Lord Ganesha in all his magnificence!

The Gujaratis of Matancherry are celebrating 'Ganeshotsav' with a ten-day festival

By Shevlin Sebastian

At 5 p.m. on a recent Thursday evening, brothers Tapan and Jyotirmoy Jana are busy spraying paint on a pot-bellied idol with a long trunk and wide flapping ears, and small tusks. The idol of Lord Ganesha is resting on a platform in the garden of businessman Bharat Rasiklal Shah’s house in Mattancherry. This is the first time that an idol, of a height of 10 ft., has been made. And the men responsible – Tapan and Jyotirmoy – have come all the way from Midnapore in West Bengal to make it.

Since they could not get the particular alluvium mud that is needed to make the idol, they brought 50 kgs in large sacks by train. But before they place the mud, first a bamboo structure is made. This is then wrapped in grass and tied firmly with ropes. Thereafter, the local mud is applied, before there is a final coat of Bengal mud.

Tapan has been making idols for the past 25 years. So far, he has made more than 10,000. He learnt the skill from his own father in the village. But a commission to make Ganesha idols is rare, simply because Bengalis do not worship Ganesha, like the Marathis. “Most of the time I make Durga, Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati idols,” he says. “But when I am called to Orissa, it is usually to make Ganesha statues.”

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of hard work and effort involved. “Even though I love making statues, there are bad moments,” he says.  

Many a time, despite adequate protection, there will be a sudden gust of wind which will fling the tarpaulin away and the idol gets damaged in the rain. “The people who have commissioned the work get very angry,” says Tapan. “Sometimes, it is very close to the festival inauguration. We are forced to make a new one, by working day and night, but we are not compensated for the damage to the old one. So we lose a lot of money.”

But in Mattacherry there are no such fears. Even though it is the rainy season, the statue is safely ensconced in a makeshift pandal, and nearing completion. The members of the Cochin Ganesh Mandal stand in the garden, talking to each other, as they eagerly watch Jyotirmoy give the finishing touches. Meanwhile, Tapan shows the headgear, arm bands, rings and necklaces which the idol will wear. “These have been made by my daughter, Shitilekha,” says Tapan. His daughter and wife have also come along to help Tapan in his assignment in Kochi.

It is not the only idol he is making. Tapan has received a commission from the Bengali community in Kochi to make three Durga idols and one of Vishwakarma. Thereafter, he will go to Thrivananthapuram to make two statues there. “I will be leaving only at the end of October,” says Tapan. Incidentally, he is on his fourth visit to Kerala. He first came in 2004.  

But despite this familiarity, Tapan and his family are trying to get used to life in Kochi. “In West Bengal, we use mustard oil with our food, while in Kerala it is coconut or palmolein oil,” says Tapan. “So, we cook our own food, instead of eating from hotels.” But in Mattancherry, they befriended Dilip, an Oriya, who works as a security guard at a nearby office. “He makes the food in the way we like,” says Tapan.

Of course, the biggest problem is the language. “Many times, we ask for something and get something different,” says Tapan, with a smile.

Despite the constraints Tapan and Jyotirmoy finished the idol on time. One week later, it has been placed at the Haathi Talav Grounds on Gujarati street. “There are hundreds of smaller Ganeshas which have been brought from places like Mumbai and Ahmedabad,” says Bharat. All this is for the Ganeshotsav 2012 organised by the 3000-strong Gujarati community. It will be inaugurated today (September 19) by Swami Purnamritananda Puri, general secretary of the Mata Amrithanandamayi Math. On September 29, when the festival concludes, Tapan’s Lord Ganesha, along with the other idols, will be immersed in the sea at the beach of Fort Kochi. At that moment, all the Gujaratis will chant, “Ganapati Bappa Moriya Pudhchya Varshi Laukar ya (Oh Ganapati My Lord return next year)”.   

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)     

Engineering a romance

COLUMN: Spouse's Turn 

Annie Constantine married Labour Minister Shibu Baby John after their friendship turned to love when they were students at TKM Engineering College, Kollam

Photo by Aneesh M Das

By Shevlin Sebastian

Annie Constantine remembers the first time she saw Shibu Baby John. She was ten years old and he was 11 1/2. The Kollam-based Annie went to Shibu's house in Thiruvananthapuram for a get-together. “We were family friends,” she says. Annie's grandfather, A. V. Fernandez, a pioneer in the sea-food industry, was close to Shibu's father and noted politician, the late Baby John.

