piracy and counterfeit goods, sends publishers to jail for publishing obscene material, investigates the wardrobe malfunctioning of models like Carole Gracias and Gauhar Khan during a fashion show, confiscates decoders of cable operators, tries to limit the obscenity shown in music videos, targets vulgar film posters, tries to trace those who morph pictures of film stars on nude bodies, and keeps track on the orgies and the wife swapping in the city.
Can he police all this effectively?
“I have been constantly striving to deal with these subjects with sensitivity and sincerity,” he says. “But I have to tell you that at the end of the day, I am confused. In the wake of globalisation, our traditions have been shaken up. Everybody is in a crisis. Even I am in a crisis. I know what to do but I am confused about how to go about it. Because, in the end, I don’t want to interfere with personal freedom.”
One who has interacted with him often in the past few weeks has been Ravi Singh, 46, vice-president of the Cable Operators' and Distributors' Association for Maharashtra. “Aparanti is a gentleman,” he says. “He has enormous patience. He is always trying to understand our viewpoint and does not harass you.”
A doctor cum policeman
The surprising thing is that Aparanti had qualified as a medical doctor. He had set up a dispensary and was doing well but felt vaguely unsatisfied. He wanted to contribute more to society and the best way, he felt, was by becoming an administrator. So, he sat for the Maharashtra Public Service Commission examinations in 1989 and got through. However, according to his ranking, he was given the slot for policemen.
It is clear he has no regrets because, he says, the job of the policeman is most interesting. “I see the whole gamut of life,” he says. “Every day, I see something new. And that is great.”
In fact, he says, the world can be divided into those who are in the police and those who are outside. “The non-police person knows that wrong things are happening. But I know the reason why they are happening. Most people know only one part of life, while the police knows life in its entirety. A policeman is more mature than the rest of the population.”
“But the public does not think so,” I say.
“That is a different story,” he says.
Few demands
It has been a long journey for him. Aparanti was born in a village in Thane district, the son of teachers. There were six children and life was tough. “A teacher’s salary is not much,” he says. As a child, he delivered newspapers and happily gave the money to his mother. “My parents taught me to keep my demands in control,” he says. “Then you get more pleasure with a smaller amount of money. This is helping me now. Because there are temptations now I can resist easily. And I am dedicated to the job.”
It seems so. He spends an average of 12 hours a day in the office. He leaves the house at 8 am and plays squash for 45 minutes at the Police Gymkhana. From there, after a bath, he heads for the office.
After a day’s work, when he reaches home at 10 pm, he has a hot water bath and sits on the sofa and maintains silence for one hour. “It takes me one hour to get the office out of the system,” he says. “My wife keeps talking to me but I don’t reply. She enjoys doing this because I don’t entertain her calls during the day. I have told her, her time is one hour at night and one hour in the morning.”
Is your wife happy with you, I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says, with a smile. “I think she is happy because I don’t interfere with her.”
To find out, on a Friday morning, I go across to meet Vandana Aparanti, 40 at the first floor apartment at the police quarters on Carter Road. It is a tidy apartment with a 27” Videocon television set holding pride of place. There is a picture of a tranquil Buddha on one wall and next to it, near the door, there is a white board with markings in red felt pen. Aparanti and Vandana met in college, fell in love and they have been married for 23 years. They have two children, son, Saunvedan, 21, who is about to embark on a post graduate degree in human rights in Britain and Sangini, 11, who is in Class seven.
When asked about the brief amount of time her husband spends at home, Vandana says, “We try to make the maximum use of whatever little time he has with us. In fact, I write on the board everything I have to discuss with him. Because there are so many things to tell him.”
Vandana, who is a social worker, says Aparanti has taken up police work as a mission to serve society “and I have always been supportive of his mission. I never feel that something is wrong because he is not at home. I always feel he is doing the right thing.”
Saunvedan, who is leaving for Britain in late September, says his father has a thankless job. “There is too much stress and pressure,” he continues. “He needs more staff and less working hours. The bureaucracy is not as efficient and is not able to deliver as much as it should.”
He says these are the reasons why he did not opt to follow in his father’s footsteps and has decided to serve society by working for non-profit organisations.
Aparantispeak
‘Prostitution should not be legalised’
Do you think it is right for two people to have sex before marriage?
If you are going to marry that girl, it is okay to have sex with her.
Suppose two young people have recreational sex?
I don’t agree with it at all. When I was in college, we treated the girl students with utmost respect. Young people should not indulge in pre-marital sex because the girl gets victimised. Man will enjoy himself but for the girl, in the end, she is looking for a lasting relationship. A woman does not have sex just for the sake of it.
Should prostitution be made legal?
No, because a woman does not go into prostitution because she derives pleasure in the act. I have talked to more than a hundred women and I have realised that it is only when they have no other source of livelihood, they take to prostitution.
The moment prostitution becomes legal, things would proliferate. Making people aware of the dignity of woman is very important. In our society, if a woman is not a wife, I am supposed to treat her like my sister, or mother or maasi [aunt] or child.
Would you arrest Vatsayana if he wrote the Kama Sutra today?
I have not read that book, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the exploitation of women. But the Kama Sutra cannot be relevant today because there is so much of porn, which has flooded the market.
Do people get corrupt by viewing erotic material?
Yes, they do. Sex is overpowering. Only if you have read good literature and seen good movies and listened to classical music, only then you can withstand it. But how can you enjoy porn when you know the woman has been exploited? I have always seen agony in the eyes of the women who take part.
Sanjay Aparanti, DCP, who has recently been enforcing the High Court directive on cable operators, monitors paedophiles, prostitutes, call girls, obscene music videos, vulgar film posters and wife swapping
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“A few days ago, I was supposed to cut the telecast of Zee TV, because of its violations of the Cable Television Network Act,” says Sanjay Aparanti, 42, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Social Service Branch. “So, I despatched my team at 8 pm to do the job. I told them I would come later. At 8.45 pm, on my way to the studio, I got a call from a woman. She told me that she had heard that I was going to cut the telecast and she wanted me to do it only after 10.30 pm.” Apparently, there was a programme about 9/11, which had been aired the previous day and the second part of the programme was being telecast that night. “Mr. Aparanti, I know you are a good man and I am sure you will do this for me,” she said.
Aparanti had fifteen minutes to decide. He called the television office and was told the telecast had been stopped. He spoke to the manager of the channel and told him to resume the telecast because there was a request from ‘one of your customers’. “I wanted to give the pleasure of viewing that particular programme for, maybe, a lakh of people,” he says. The channel resumed telecast and at 9.05 pm the woman called and thanked him profusely.
Aparanti tells me he does not know who the woman is but he felt happy when he made the decision. When he reached home, he was astonished to discover that his wife and two children were watching the same telecast. “The channel was taken off the air later,” says Aparanti, with a smile.
This is one event in an incident-packed life of the cop who looks after law enforcement in the city. Aparanti keeps an eye on paedophiles, raids brothels, traps call girls through sting operations, deals with piracy and counterfeit goods, sends publishers to jail for publishing obscene material, investigates the wardrobe malfunctioning of models like Carole Gracias and Gauhar Khan during a fashion show, confiscates decoders of cable operators, tries to limit the obscenity shown in music videos, targets vulgar film posters, tries to trace those who morph pictures of film stars on nude bodies, and keeps track on the orgies and the wife swapping in the city.
Can he police all this effectively?
“I have been constantly striving to deal with these subjects with sensitivity and sincerity,” he says. “But I have to tell you that at the end of the day, I am confused. In the wake of globalisation, our traditions have been shaken up. Everybody is in a crisis. Even I am in a crisis. I know what to do but I am confused about how to go about it. Because, in the end, I don’t want to interfere with personal freedom.”
One who has interacted with him often in the past few weeks has been Ravi Singh, 46, vice-president of the Cable Operators' and Distributors' Association for Maharashtra. “Aparanti is a gentleman,” he says. “He has enormous patience. He is always trying to understand our viewpoint and does not harass you.”
A doctor cum policeman
The surprising thing is that Aparanti had qualified as a medical doctor. He had set up a dispensary and was doing well but felt vaguely unsatisfied. He wanted to contribute more to society and the best way, he felt, was by becoming an administrator. So, he sat for the Maharashtra Public Service Commission examinations in 1989 and got through. However, according to his ranking, he was given the slot for policemen.
It is clear he has no regrets because, he says, the job of the policeman is most interesting. “I see the whole gamut of life,” he says. “Every day, I see something new. And that is great.”
In fact, he says, the world can be divided into those who are in the police and those who are outside. “The non-police person knows that wrong things are happening. But I know the reason why they are happening. Most people know only one part of life, while the police knows life in its entirety. A policeman is more mature than the rest of the population.”
“But the public does not think so,” I say.
“That is a different story,” he says.
Few demands
It has been a long journey for him. Aparanti was born in a village in Thane district, the son of teachers. There were six children and life was tough. “A teacher’s salary is not much,” he says. As a child, he delivered newspapers and happily gave the money to his mother. “My parents taught me to keep my demands in control,” he says. “Then you get more pleasure with a smaller amount of money. This is helping me now. Because there are temptations now I can resist easily. And I am dedicated to the job.”
It seems so. He spends an average of 12 hours a day in the office. He leaves the house at 8 am and plays squash for 45 minutes at the Police Gymkhana. From there, after a bath, he heads for the office.
After a day’s work, when he reaches home at 10 pm, he has a hot water bath and sits on the sofa and maintains silence for one hour. “It takes me one hour to get the office out of the system,” he says. “My wife keeps talking to me but I don’t reply. She enjoys doing this because I don’t entertain her calls during the day. I have told her, her time is one hour at night and one hour in the morning.”
Is your wife happy with you, I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says, with a smile. “I think she is happy because I don’t interfere with her.”
To find out, on a Friday morning, I go across to meet Vandana Aparanti, 40 at the first floor apartment at the police quarters on Carter Road. It is a tidy apartment with a 27” Videocon television set holding pride of place. There is a picture of a tranquil Buddha on one wall and next to it, near the door, there is a white board with markings in red felt pen. Aparanti and Vandana met in college, fell in love and they have been married for 23 years. They have two children, son, Saunvedan, 21, who is about to embark on a post graduate degree in human rights in Britain and Sangini, 11, who is in Class seven.
When asked about the brief amount of time her husband spends at home, Vandana says, “We try to make the maximum use of whatever little time he has with us. In fact, I write on the board everything I have to discuss with him. Because there are so many things to tell him.”
Vandana, who is a social worker, says Aparanti has taken up police work as a mission to serve society “and I have always been supportive of his mission. I never feel that something is wrong because he is not at home. I always feel he is doing the right thing.”
Saunvedan, who is leaving for Britain in late September, says his father has a thankless job. “There is too much stress and pressure,” he continues. “He needs more staff and less working hours. The bureaucracy is not as efficient and is not able to deliver as much as it should.”
He says these are the reasons why he did not opt to follow in his father’s footsteps and has decided to serve society by working for non-profit organisations.
Aparantispeak
‘Prostitution should not be legalised’
Do you think it is right for two people to have sex before marriage?
If you are going to marry that girl, it is okay to have sex with her.
Suppose two young people have recreational sex?
I don’t agree with it at all. When I was in college, we treated the girl students with utmost respect. Young people should not indulge in pre-marital sex because the girl gets victimised. Man will enjoy himself but for the girl, in the end, she is looking for a lasting relationship. A woman does not have sex just for the sake of it.
Should prostitution be made legal?
No, because a woman does not go into prostitution because she derives pleasure in the act. I have talked to more than a hundred women and I have realised that it is only when they have no other source of livelihood, they take to prostitution.
The moment prostitution becomes legal, things would proliferate. Making people aware of the dignity of woman is very important. In our society, if a woman is not a wife, I am supposed to treat her like my sister, or mother or maasi [aunt] or child.
Would you arrest Vatsayana if he wrote the Kama Sutra today?
I have not read that book, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the exploitation of women. But the Kama Sutra cannot be relevant today because there is so much of porn, which has flooded the market.
Do people get corrupt by viewing erotic material?
Yes, they do. Sex is overpowering. Only if you have read good literature and seen good movies and listened to classical music, only then you can withstand it. But how can you enjoy porn when you know the woman has been exploited? I have always seen agony in the eyes of the women who take part.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Jailhouse talk
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
For Swati Sathe, the superintendent of the notorious Arthur Road jail, keeping an eye on 3000 edgy inmates is a job that has its charms
Shevlin Sebastian Mumbai
“No criminal is 100 per cent black or white. They are not watertight compartments in a human being. Sometimes one is wrong, one is bad, one is negative.” That, summed up, is Swati Sathe’s approach to correctional administration, the technical term for handling inmates in a prison. The jail superintendent of Mumbai’s notorious Arthur Road Prison elaborates, “Even a murderer has a bright side. One may be a good singer, another may be an artist. I have also found that most criminals are good with their hands. I see that clearly when they make the decorations for the various religious functions we have here.”
At first glance, Sathe, 39, looks like an ordinary housewife, in her yellow salwar kameez with a maroon dupatta thrown carelessly over her shoulders. Unlike most women, she wears no rings or bangles. She has a firm, no-nonsense air about her. But when she smiles, the brown eyes soften and become warm.
An unsmiling constable serves us half-cups of tea as we talk in Sathe’s office, which looks more like a hospital room, with its pale blue tiles and fluorescent lights. Her table is bare, except for a couple of files, with a white string holding the papers together. Behind her, on a door, is a small sticker of Shirdi Sai Baba. To one side, leaning against one wall is a lathi.
“Think of the ‘93 BBC (Bomb Blasts Case) accused,” she continues. “They have been in jail for 13 years. A person can achieve so much in that time. Take my own life-- 13 years ago, where was I? Imagine, if I had spent the last 13 years in prison, what a waste it would have been. Is it any surprise that most of them are bitter, angry and frustrated?”
In the silence and austerity of the room, it is difficult to believe that just a few yards away, in inhumanly cramped barracks, live the most notorious gangsters, hoodlums, TADA detainees, the ‘93 blast accused and killers of the underworld. 3000 of them in a prison meant for 804 people.
Unusual choice
Now here’s the puzzle: Why would a woman want to spend her life keeping an eye on such an edgy collection of people? Sathe smiles, “I joined this profession because I wanted to do something different. I did not want a 10 to 5 job.” Not even in the police department. “To catch somebody is a routine police job,” she says. “But to correct somebody is more difficult and interesting.”
Sathe, the first woman to be appointed jail superintendent in India, admits, “I was appointed as an experiment. My seniors wanted to see whether I could handle this responsibility. But I was not afraid at all.”
It has not been easy of course. She says she had to work towards acceptance by colleagues, the staff and the prisoners. Especially the prisoners, who doubted if she could solve their problems. “But after 11 years in this profession,” she says, “I have realised there is only one distinction in everybody’s eyes: Whether I am a competent or a incompetent officer. Not whether I am a woman.”
Sathe certainly has her work cut out for her. The Arthur Road prison is horribly overcrowded (around 180 prisoners stay in a cell meant for 50), the food is of poor quality, sodomy is said to be rampant and prison guards, it is said, collect a hafta to provide goodies for those who have the money to pay.
And the number of deaths in custody are rising, the latest being Gateway killer Uzer Patel, who, the police say, died of Aids. Sathe defends herself: “At Arthur Road prison, prisoners come from all over Maharashtra for better treatment, which is not available at the district level. So, some of them succumb to their illnesses.” And Patel? “When Patel entered the jail, he already had a lot of health problems,” she insists.
What about the sodomy? Not as bad as is reported in the press, she says.
And hafta? “Once your image is established, nobody will dare offer you a bribe,” she says. “Initially, people would test me by offering me a plot in some housing society. Others would say, ‘Madam, your house looks very simple. So many big people come to your house and you live so simply. Let me decorate it for you.’”
She says she dealt with all of them with her 3-C formula:
1) Do not entertain Corrupt people.
2) Do not entertain the Chaaplus (flatterers).
3) Do not entertain the Chuglikhor (those who tell tales).
During my research for this piece, I was intrigued to discover that even a tough-as-nails jail superintendent can have rumours of the personal kind floating around her. When I ask her about them, she looks unfazed. “This happens with every working woman in India,” she says. “There is a saying in Hindi: Haathi chalta bazaar, to kutte bhonkte hazaar ('When the elephant walks through the market, the dogs will bark'). In my profession, when people want to bring a person down, they will accuse a man of being corrupt, a woman of sleeping around. As for me, I am answerable only to my conscience and to God.”
The balm of music
Sathe was born in Kolkata, the daughter of a scientist who worked in the central government. She studied in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh and did her masters in social work in Nagpur, specialising in criminology and correctional administration. After sitting for a state public service examination, she was selected in 1995 and, following a two-year probation, she became superintendent of the jail at Satara. There, she conducted innovative tobacco-free and health camps. Later, she had stints at Akola and Byculla, before getting the prestigious Arthur Road posting in February 2003. In March 2005, she became the principal of the Jail Officer’s Training College in Pune. A little more than a year later, she was posted once again to Arthur Road prison.