When Annie saw Shibu, he was playing football with his cousins in the garden. “All of us girls were watching the game,” she says. At that time, they did not talk to each other.

Years later, they met at the TKM Engineering College at Kollam. While Shibu was studying mechanical, Annie was in civil engineering. “We became friends once again,” she says. But because of the conservative nature of society at that time, they spoke mostly on the phone. “And that too, in secret, because we did not want our parents to know,” says Annie. Another constraint was that Annie's uncle, Dr. F. V. Alvin, was the head of department of civil engineering. “He was quite strict,” she says. “So we had to have a low-key romance.”

And that included giving simple gifts like chocolates for each other's birthdays. But Shibu had made his feelings clear from the beginning. “In the first year itself, he told me that he loved me,” says Annie. “I also liked him.”

After completing her engineering degree, Annie enrolled in the management course of Cochin University. It was during this period that both of them informed their parents about their desire to get married to each other.

There were no hitches and the couple tied the knot on January 17, 1988. And after all these years, Annie still finds Shibu charming. “There is an innocence about him,” she says. “I like his smile.”

Other qualities: “He is an open person,” she says. “There is nothing secretive about him. He is what you see. Shibu is also fun to be with, especially when friends drop in. He is jovial and cracks a lot of jokes. There is a lot of noise when he is around. He is spontaneous and laid-back.”

However, at home, the laid-back Shibu is particular about one thing: good food. “He likes naadan food and I have to ensure it is of good taste and quality,” says Annie. “Shibu has a lot of expectations, and I try to live up to them.”

And Shibu also lives up to Annie's notions of romance. One day, before their 20^th anniversary, she received her passport and ticket. “It was a trip to Dubai,” says Annie. Shibu was already there. “It was a complete surprise,” she says. “We had a very good time there and enjoyed our anniversary with close friends.”

The couple has two sons. Achu is doing his final-year law degree at the Symbiosis Law School in Pune, while Amar, like his father, is doing mechanical engineering in TKM Engineering College.

So what sort of a father is Shibu? “He is like a friend to his sons,” says Annie. “Shibu is not strict at all. So I have become the strict parent.”

It is a close-knit family but there are drawbacks. Like the wives of most politicians, Annie bemoans the lack of time with Shibu. “As a minister [of Labour] he is very busy,” says Annie. “Shibu spends very little time at home. I am based in Kollam, but I go to Thiruvananthapuram whenever he is there.” But on weekends, Shibu does come home because Chavara is his constituency. “But there are a lot of people who come to the house to meet him, and so he continues to be busy,” says Annie. “Over the years I have got used to it.”

Meanwhile, Annie keeps herself occupied by teaching Communicative English at John and Mary International.

When asked about the qualities needed to have a good marriage, Annie says, “If you love each other, you can surmount any problem within the marriage. Honesty and loyalty are also important.”

About Shibu Baby John

Labour Minister Shibu Baby John is the general secretary of theRevolutionary Socialist Party (Baby John), which was set up in 2005. He is the son of the late Baby John, who once led the Revolutionary Socialist Party. Shibu’s party belongs to the Congress-led United Democratic Front. Incidentally, Shibu, the MLA from Chavara, is the only engineer in the Kerala cabinet. He graduated from the TKM Engineering College in Kollam.  

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram) 

Following Dad, but in her own way

Ahlam Khan, the daughter of the late Bollywood icon Amjad Khan, loves acting. But it is in theatre and not in films

By Shevlin Sebastian

In the play ‘Rafta Rafta’, there is a scene in the kitchen of a middle-aged Punjabi couple, Vishu and Suman Malhotra, in London. Suman, her new Muslim daughter-in-law Tasneem and her mother Fatima are having a chat.

Fatima tells Suman, “I used to go to sleep and wake up the next morning and think, ‘Raat Ko Ho Gaya’ (It happened during the night).”

Tasneem says, “Ma, I won't have that problem. I have read all about the theory of sex.”

Fatima says, “Is that enough? Men are guided by what is between their legs. But without love, marriage is a long, slow death.”

Very few people in the audience at the JT Performing Arts Centre at Kochi would have known that Fatima is being played by Ahlam Khan, the 30-something daughter of the late Amjad Khan (Gabbar Singh of ‘Sholay’ fame).