Has the constant interaction with criminals deadened her sensibilities? Killed something inside her? Sathe shakes her head. “When I go back to my family every day (she stays in a three-bedroom quarters on the top floor with her husband and daughter), I feel a sense of peace.” Incidentally, it is compulsory for the jail staff to stay in the prison.
“You have to meditate a lot,” she continues. “You have to listen to good music and read good books.” What kind of books? The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown are those that come to mind for her. And what kind of music does she listen to? Strictly classical-- singer Kishori Amonkar and flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia. “Good music relaxes you,” she says.
Like the average over-stressed Mumbaikar, Swati Sathe needs to let go sometimes, I guess.
For Swati Sathe, the superintendent of the notorious Arthur Road jail, keeping an eye on 3000 edgy inmates is a job that has its charms
Shevlin Sebastian Mumbai
“No criminal is 100 per cent black or white. They are not watertight compartments in a human being. Sometimes one is wrong, one is bad, one is negative.” That, summed up, is Swati Sathe’s approach to correctional administration, the technical term for handling inmates in a prison. The jail superintendent of Mumbai’s notorious Arthur Road Prison elaborates, “Even a murderer has a bright side. One may be a good singer, another may be an artist. I have also found that most criminals are good with their hands. I see that clearly when they make the decorations for the various religious functions we have here.”
At first glance, Sathe, 39, looks like an ordinary housewife, in her yellow salwar kameez with a maroon dupatta thrown carelessly over her shoulders. Unlike most women, she wears no rings or bangles. She has a firm, no-nonsense air about her. But when she smiles, the brown eyes soften and become warm.
An unsmiling constable serves us half-cups of tea as we talk in Sathe’s office, which looks more like a hospital room, with its pale blue tiles and fluorescent lights. Her table is bare, except for a couple of files, with a white string holding the papers together. Behind her, on a door, is a small sticker of Shirdi Sai Baba. To one side, leaning against one wall is a lathi.
“Think of the ‘93 BBC (Bomb Blasts Case) accused,” she continues. “They have been in jail for 13 years. A person can achieve so much in that time. Take my own life-- 13 years ago, where was I? Imagine, if I had spent the last 13 years in prison, what a waste it would have been. Is it any surprise that most of them are bitter, angry and frustrated?”
In the silence and austerity of the room, it is difficult to believe that just a few yards away, in inhumanly cramped barracks, live the most notorious gangsters, hoodlums, TADA detainees, the ‘93 blast accused and killers of the underworld. 3000 of them in a prison meant for 804 people.
Unusual choice
Now here’s the puzzle: Why would a woman want to spend her life keeping an eye on such an edgy collection of people? Sathe smiles, “I joined this profession because I wanted to do something different. I did not want a 10 to 5 job.” Not even in the police department. “To catch somebody is a routine police job,” she says. “But to correct somebody is more difficult and interesting.”
Sathe, the first woman to be appointed jail superintendent in India, admits, “I was appointed as an experiment. My seniors wanted to see whether I could handle this responsibility. But I was not afraid at all.”
It has not been easy of course. She says she had to work towards acceptance by colleagues, the staff and the prisoners. Especially the prisoners, who doubted if she could solve their problems. “But after 11 years in this profession,” she says, “I have realised there is only one distinction in everybody’s eyes: Whether I am a competent or a incompetent officer. Not whether I am a woman.”
Sathe certainly has her work cut out for her. The Arthur Road prison is horribly overcrowded (around 180 prisoners stay in a cell meant for 50), the food is of poor quality, sodomy is said to be rampant and prison guards, it is said, collect a hafta to provide goodies for those who have the money to pay.
And the number of deaths in custody are rising, the latest being Gateway killer Uzer Patel, who, the police say, died of Aids. Sathe defends herself: “At Arthur Road prison, prisoners come from all over Maharashtra for better treatment, which is not available at the district level. So, some of them succumb to their illnesses.” And Patel? “When Patel entered the jail, he already had a lot of health problems,” she insists.
What about the sodomy? Not as bad as is reported in the press, she says.
And hafta? “Once your image is established, nobody will dare offer you a bribe,” she says. “Initially, people would test me by offering me a plot in some housing society. Others would say, ‘Madam, your house looks very simple. So many big people come to your house and you live so simply. Let me decorate it for you.’”
She says she dealt with all of them with her 3-C formula:
1) Do not entertain Corrupt people.
2) Do not entertain the Chaaplus (flatterers).
3) Do not entertain the Chuglikhor (those who tell tales).
During my research for this piece, I was intrigued to discover that even a tough-as-nails jail superintendent can have rumours of the personal kind floating around her. When I ask her about them, she looks unfazed. “This happens with every working woman in India,” she says. “There is a saying in Hindi: Haathi chalta bazaar, to kutte bhonkte hazaar ('When the elephant walks through the market, the dogs will bark'). In my profession, when people want to bring a person down, they will accuse a man of being corrupt, a woman of sleeping around. As for me, I am answerable only to my conscience and to God.”
The balm of music
Sathe was born in Kolkata, the daughter of a scientist who worked in the central government. She studied in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh and did her masters in social work in Nagpur, specialising in criminology and correctional administration. After sitting for a state public service examination, she was selected in 1995 and, following a two-year probation, she became superintendent of the jail at Satara. There, she conducted innovative tobacco-free and health camps. Later, she had stints at Akola and Byculla, before getting the prestigious Arthur Road posting in February 2003. In March 2005, she became the principal of the Jail Officer’s Training College in Pune. A little more than a year later, she was posted once again to Arthur Road prison.
Has the constant interaction with criminals deadened her sensibilities? Killed something inside her? Sathe shakes her head. “When I go back to my family every day (she stays in a three-bedroom quarters on the top floor with her husband and daughter), I feel a sense of peace.” Incidentally, it is compulsory for the jail staff to stay in the prison.
“You have to meditate a lot,” she continues. “You have to listen to good music and read good books.” What kind of books? The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown are those that come to mind for her. And what kind of music does she listen to? Strictly classical-- singer Kishori Amonkar and flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia. “Good music relaxes you,” she says.
Like the average over-stressed Mumbaikar, Swati Sathe needs to let go sometimes, I guess.
Monday, August 28, 2006
To hell and back… most of the time
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
The Kripa Foundation has been trying to save those on chemical dependency and the AIDS afflicted for the past twenty-five years. Thankfully, the good news outweighs the bad
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
His body is still and his face is turned sideways on the pillow. It is the eyes that are the most arresting feature: it has a far-away look; a touch of serenity mixed with fear. Rajan Athavankar is receiving treatment at the AIDS centre of Kripa Foundation at Papdy, Vasai. “Athavankar is at a terminal stage,” says Dr Hitendra Desai. “His body has become a vegetable. I am sorry to say the virus has reached the brain.”
Is he aware of us, I ask.
Desai leans forward and asks, “Do you know where you are? Do you recognise me? Shake your head if you can understand!”
But the head is immobile and the eyes continue to stare unblinkingly into the distance. “I don’t think he is aware at all.”
Suddenly, we hear the sound of weeping. A woman, dressed in a yellow polyester saree, and wearing a red bindi, has come silently into the room. It is Athavankar’s wife, Meera.
She looks at me, and assuming I am a consultant physician, asks, “Will my husband live?”
I don’t know what to reply. I look to Desai for help and he tells her I have come on some other work.
Athavankar, 56, used to work as a clerk in an office and contracted Aids through having multiple partners. But he does not look the adventurous type at all. “Promiscuity has definitely gone up in the lower classes,” says Purvi Shah, project director, Kripa Foundation. “They don’t have many modes of entertainment, hence, they tend to indulge in risky behaviour. Most of them don’t like to use condoms.”
Meera, 51, thankfully, is HIV negative. “She is not aware of his past,” says Desai. “In fact, she has a lot of faith in him.” The couple have three children, two boys and a girl, with the eldest, a son, being 30 years old. Being of the lower middle class, the free treatment at Kripa has come as a boon.
Sustained dedication
The Kripa Foundation celebrated its silver jubilee on August 15. It was started by yoga expert Fr Joe Pereira in a small room in the Mt. Carmel church compound in Bandra. Today, there are 46 facilities in 12 locations in India and is the largest NGO in the ministry of social justice and empowerment.
Initially, the focus was on chemical dependency but, three years ago, AIDS centres have also been opened. In Vasai, there are two wings. One is for the Aids afflicted and the other is for chemical dependency. There are two dormitories and single rooms for those who are willing to pay a daily rent. At the back, there are spacious canteens for patients and the staff alike. And right behind, in the large courtyard, are a group of ducks quacking away, untroubled by the tragedies of human life unfolding a few yards away.
Here is a story of a troubled human life. “There was a 22-year old Aids patient, Rahul Gupa, who was in a bad condition,” says Bosco D’Souza, Western region programme director of Kripa. “The doctors were pumping blood into him while he was bleeding from the rectum. His mother, Geeta, was present and Rahul was abusing her. He was angry at the declining state of his health. When Geeta tried to feed him an egg, Rahul spat it back. “When I walked into the ward and saw this, I told him, ‘What you are doing is wrong,’” says D’Souza. “I know you are in severe pain but you are not in a hospital or a jail, you are in God’s home.’”
The next day when Bosco went to see Rahul, he was reciting shlokas from the Bhagwad Gita. Then he asked his mother to put a tikka on his forehead. And he was continuously praying. “I told Rahul I was going for lunch to a Chinese restaurant,” says Bosco. “And he told me, ‘Tata,’ and then said, ‘Bata, Kata, Lata’, he was rhyming with the words and was smiling. I went out and within five minutes, I got a call on the mobile from the resident doctor who told me Rahul had died. By the grace of God, he had died smiling.”
Death comes suddenly and without warning for those who have Aids. But the good news is that out of 817 patients treated at Kripa, only 30 patients have died. “The antiretroviral drugs are making a big difference,” says Dr Joseph Chettiar of the HIV unit. “We are increasing the lifespan by 10 to 15 years although there is no cure yet for the disease.” Joseph is worried that, despite increased awareness, India, with 5.8 million people, has the highest number of Aids victims in the world.
In Vasai, all the counsellors are former drug addicts or alcoholics or Aids afflicted. One of them is Rajan Welingkar, 43, a former drug addict, who is HIV positive. “There is a relation between addiction and HIV,” he says. “Once you are high, you have little control of your mind and you tend to have multiple partners and refuse to use condoms.” He says that because the counsellors have gone to hell and back, “we serve as an inspiration to all those who are trying to overcome Aids and addiction. They feel that if we can survive with dignity, they can.”
When life goes askew
On another day, I go across to the Bandra unit of Kripa and meet Peter Rajappa, 20. He is a tall, slim man with yellowing teeth and a wisp of a moustache. He has been a drug addict from the age of 13. His father was an alcoholic and there were constant fights in the house. Feeling disturbed, he took to drugs. “I felt an anger towards my father, that was why I wanted to rebel,” he says. He studied till Class 7 before opting out. For the next seven years he went from bad to worse. He begged on the streets, he stole and he also became a pickpocket. Curious, I ask him the modus operandi of the pickpocket.
He tells me to stand up. Then he stands behind me, and tells me to lift up my right hand, as if to hold the bar in a suburban train. “Now,” he says, “pretend the station is approaching and the driver has applied the brakes.” As I do so, I instinctively move forward and, in that instant, with his fore and middle fingers, he nimbly flicks the wallet from my back pocket. “That’s how I stole money and fuelled my drug habit,” he says. He would get caught and be hit by angry passengers but that was all part of the risk. He tried a few jobs but could not hold on to them. “The addict cannot think of anything else except when he is going to get the next dose,” he says. “By the time I was 20, I was tired of taking drugs. I felt hopeless. I hated myself. I used to think, ‘What am I doing?’ My friends, who were addicts, had gone to jail. Some had died because of an overdose while others had committed suicide. I told my mother I was fed up of my life. I wanted to die. I was becoming mad. I feared that I would end up in jail or a mental institution.”
In the end, his mother came across the Kripa Foundation and he was enrolled in May and has been free of drugs for the first time in several years. But the road ahead is rocky. “A lot of the patients relapse,” says counsellor Steven Monteiro. “But Royappa is doing well. I am optimistic. But, essentially, you are a drug addict for life. You have to live one day at a time.”
(Names of patients have been changed)
Interview/ Fr Joe Pereria, Director, Kripa Foundation
‘A condom is not quite safe’
Where do you get your funding from?
The major portion of the funding comes from benefactors in Europe and America, even from NRIs. I go to North America in the fall and Europe in the summer and I teach B.K.S. Iyengar’s brand of yoga. My teaching fees are very high.
How have things changed over the years?
The change has occurred in the different types of addiction. Earlier, it was heroin, now, it is alcohol and prescription drugs like amphetamines. Street children and those in the slums drink cough syrups or whiteners. It is not as strong as major drugs but you get a high and it is cheaper.
What are the treatments that are being offered these days?
Our treatment is a combination of the West and the East. The West brought in the 12 step programme of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous. But I have included the teaching of B.K.S. Iyengar’s on yoga. Which is loving the body back to light. We need to do a lot of asanas and breathing lessons. One should silence the noise in the head and get in touch with the here and the now.
What is the Aids situation in India?
There is a lot of awareness of the disease in certain pockets of India. But the illiterate and the migrant population are the worst affected. Condoms are not working. The ABC formula has to be followed. A stands for abstinence. If you are single, you should abstain from sex. B means to be faithful. If you are involved, be faithful to one. If you are unmarried, be faithful to your partner. In other words, don’t mess around sexually. People are going for parties and are sleeping around. One girl gets the virus and she spreads it around. C: Use a condom. The truth is that the condom is not quite safe. It tears sometimes and that can be dangerous.
What is the recovery rate?
All around the world, it is 2 per cent. In Kripa, it is 68 per cent in the first year. By the time it goes to the fifth year, it goes down to 18%.
The Kripa Foundation has been trying to save those on chemical dependency and the AIDS afflicted for the past twenty-five years. Thankfully, the good news outweighs the bad
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
His body is still and his face is turned sideways on the pillow. It is the eyes that are the most arresting feature: it has a far-away look; a touch of serenity mixed with fear. Rajan Athavankar is receiving treatment at the AIDS centre of Kripa Foundation at Papdy, Vasai. “Athavankar is at a terminal stage,” says Dr Hitendra Desai. “His body has become a vegetable. I am sorry to say the virus has reached the brain.”
Is he aware of us, I ask.
Desai leans forward and asks, “Do you know where you are? Do you recognise me? Shake your head if you can understand!”
But the head is immobile and the eyes continue to stare unblinkingly into the distance. “I don’t think he is aware at all.”
Suddenly, we hear the sound of weeping. A woman, dressed in a yellow polyester saree, and wearing a red bindi, has come silently into the room. It is Athavankar’s wife, Meera.
She looks at me, and assuming I am a consultant physician, asks, “Will my husband live?”
I don’t know what to reply. I look to Desai for help and he tells her I have come on some other work.
Athavankar, 56, used to work as a clerk in an office and contracted Aids through having multiple partners. But he does not look the adventurous type at all. “Promiscuity has definitely gone up in the lower classes,” says Purvi Shah, project director, Kripa Foundation. “They don’t have many modes of entertainment, hence, they tend to indulge in risky behaviour. Most of them don’t like to use condoms.”
Meera, 51, thankfully, is HIV negative. “She is not aware of his past,” says Desai. “In fact, she has a lot of faith in him.” The couple have three children, two boys and a girl, with the eldest, a son, being 30 years old. Being of the lower middle class, the free treatment at Kripa has come as a boon.
Sustained dedication
The Kripa Foundation celebrated its silver jubilee on August 15. It was started by yoga expert Fr Joe Pereira in a small room in the Mt. Carmel church compound in Bandra. Today, there are 46 facilities in 12 locations in India and is the largest NGO in the ministry of social justice and empowerment.
Initially, the focus was on chemical dependency but, three years ago, AIDS centres have also been opened. In Vasai, there are two wings. One is for the Aids afflicted and the other is for chemical dependency. There are two dormitories and single rooms for those who are willing to pay a daily rent. At the back, there are spacious canteens for patients and the staff alike. And right behind, in the large courtyard, are a group of ducks quacking away, untroubled by the tragedies of human life unfolding a few yards away.
Here is a story of a troubled human life. “There was a 22-year old Aids patient, Rahul Gupa, who was in a bad condition,” says Bosco D’Souza, Western region programme director of Kripa. “The doctors were pumping blood into him while he was bleeding from the rectum. His mother, Geeta, was present and Rahul was abusing her. He was angry at the declining state of his health. When Geeta tried to feed him an egg, Rahul spat it back. “When I walked into the ward and saw this, I told him, ‘What you are doing is wrong,’” says D’Souza. “I know you are in severe pain but you are not in a hospital or a jail, you are in God’s home.’”
The next day when Bosco went to see Rahul, he was reciting shlokas from the Bhagwad Gita. Then he asked his mother to put a tikka on his forehead. And he was continuously praying. “I told Rahul I was going for lunch to a Chinese restaurant,” says Bosco. “And he told me, ‘Tata,’ and then said, ‘Bata, Kata, Lata’, he was rhyming with the words and was smiling. I went out and within five minutes, I got a call on the mobile from the resident doctor who told me Rahul had died. By the grace of God, he had died smiling.”