And unlike her father, Ahlam has stayed away from Bollywood. Instead, her first and last love is theatre. It all began when she was doing her master’s in English literature at Mumbai University in 2000. “We were put in touch by our lecturer Dr. Nilufer Bharucha with playwright Ramu Ramanathan,” says Ahlam. “He used to come once a week and read plays with us.” 

Soon, Ramanathan put up a production for the English department. Based on a short story by Malayalam writer Vaikom Mohammed Basheer called, ‘Me Grandad ‘ad an elephant’, it was well received. “We took the play outside and did a lot of shows at Prithvi theatre,” she says.

In the past 12 years, Ahlam has acted in several English, Gujarati and Hindi plays. Interestingly, for the Hindi plays, she has performed in smaller towns like Gorakhpur and Rae Bareilly. “In these places, the auditoriums are small, the stages are makeshift, the green rooms and toilets may not be up to the mark but the people are so welcoming and enthusiastic that we easily forget all the drawbacks,” says Ahlam. Some of the plays in which she has acted in include ‘Miss Beautiful’, ‘Poha Gone Wrong’, ‘Shakespeare and She’, ‘Grey Elephants in Denmark’ and ‘Pereira’s Bakery at 76 Chapel Road’.

Asked why the daughter of a Bollywood icon did not go into films, Ahlam says, “A lot of people choose a career in Bollywood because of the glamour. But I have seen it from the inside. There is a bad side too. When my father died, a lot of his filmi friends just disappeared. You are as good as your last film. Equations keep changing all the time. I was put off by that.”

Nevertheless, a few years ago, Alam took a break from theatre and decided to write scripts for Bollywood. But it was not a good experience. “A lot of projects which I wrote, when it came to the financial or production stage, it would get stalled,” she says. “My sensibility was never mainstream or commercial cinema. I always believed in a parallel cinema. It was bizarre to meet producers and directors who wanted absolute rubbish that I finally gave up.”

But Ahlam has had some good experiences in film also. For her friend Bijoy Nambiar’s short film, ‘Reflections’, she played one half of a romantic couple. The hero was Malayalam actor Mohanlal, who was playing a lonely 60-year-old man.  

“I was intimidated by Mohanlal’s presence on the set [at the Borivili National Park, Mumbai],” she says. “But despite being a superstar he was so humble and down-to earth. He knew my dad well. He said, ‘Your father was a great man. His goodwill and his name live on after so many years.’ When Mohanlal said that it made me feel so proud of my father.”

Ahlam was 15 when Amjad Khan died at the age of 51. “I was always Daddy’s little girl,” she says. Asked what she learnt from her father, she says, “My father was an intensely honest person. I got that from him. I was too young to get any acting tips. But my deepest regret is that I will never be able to share a theatre stage with him. Many people don’t remember that he started his career in theatre.”

Ahlam sounds poignant when she says this, but good things have happened in her life. In January, 2010, she met actor Zafar Karachiwala. “I fell really hard,” she says. “We got married in September. We were old enough to know that it was the real thing.”

Ahlam is a bit dazed by how quickly it happened. “In all these years I never fancied anybody, be it an actor or a director,” she says. “It is rare in theatre, because, inevitably, you develop feelings for somebody. And I would keep bragging to my friends about how I kept a clean slate.”

She bursts out laughing, and says, “That’s how life is. It is so unpredictable.”

Her future plans include working with her husband in his theatre company ‘Orchid Room Experiment’, and continuing to act in plays. “Acting is in my blood,” says Ahlam, with a smile.

(The Sunday Magazine, New Indian Express, South India and Delhi) 

Down, but not out

Ramesh Kartha, who runs marathons, was a victim of a hit-and-run accident. He talks about his experience 

By Shevlin Sebastian 

At 5.30 a.m. on Friday, August 10, Ramesh Kartha set out on a run from his apartment in Kakkanad. It was raining heavily and there was darkness all around, except for the street lights. Ramesh was wearing a white singlet and blue shorts and running barefoot. The IT professional was in training to take part in a few marathons in the USA in October. In his running career, Ramesh had taken part in the prestigious Boston marathon, and has raced in  Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok, Mumbai, Pondicherry and Mysore. In total, he has participated in 30 marathons.