Death comes suddenly and without warning for those who have Aids. But the good news is that out of 817 patients treated at Kripa, only 30 patients have died. “The antiretroviral drugs are making a big difference,” says Dr Joseph Chettiar of the HIV unit. “We are increasing the lifespan by 10 to 15 years although there is no cure yet for the disease.” Joseph is worried that, despite increased awareness, India, with 5.8 million people, has the highest number of Aids victims in the world.
In Vasai, all the counsellors are former drug addicts or alcoholics or Aids afflicted. One of them is Rajan Welingkar, 43, a former drug addict, who is HIV positive. “There is a relation between addiction and HIV,” he says. “Once you are high, you have little control of your mind and you tend to have multiple partners and refuse to use condoms.” He says that because the counsellors have gone to hell and back, “we serve as an inspiration to all those who are trying to overcome Aids and addiction. They feel that if we can survive with dignity, they can.”
When life goes askew
On another day, I go across to the Bandra unit of Kripa and meet Peter Rajappa, 20. He is a tall, slim man with yellowing teeth and a wisp of a moustache. He has been a drug addict from the age of 13. His father was an alcoholic and there were constant fights in the house. Feeling disturbed, he took to drugs. “I felt an anger towards my father, that was why I wanted to rebel,” he says. He studied till Class 7 before opting out. For the next seven years he went from bad to worse. He begged on the streets, he stole and he also became a pickpocket. Curious, I ask him the modus operandi of the pickpocket.
He tells me to stand up. Then he stands behind me, and tells me to lift up my right hand, as if to hold the bar in a suburban train. “Now,” he says, “pretend the station is approaching and the driver has applied the brakes.” As I do so, I instinctively move forward and, in that instant, with his fore and middle fingers, he nimbly flicks the wallet from my back pocket. “That’s how I stole money and fuelled my drug habit,” he says. He would get caught and be hit by angry passengers but that was all part of the risk. He tried a few jobs but could not hold on to them. “The addict cannot think of anything else except when he is going to get the next dose,” he says. “By the time I was 20, I was tired of taking drugs. I felt hopeless. I hated myself. I used to think, ‘What am I doing?’ My friends, who were addicts, had gone to jail. Some had died because of an overdose while others had committed suicide. I told my mother I was fed up of my life. I wanted to die. I was becoming mad. I feared that I would end up in jail or a mental institution.”
In the end, his mother came across the Kripa Foundation and he was enrolled in May and has been free of drugs for the first time in several years. But the road ahead is rocky. “A lot of the patients relapse,” says counsellor Steven Monteiro. “But Royappa is doing well. I am optimistic. But, essentially, you are a drug addict for life. You have to live one day at a time.”
(Names of patients have been changed)
Interview/ Fr Joe Pereria, Director, Kripa Foundation
‘A condom is not quite safe’
Where do you get your funding from?
The major portion of the funding comes from benefactors in Europe and America, even from NRIs. I go to North America in the fall and Europe in the summer and I teach B.K.S. Iyengar’s brand of yoga. My teaching fees are very high.
How have things changed over the years?
The change has occurred in the different types of addiction. Earlier, it was heroin, now, it is alcohol and prescription drugs like amphetamines. Street children and those in the slums drink cough syrups or whiteners. It is not as strong as major drugs but you get a high and it is cheaper.
What are the treatments that are being offered these days?
Our treatment is a combination of the West and the East. The West brought in the 12 step programme of Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous. But I have included the teaching of B.K.S. Iyengar’s on yoga. Which is loving the body back to light. We need to do a lot of asanas and breathing lessons. One should silence the noise in the head and get in touch with the here and the now.
What is the Aids situation in India?
There is a lot of awareness of the disease in certain pockets of India. But the illiterate and the migrant population are the worst affected. Condoms are not working. The ABC formula has to be followed. A stands for abstinence. If you are single, you should abstain from sex. B means to be faithful. If you are involved, be faithful to one. If you are unmarried, be faithful to your partner. In other words, don’t mess around sexually. People are going for parties and are sleeping around. One girl gets the virus and she spreads it around. C: Use a condom. The truth is that the condom is not quite safe. It tears sometimes and that can be dangerous.
What is the recovery rate?
All around the world, it is 2 per cent. In Kripa, it is 68 per cent in the first year. By the time it goes to the fifth year, it goes down to 18%.
In the name of the Lord
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
The head priest of the Siddhivinayak temple loves his job of doing pujas and offering counsel to troubled devotees
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“The biggest distress for people these days is their children’s studies,” says Gajanand Narayan Modak, 47, the head priest of the Siddhivinayak Temple. “Nowadays, if you get 60 per cent, that is not enough. You need at least 90 per cent to get into the best colleges.”
The other problems that devotees confide in him: Rising unemployment; steep rents; illnesses and the stress and strains of marriage. “Lots of women are working nowadays and men are yet to adapt to this situation,” he says. “A husband should realise that at the end of a long working day, a wife is as tired as him.”
Modak offers consolation and advice to all these stressed-out devotees. He is a broad-shouldered man, who wears a dhoti, with a part of it wrapped around his left shoulder. On his right shoulder is a yellow and red towel. And, of course, there is the rudraksha necklace. However, there is one touch of modernity: a mobile phone in his hand. We are sitting in an air-conditioned conference room on the third floor of the temple. As he talks, Modak frequently closes his eyes, used as he is, to people listening attentively to him.
So what exactly are the duties of a head priest? “He has to oversee the devotional activities of the temple,” says H.B. Jagtap, 54, the CEO of the Shree Siddivinayak Temple Trust. “He has to conduct the pujas and arrange the schedule of the 32 priests under him.”
There are two shifts for the priests. One begins at 6 am and ends at 2 pm. The other begins at 2 pm and ends at 10 pm. On auspicious days and on Tuesdays, the puja begins at 4 am and, usually, Modak goes to the temple the previous night at 11 pm and sleeps there before getting up at 3 am. Incidentally, all the priests are Brahmins.
Daily life
On normal days, after his morning shift is over, he has a nap in his one-bedroom apartment at Dadar, which he shares with his wife Aarati and daughters, Manasi, 16, and Vinaya, 12. In the evenings, he reads from the holy books. Sometimes, he gets calls from devotees asking him for advice. At 8 pm, he does a puja, accompanied by his family. And by 11 pm, it is lights off.
So does he get tired of this daily grind? “Not at all,” he says. “You only feel tired when you don’t enjoy the work. Here I am, so close to Ganeshji I feel exalted all the time.” He says that because of this, he hardly feels the pressure of being the head priest. “All the other priests are like brothers to me. We have a very good teamwork.”
He pauses and then launches into one of his favourite shlokas:
Uddharet atmanatmanam natmanamavasadayet
Atmaiva hyatmano bandhuh atmaiva ripuratmanah
("One should improve oneself and not destroy oneself ; one's self is one's well-wisher
and one's self is one's enemy")
The one way he has been able to recharge his batteries is by travelling. A government employee, when he gets his annual one month leave, (he also has 15 days casual leave), he goes to jyotirlingas (Shiva temples). So far, he has travelled to 12 temples, from Kedar and Badrinath in the north to Rameswaram in the south. “I have been interested in spiritual matters from the time I was a child,” he says.
Spiritual background
Indeed, there is a spiritual streak in the family. Modak’s grandfather, Purushottam, used to sing kirtans in temples and houses in the village of Nerur, in Sindhudurg district. His father, a farmer, was also a priest. “When he came to Mumbai many years ago, he used to do pujas in homes,” says Modak.
The priest has four brothers and a sister. All the brothers are professionals while his sister is a housewife. “I am the youngest and, one day, my father asked me whether I would like to become a priest,” he says. “I pondered over it and decided to fulfil his wishes.”
So, at the age of 14, Modak was sent to the Shankar Veda Pathshala in Goa and studied the Vedas for eight years. One of his classmates was Shripad Joshi, who is now a pujari in a temple in Goa. “Modak was well behaved all the time, and a helpful person,” he says, by phone from Goa. “He was also very active in all the activities in the school.” When Modak finished his studies, his first job was with the Siddhivinayak temple and he has been there ever since.
Asked about his most memorable experience in his 26 years of service, he breaks into a smile and says, “When I became head priest after 21 years of service. 21 is a very auspicious number. I did service to Ganeshji and he rewarded me with a promotion.”
Today, the Siddhivinayak temple is one of the most popular in Maharashtra and every year, several lakhs of people come to offer prayers, including many celebrities (see box). “If a celebrity comes during my shift, I do the puja, otherwise not,” he says. “I tend to keep my distance from them.”
Asked why people are so troubled these days, he says, “They are too full of themselves, there is too much of ego. People are unhappy no matter what they have. If they have a two-bedroom flat, they yearn for a four-bedroom flat and it goes on and on.” He says most people do not have an inner strength and, hence, when they encounter difficulties, they collapse easily. “You should try to get in touch with your inner self,” says the priest. “As food is necessary for the body, similarly, prayer is important for the mind. Just set aside 15 minutes a day for prayer. After all, if you want to experience the strength of Ganeshji, you have to come close.”
The head priest of the Siddhivinayak temple loves his job of doing pujas and offering counsel to troubled devotees
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“The biggest distress for people these days is their children’s studies,” says Gajanand Narayan Modak, 47, the head priest of the Siddhivinayak Temple. “Nowadays, if you get 60 per cent, that is not enough. You need at least 90 per cent to get into the best colleges.”
The other problems that devotees confide in him: Rising unemployment; steep rents; illnesses and the stress and strains of marriage. “Lots of women are working nowadays and men are yet to adapt to this situation,” he says. “A husband should realise that at the end of a long working day, a wife is as tired as him.”
Modak offers consolation and advice to all these stressed-out devotees. He is a broad-shouldered man, who wears a dhoti, with a part of it wrapped around his left shoulder. On his right shoulder is a yellow and red towel. And, of course, there is the rudraksha necklace. However, there is one touch of modernity: a mobile phone in his hand. We are sitting in an air-conditioned conference room on the third floor of the temple. As he talks, Modak frequently closes his eyes, used as he is, to people listening attentively to him.
So what exactly are the duties of a head priest? “He has to oversee the devotional activities of the temple,” says H.B. Jagtap, 54, the CEO of the Shree Siddivinayak Temple Trust. “He has to conduct the pujas and arrange the schedule of the 32 priests under him.”
There are two shifts for the priests. One begins at 6 am and ends at 2 pm. The other begins at 2 pm and ends at 10 pm. On auspicious days and on Tuesdays, the puja begins at 4 am and, usually, Modak goes to the temple the previous night at 11 pm and sleeps there before getting up at 3 am. Incidentally, all the priests are Brahmins.
Daily life
On normal days, after his morning shift is over, he has a nap in his one-bedroom apartment at Dadar, which he shares with his wife Aarati and daughters, Manasi, 16, and Vinaya, 12. In the evenings, he reads from the holy books. Sometimes, he gets calls from devotees asking him for advice. At 8 pm, he does a puja, accompanied by his family. And by 11 pm, it is lights off.
So does he get tired of this daily grind? “Not at all,” he says. “You only feel tired when you don’t enjoy the work. Here I am, so close to Ganeshji I feel exalted all the time.” He says that because of this, he hardly feels the pressure of being the head priest. “All the other priests are like brothers to me. We have a very good teamwork.”
He pauses and then launches into one of his favourite shlokas:
Uddharet atmanatmanam natmanamavasadayet
Atmaiva hyatmano bandhuh atmaiva ripuratmanah
("One should improve oneself and not destroy oneself ; one's self is one's well-wisher
and one's self is one's enemy")
The one way he has been able to recharge his batteries is by travelling. A government employee, when he gets his annual one month leave, (he also has 15 days casual leave), he goes to jyotirlingas (Shiva temples). So far, he has travelled to 12 temples, from Kedar and Badrinath in the north to Rameswaram in the south. “I have been interested in spiritual matters from the time I was a child,” he says.
Spiritual background
Indeed, there is a spiritual streak in the family. Modak’s grandfather, Purushottam, used to sing kirtans in temples and houses in the village of Nerur, in Sindhudurg district. His father, a farmer, was also a priest. “When he came to Mumbai many years ago, he used to do pujas in homes,” says Modak.
The priest has four brothers and a sister. All the brothers are professionals while his sister is a housewife. “I am the youngest and, one day, my father asked me whether I would like to become a priest,” he says. “I pondered over it and decided to fulfil his wishes.”
So, at the age of 14, Modak was sent to the Shankar Veda Pathshala in Goa and studied the Vedas for eight years. One of his classmates was Shripad Joshi, who is now a pujari in a temple in Goa. “Modak was well behaved all the time, and a helpful person,” he says, by phone from Goa. “He was also very active in all the activities in the school.” When Modak finished his studies, his first job was with the Siddhivinayak temple and he has been there ever since.
Asked about his most memorable experience in his 26 years of service, he breaks into a smile and says, “When I became head priest after 21 years of service. 21 is a very auspicious number. I did service to Ganeshji and he rewarded me with a promotion.”
Today, the Siddhivinayak temple is one of the most popular in Maharashtra and every year, several lakhs of people come to offer prayers, including many celebrities (see box). “If a celebrity comes during my shift, I do the puja, otherwise not,” he says. “I tend to keep my distance from them.”
Asked why people are so troubled these days, he says, “They are too full of themselves, there is too much of ego. People are unhappy no matter what they have. If they have a two-bedroom flat, they yearn for a four-bedroom flat and it goes on and on.” He says most people do not have an inner strength and, hence, when they encounter difficulties, they collapse easily. “You should try to get in touch with your inner self,” says the priest. “As food is necessary for the body, similarly, prayer is important for the mind. Just set aside 15 minutes a day for prayer. After all, if you want to experience the strength of Ganeshji, you have to come close.”
Saturday, August 26, 2006
'Better an overreaction than be blown up'
Permission has to be obtained from Hindustan Times for reproducing this article
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
When tired passengers of the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam stepped out on to the tarmac of Sahar airport on Thursday night, they looked like deer caught in the headlines of a powerful jeep, as hordes of televisions crews with flashing lights descended on them. They blinked, they tried to run, they pleaded, but in the end, they had to succumb to the gnawing hunger for news for the electronic and print media.
Broad-shouldered Jagpal Gusain, 26, a chief officer in the Merchant Navy, says, “Most of the men who were arrested could not understand English, at least that is what I felt. Hence, when they were told to fasten their seat belts, they did not do so. They were moving around here and there and that was creating tension.”
When asked whether there was an inherent racism, he shook his head.
“In fact, there was an Indian air-hostess, so there was no question of racism,” he says.
Most of the men, he says, did not know they were the problem. Half of them were sleeping. It was only when the plane landed at Schipol airport that the men realised they are under suspicion. “I think the air-hostesses alerted the air marshals,” says Gusain. “Later, they told us to be calm.”
Brian D’Souza, who is a sailor, says that when the men were taken off, they were all in handcuffs. “After that, everybody was told to step out of the plane, row by row,” he says. As to whether he felt there was an element of racism, D’Souza says, “I cannot make a call on that.”
To get a foreigner’s viewpoint, there was the red-faced Stuart Nicol from Ireland, perspiring heavily in Mumbai’s humidity. “I don’t think the men behaved badly at all,” he says. “We were initially told it was a mechanical problem. I saw the air marshals walking around and when I looked out of the window I realised that a jet was accompanying us. Then I realised it might not be a mechanical problem.” Nicol says one of them was sitting beside him. “I did not see anything wrong in his behaviour,” he says.
Most passengers felt there was nothing wrong with the men who were arrested. Adding his voice is the articulate and elderly Nitin Dalal. “They were not behaving suspiciously, but then, I am not a security officer,” he says.
Asked whether there was an over-reaction on the part of the Dutch, he says, “I am not qualified to say that.” His wife Kiran says, “I am glad it is an overreaction because I would not want to be blown up.”
The problem, says Nitin, was that the men were not listening to the crew. “During the take-off stage, they had not put on their seat belts, they were changing seats, they were exchanging mobile phones: these things made the crew a little suspicious,” he says. “They were dressed cleanly but in ethnic clothing. Hence, suspicion must have fallen on them. I am happy they took the security measures they felt they had to take.”
Would he be put off travelling abroad now? “Definitely, this will put me off international flights but in the end, I have no choice,” he says, and adds, tongue in cheek, “The alternative is to go by boat.” And then there is Umesh Prasad Behera, retired deputy commandant of the Central Industrial Security Force: “It was much delayed action on the part of the marshals. Also, the inquiry of those arrested should been quicker. Nobody bothered about the comfort of the other passengers.”
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
When tired passengers of the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam stepped out on to the tarmac of Sahar airport on Thursday night, they looked like deer caught in the headlines of a powerful jeep, as hordes of televisions crews with flashing lights descended on them. They blinked, they tried to run, they pleaded, but in the end, they had to succumb to the gnawing hunger for news for the electronic and print media.
Broad-shouldered Jagpal Gusain, 26, a chief officer in the Merchant Navy, says, “Most of the men who were arrested could not understand English, at least that is what I felt. Hence, when they were told to fasten their seat belts, they did not do so. They were moving around here and there and that was creating tension.”