 As he ran in front of the Youth Hostel, near NGO Quarters, suddenly, from a pocket road, a car appeared. Before Ramesh could realise what was happening he had been hit on his left side by the vehicle. The panicky driver did not stop. Instead, he accelerated away.    

 The runner fell forward and landed on his face. When he sat up he saw that his leg was broken. “I held my leg and tried to stand up, to go to the junction, and find help, but I could not do it,” he says. A desperate Ramesh tried to wave down a few people in their cars. “Some slowed down, but they were not sure whether I was a drunk or somebody like that,” he says. “So the people sped away.”

 Ramesh was not surprised by this reaction. “One of the reasons why people do not help, both in Kerala and India is that you can get charged,” says Ramesh. “The case goes on for years. The driver would have to go to the court multiple times. I feel that 60 per cent of drivers who cause accidents and speed away have the fear of getting embroiled in a legal tangle.”

 But, as always, there will be somebody who will respond. In this case, it was Rockey Roger, a BPO professional, who works at Muthoot Technopolis, Kakkanad. He had just finished the night shift and was on his way home. Suddenly, he saw a man lying on the ground and waving his hand. “I was thinking that in the Bible it is always mentioned that we should help people in distress,” he says. “So I stopped the car.” It was raining heavily and Ramesh was drenched. “When I lifted Ramesh, I noticed that his leg was dangling,” he says. “I knew that it was broken.” He placed the injured runner on the backseat and took him to the Sunrise Hospital.

 X rays revealed multiple bones fractures. Orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. D.S. Manjunath decided to put a steel rod through the bone. But Seema, Ramesh’s wife, who had arrived within minutes, at the hospital, following a phone call from Rockey, told him that her husband was a runner. So, instead of a steel rod, Dr Manjunath inserted a titanium rod in a four-hour operation. And the reasons were simple. “With steel, there is wear and tear,” says Ramesh. “There could be mineral deposits on it. In extreme heat, it could expand and contract. Titanium does not have these issues and it heals faster.” 

 Today, a month later, Ramesh is, indeed, healing well. He says that by November he will start  training once again. “I don’t think I will feel nervous or scared,” he says. “But I might start off in a stadium first.”

 The fact is that Ramesh loves running too much. “I go into a Zen state halfway into the run,” he says. “There is no other experience that gives me the thrill and joy which running gives me.” 

 But Seema is worried. “I told him not to run on roads, but to do it in parks and stadiums. In the USA, where we lived for many years, there were runners’ trails which were safe. But Ramesh tells me that in Kochi you can stroll to a shop to buy something and get hit.”

 In fact, Ramesh almost got hit a few months ago. One day he was running on the right side of the road, near the Info Park. A car which was coming from the opposite direction suddenly veered towards him and brushed past. The driver braked suddenly. He rolled down the window, poked his head out, and told Ramesh, “Sorry, I dozed off.”

So, what is the lesson he has learned from this hit-and-run incident? “Anything can happen at any time,” says Ramesh. “I will try to run with all my senses in an alert state. Never take life for granted. It is a gift that one must enjoy to the fullest.”

(The New Indian Express, Kochi)

Long-distance admiration

 COLUMN: Spouse's Turn

 Betty Louise talks about life with the former minister MA Baby

By Shevlin Sebastian

When Betty Louise saw M.A. Baby for the first time in December, 1977, during a Students' Federation of India (SFI) meeting, at Kochi, she was impressed. “He was the state president and conducted himself with
dignity,” says Betty, who attended as a delegate from Malappuram. Baby, who had been arrested during the 1975 Emergency, had just been released. During a discussion, Betty asked Baby about his experiences
in jail. “I admired him as a leader rather than imagining being his life partner,” she says.

At that time Betty was studying for her economics degree in MES College, Ponnani. A few college students, including Betty, started a film club called Sprout. “We showed a lot of good films, like ‘Battleship Potemkin’ [by Sergei Eisenstein], and those by Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal and Mrinal Sen,” says Betty. “It was shaping up well, but suddenly there was a suspicion that some Left extremists had infiltrated the the group. The CPI(M) leadership asked us to close the club. I was worried and upset because we had worked so hard to make the club a success.”

Betty was not a party member at that time. Feeling confused about what to do, she felt that Baby would be the right person to turn to, for advice. So, she went and met him at a SFI conference in Punalur. “Baby
said that I should consult the local unit of the party and follow their instructions,” says Betty. Later, at another conference in Kozhikode, Baby expressed a desire to see Betty at the party office.