When asked whether there was an inherent racism, he shook his head.
“In fact, there was an Indian air-hostess, so there was no question of racism,” he says.
Most of the men, he says, did not know they were the problem. Half of them were sleeping. It was only when the plane landed at Schipol airport that the men realised they are under suspicion. “I think the air-hostesses alerted the air marshals,” says Gusain. “Later, they told us to be calm.”
Brian D’Souza, who is a sailor, says that when the men were taken off, they were all in handcuffs. “After that, everybody was told to step out of the plane, row by row,” he says. As to whether he felt there was an element of racism, D’Souza says, “I cannot make a call on that.”
To get a foreigner’s viewpoint, there was the red-faced Stuart Nicol from Ireland, perspiring heavily in Mumbai’s humidity. “I don’t think the men behaved badly at all,” he says. “We were initially told it was a mechanical problem. I saw the air marshals walking around and when I looked out of the window I realised that a jet was accompanying us. Then I realised it might not be a mechanical problem.” Nicol says one of them was sitting beside him. “I did not see anything wrong in his behaviour,” he says.
Most passengers felt there was nothing wrong with the men who were arrested. Adding his voice is the articulate and elderly Nitin Dalal. “They were not behaving suspiciously, but then, I am not a security officer,” he says.
Asked whether there was an over-reaction on the part of the Dutch, he says, “I am not qualified to say that.” His wife Kiran says, “I am glad it is an overreaction because I would not want to be blown up.”
The problem, says Nitin, was that the men were not listening to the crew. “During the take-off stage, they had not put on their seat belts, they were changing seats, they were exchanging mobile phones: these things made the crew a little suspicious,” he says. “They were dressed cleanly but in ethnic clothing. Hence, suspicion must have fallen on them. I am happy they took the security measures they felt they had to take.”
Would he be put off travelling abroad now? “Definitely, this will put me off international flights but in the end, I have no choice,” he says, and adds, tongue in cheek, “The alternative is to go by boat.” And then there is Umesh Prasad Behera, retired deputy commandant of the Central Industrial Security Force: “It was much delayed action on the part of the marshals. Also, the inquiry of those arrested should been quicker. Nobody bothered about the comfort of the other passengers.”
Monday, August 21, 2006
‘There was dignity in dancing’
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
A former bar girl dancer rues her present occupation of waitress
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
The ground floor apartment of former bar girl dancer, Mala Lichaye, 22, is at the very end of the Sindhi Camp at Chembur. The building in which stays is so close to another, that when you look up, the sky is just a sliver. Inside, there is a small living room, (with several pillowcases drying on a clothesline on one side), a dining area, a kitchen and a bathroom. But what catches the eye is a shoe rack, which is crowded with all sorts of shining women’s footwear: platform, wedge and stiletto heels.
Lichaye is brushing her teeth at 4.30 pm, while her friends are busy in the kitchen. She is an irritated mood: the water has run out. One of her friends produces a cup of tea within minutes for the visitor. Without make-up and their garish clothes, all of them look ordinary and, sad to say, a little run down, although they are all in their twenties.
“I am now working as a waitress in the Trimurti bar at Ghatkopar,” says Lichaye, using a towel as a dupatta. Works starts at 7 pm and goes on till 1.30 am.
“Earlier, we used to dance and earn our money,” she says. “There was a dignity of labour. Now, we have to pour drinks and stand very near the patrons. Some of them talk rudely. Some pinch us, and say, ‘Look what has happened to you. You were a glamourous bar girl and now you are just a waiter.’ I feel bad when I hear comments like this.”
She earns about Rs 200 a day, a far cry from the Rs 600 to Rs 800 as a dance bar girl.
All the other girls who live in the area are going through the same financial problems. “They are also working as waitresses,” she says. “The ban has really hurt us.”
When asked what she would say if she were to meet Home Minister R.R. Patil, she says, “I would say that what you did was not right. It is a terrible thing, to take away somebody’s livelihood and you have no right to do that. Why don’t you come to our homes and see how difficult is our lives. Like any human being, we also want to lead a decent life and give our younger brothers and sisters a good education.”
Sitting next to her is Shyam Sundar, a member of the Bharatiya Bar Girl’s Union: “I have heard the Russian girls are doing dances in bars but there is no ban against them. Patil says the dance bars are against Marathi culture. How can a dance form be against Marathi culture?”
A former bar girl dancer rues her present occupation of waitress
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
The ground floor apartment of former bar girl dancer, Mala Lichaye, 22, is at the very end of the Sindhi Camp at Chembur. The building in which stays is so close to another, that when you look up, the sky is just a sliver. Inside, there is a small living room, (with several pillowcases drying on a clothesline on one side), a dining area, a kitchen and a bathroom. But what catches the eye is a shoe rack, which is crowded with all sorts of shining women’s footwear: platform, wedge and stiletto heels.
Lichaye is brushing her teeth at 4.30 pm, while her friends are busy in the kitchen. She is an irritated mood: the water has run out. One of her friends produces a cup of tea within minutes for the visitor. Without make-up and their garish clothes, all of them look ordinary and, sad to say, a little run down, although they are all in their twenties.
“I am now working as a waitress in the Trimurti bar at Ghatkopar,” says Lichaye, using a towel as a dupatta. Works starts at 7 pm and goes on till 1.30 am.
“Earlier, we used to dance and earn our money,” she says. “There was a dignity of labour. Now, we have to pour drinks and stand very near the patrons. Some of them talk rudely. Some pinch us, and say, ‘Look what has happened to you. You were a glamourous bar girl and now you are just a waiter.’ I feel bad when I hear comments like this.”
She earns about Rs 200 a day, a far cry from the Rs 600 to Rs 800 as a dance bar girl.
All the other girls who live in the area are going through the same financial problems. “They are also working as waitresses,” she says. “The ban has really hurt us.”
When asked what she would say if she were to meet Home Minister R.R. Patil, she says, “I would say that what you did was not right. It is a terrible thing, to take away somebody’s livelihood and you have no right to do that. Why don’t you come to our homes and see how difficult is our lives. Like any human being, we also want to lead a decent life and give our younger brothers and sisters a good education.”
Sitting next to her is Shyam Sundar, a member of the Bharatiya Bar Girl’s Union: “I have heard the Russian girls are doing dances in bars but there is no ban against them. Patil says the dance bars are against Marathi culture. How can a dance form be against Marathi culture?”
Wah Wagh!
Permission to reproduce this article has to be obtained from Hindustan Times
The third generation Wagh sculptors are still going strong
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“One person from Sakori placed an order for a statue of Shirdi Sai Baba,” says sculptor Vinay Wagh, 45. “It took about four months to make. This was a statue on which I worked single-handedly.” A few months later, when the client called, Wagh told him the statue was ready. But the client insisted it was not ready.
“How can you say that?” Wagh remembers saying. “I have been working on it myself. I know it is ready.” He urged Wagh to inspect the two fingers of the right hand, which was placed below the knees. “Without disconnecting the phone, I went and looked underneath the hand and saw that the separation of the fingers was not up to the mark,” says the sculptor. “What should I think? My only conclusion: God is there. Otherwise, how do you explain it? Nobody else was working on the statue.”
When the client arrived, Wagh asked him how he was able to spot the error from so far away. “He said, ‘When you told me the statue was ready, I felt a pain in my finger,’” says Wagh. “‘That is why I felt some work still remained.’”
This is one of the most profound experiences of Wagh in over 30 years of work as a sculptor. In the window of his studio on Chowpatty, there are plaster of paris replicas of Mother Teresa, Madhavrao Scindia, Swami Chinmayananda, Bhagat Singh, Shivaji, Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi.
Inside, the floor has a thin layer of white dust while the velvet green sofas have seen better days. Amidst all this sits Wagh, the third generation of the family, which have making sculptures for the past 94 years. His grandfather, Vinayakrao, was officially appointed to make a sculpture of Lord Hardinge, the first Viceroy of India, while his father, Brahmesh, was appointed as sculptor to the President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad.
As for Vinay Wagh, he says one of the most memorable statues he has made was of Karan Singh’s grandfather, Maharaja Gulab Singh of Jammu and Kashmir, riding a horse.
“To make the horse in clay took me eight months,” says Wagh. “I went to the racecourse to study horses. I made sketches. I took photographs. I met the trainers. I tried to figure out what type of posture the horse should have: should it be the walk, the canter, the gallop or the trot.”
In the end, he selected the trot. When the statue was being made, he invited trainers to come and see it, so that they could offer advise on the correct position of the horse and the posture of the rider. “Where should the Maharaja sit? What should be the position of the feet? Where would he hold the reins?” says Wagh. “What should the dress be like? Singh was of medium height, so I needed a model of that height to resemble him.”
Father of the nation
Among the many statues he has done, he has made several of Mahatma Gandhi. One such statue, a bust, can be found in the lobby of the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya. It is the familiar one of a bespectacled Gandhi, with the bald head, the sticking out ears, the wrinkled forehead and a hint of a smile on his face. It seems very real and even though the eye cavities are empty, you almost sense that he is looking at you. That is how good the sculpture is.
“Wagh has got the face of Gandhi perfectly,” says Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, 59, executive secretary of the bhavan. “Wagh was given the commission because his family has been in the business for a very long time.” The statue was put up in 1999 and cost Rs 75,000.
Ajgaonkar says lots of visitors appreciate the bust and take photographs next to it.
One of them is Nicholas Guichard, 26, a dentist from Toulouse, France, who is here with a group of friends. “This bust is an accurate representation,” says this handsome Frenchman, with red cheeks. “You feel a sense of serenity when you look at it.”
The lifelike Shastri
On another side of Wagh’s studio, there is a 11 foot tall statue of Lal Bahadur Shastri, which has been commissioned by the government of Karnataka. Being built at a cost of Rs 22 lakh, it will be set up just outside the Vidhana Soudha, next year. In June, son Anil Shastri, 56, a member of the Congress Working Committee, inspected it. “It was as close to Shastri when he was alive,” says Anil, by phone from Delhi. “Some of the other statues of my father that Wagh has built for various NGO’s and government trusts have been par excellence. My mother is an admirer of his work and I will recommend him to anybody.”
Talking to Wagh, it is clear that there is a lot of hard work behind the scene before a statue becomes one. So what is the procedure behind the making of a statue? There are numerous processes, like lost wax moulding, and Wagh says, this is the same process that greats like Leonardo Da Vinci and Auguste Rodin used. The final process is when the mould is baked in a furnace for eight days, at the sculptor’s factory in Matunga. “The mould is then put into a pit,” he says. “Then we pour liquid bronze on it. If it is a big statue, we have to weld it. We have to match it with the master copy, which has been made of plaster of paris.” Next up is the oxidisation process, which is done in one tone: from coffee brown to jet black.
The cost depends on the size, but it ranges from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh or more. His customers range from municipal corporations to state governments, industrialists and several trusts. Interestingly, the most orders that Wagh gets is for B.R. Ambedkar. “The demand is there because of government backing,” he says. So far, he has made more than 1000 statues and busts of the late leader.
Asked about the qualities need to be a good sculptor, Wagh says, “You need to have talent and a lot of concentration. You have to do a deep study of the human anatomy, and understand facial expressions, and use your imagination.”
A sculptor, he says, has to be physically fit, because he has to work for 12 hours in a standing position. “It is heavy work,” he says. “It is not like a painter who delicately daubs paint on a canvas.” Each statue weighs about 800 kgs and the sculptor has to use his hands to help the staff and the labour. Wagh plays volleyaball, swimming and does weight training. “I keep my mind refreshed by doing yoga,” he says. “I am very passionate about sculpting. It is a nasha.”
This nasha has lasted for three generations and if all goes well, Wagh’s son, Chaitanya, who is 10, will follow his footsteps one day, provided, of course, that God endows him with talent.
The third generation Wagh sculptors are still going strong
Shevlin Sebastian
Mumbai
“One person from Sakori placed an order for a statue of Shirdi Sai Baba,” says sculptor Vinay Wagh, 45. “It took about four months to make. This was a statue on which I worked single-handedly.” A few months later, when the client called, Wagh told him the statue was ready. But the client insisted it was not ready.
“How can you say that?” Wagh remembers saying. “I have been working on it myself. I know it is ready.” He urged Wagh to inspect the two fingers of the right hand, which was placed below the knees. “Without disconnecting the phone, I went and looked underneath the hand and saw that the separation of the fingers was not up to the mark,” says the sculptor. “What should I think? My only conclusion: God is there. Otherwise, how do you explain it? Nobody else was working on the statue.”
When the client arrived, Wagh asked him how he was able to spot the error from so far away. “He said, ‘When you told me the statue was ready, I felt a pain in my finger,’” says Wagh. “‘That is why I felt some work still remained.’”
This is one of the most profound experiences of Wagh in over 30 years of work as a sculptor. In the window of his studio on Chowpatty, there are plaster of paris replicas of Mother Teresa, Madhavrao Scindia, Swami Chinmayananda, Bhagat Singh, Shivaji, Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi.
Inside, the floor has a thin layer of white dust while the velvet green sofas have seen better days. Amidst all this sits Wagh, the third generation of the family, which have making sculptures for the past 94 years. His grandfather, Vinayakrao, was officially appointed to make a sculpture of Lord Hardinge, the first Viceroy of India, while his father, Brahmesh, was appointed as sculptor to the President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad.
As for Vinay Wagh, he says one of the most memorable statues he has made was of Karan Singh’s grandfather, Maharaja Gulab Singh of Jammu and Kashmir, riding a horse.
“To make the horse in clay took me eight months,” says Wagh. “I went to the racecourse to study horses. I made sketches. I took photographs. I met the trainers. I tried to figure out what type of posture the horse should have: should it be the walk, the canter, the gallop or the trot.”
In the end, he selected the trot. When the statue was being made, he invited trainers to come and see it, so that they could offer advise on the correct position of the horse and the posture of the rider. “Where should the Maharaja sit? What should be the position of the feet? Where would he hold the reins?” says Wagh. “What should the dress be like? Singh was of medium height, so I needed a model of that height to resemble him.”
Father of the nation
Among the many statues he has done, he has made several of Mahatma Gandhi. One such statue, a bust, can be found in the lobby of the Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya. It is the familiar one of a bespectacled Gandhi, with the bald head, the sticking out ears, the wrinkled forehead and a hint of a smile on his face. It seems very real and even though the eye cavities are empty, you almost sense that he is looking at you. That is how good the sculpture is.
“Wagh has got the face of Gandhi perfectly,” says Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, 59, executive secretary of the bhavan. “Wagh was given the commission because his family has been in the business for a very long time.” The statue was put up in 1999 and cost Rs 75,000.
Ajgaonkar says lots of visitors appreciate the bust and take photographs next to it.
One of them is Nicholas Guichard, 26, a dentist from Toulouse, France, who is here with a group of friends. “This bust is an accurate representation,” says this handsome Frenchman, with red cheeks. “You feel a sense of serenity when you look at it.”
The lifelike Shastri
On another side of Wagh’s studio, there is a 11 foot tall statue of Lal Bahadur Shastri, which has been commissioned by the government of Karnataka. Being built at a cost of Rs 22 lakh, it will be set up just outside the Vidhana Soudha, next year. In June, son Anil Shastri, 56, a member of the Congress Working Committee, inspected it. “It was as close to Shastri when he was alive,” says Anil, by phone from Delhi. “Some of the other statues of my father that Wagh has built for various NGO’s and government trusts have been par excellence. My mother is an admirer of his work and I will recommend him to anybody.”
Talking to Wagh, it is clear that there is a lot of hard work behind the scene before a statue becomes one. So what is the procedure behind the making of a statue? There are numerous processes, like lost wax moulding, and Wagh says, this is the same process that greats like Leonardo Da Vinci and Auguste Rodin used. The final process is when the mould is baked in a furnace for eight days, at the sculptor’s factory in Matunga. “The mould is then put into a pit,” he says. “Then we pour liquid bronze on it. If it is a big statue, we have to weld it. We have to match it with the master copy, which has been made of plaster of paris.” Next up is the oxidisation process, which is done in one tone: from coffee brown to jet black.
The cost depends on the size, but it ranges from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh or more. His customers range from municipal corporations to state governments, industrialists and several trusts. Interestingly, the most orders that Wagh gets is for B.R. Ambedkar. “The demand is there because of government backing,” he says. So far, he has made more than 1000 statues and busts of the late leader.
Asked about the qualities need to be a good sculptor, Wagh says, “You need to have talent and a lot of concentration. You have to do a deep study of the human anatomy, and understand facial expressions, and use your imagination.”
A sculptor, he says, has to be physically fit, because he has to work for 12 hours in a standing position. “It is heavy work,” he says. “It is not like a painter who delicately daubs paint on a canvas.” Each statue weighs about 800 kgs and the sculptor has to use his hands to help the staff and the labour. Wagh plays volleyaball, swimming and does weight training. “I keep my mind refreshed by doing yoga,” he says. “I am very passionate about sculpting. It is a nasha.”
This nasha has lasted for three generations and if all goes well, Wagh’s son, Chaitanya, who is 10, will follow his footsteps one day, provided, of course, that God endows him with talent.
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