“So I went and met him,” says Betty. “Baby told me he wanted to marry me. I think he suspected that I liked him. So I said, fine, but I would have to get the permission of my parents.”

Her parents agreed but they had worries, especially her mother. “She was not sure whether I could live the hard life as the wife of a Communist leader,” says Betty. “She knew that there would be a lot of material sacrifices.” But once they met him, both her parents were convinced that Baby would be able to take care of their daughter.

Anyway, Baby and Betty had a marriage, without any rituals, on March 18, 1982, in the presence of party stalwarts like EMS Namboodiripad, M. Basavapunnaiah, E.K. Nayanar, K. R. Gowri Amma, Susheela Gopalan and many others.

And after 30 years of marriage, Betty is all praise for her husband. “Baby is the gentlest person I have known,” she says. “He has always been sincere and honest with me. A simple and ordinary man he reads a
lot of books, like biographies, fiction, non-fiction and sports. N. Ram [owner of the Hindu group] sends him the Sportstar magazine regularly and Baby reads it from cover to cover.”

Baby is an ardent fan of sporting greats like Roger Federer, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi. “Twice he went to Kolkata to see Maradona and Messi play exhibition matches,” says Betty.  In his spare time
Baby likes to listen to classical music: Carnatic, Hindustani and Western.

Other plus points: “We have fights, but he never uses abusive language, nor has he ill-treated me,” says Betty. “Those who know him will believe what I say. The rest will say it is nonsense.”

But the one complaint Betty has is regarding his reading. “Baby puts his books on the dining table and that irritates me a lot,” she says. “When I got married and went to Delhi, we lived in a small flat. In the kitchen he kept a library. That was too much for me.”

Another drawback is that Baby does not respond when people hurl abuses and charges of financial misdemeanour against him. “Baby’s silence is a drawback,” says Betty. “But he says that people have the freedom to say what they want. It is not necessary to respond to each and every accusation.”

But the charge of financial wrongdoing affects Betty the most. “Even after so many years we are living in a rented flat,” she says. “So how can he be accused of misconduct? It is so disturbing.”

Another disturbing moment was a life-threatening one. On July 8, 1988, Betty and her four-year-old son Ashok were travelling on the Island Express. On the Perumon Bridge in Kollam, the train derailed, and
several bogies fell into the Asthamudi Lake.

“When our bogie went under the water, I ensured that I held my son's hand tightly,” says Betty. Thankfully she knew how to swim, and somehow, made her way to the surface, where they were rescued by the
local people. “Baby came to the accident site  and saw the bodies been taken away,” says Betty. 105 people perished in Kerala’s worst railway accident. “However, when he came to know that both of us were safe he
immediately plunged in and tried to help the rescue workers,” says Betty.

Betty pauses and says, “My husband’s heart is in the right place.”

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram) 

Hardscrabble days in the desert

‘Goat Days’, a best-selling novel by Benyamin, highlights the life of a Malayali worker in Saudi Arabia. An English translation has just been published by Penguin Books 

By Shevlin Sebastian

One morning, Malayalam author Benyamin received a phone call. It was from an acquaintance of his, Saji Markose. He was calling from the duty-free bookshop at Frankfurt’s international airport.

“Saji informed me that in the entire bookshop there was only one book in Malayalam,” says Benyamin. “That was ‘Goat Days’.”

Sometime ago, the Bahrain-based Benyamin had gone to Dubai. There he met a woman who told him that her 19-year-old son had died in a bike accident in Kerala. “But it was only after reading ‘Goat Days’ that I could get over the sorrow,” she told Benyamin. “It was a catharsis for me.” Another 70-year-old man from the USA wrote and told Benyamin that he wanted to touch the hand that wrote the book and have coffee with the author.

In the small world of Malayalam publishing, ‘Goat Days’ has sold a boggling 40,000 copies, and has won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award. It is also a prescribed text in schools and colleges. Recently, Penguin brought out an English translation by Dr. Joseph Koyippally, an associate professor of the Central University of Kerala.      

The spark for the novel was an accidental meeting by Benyamin with a man called Najib Mohammed. “Najib was working in a farm located in a desert in Saudi Arabia,” says Benyamin. “The owner treated him brutally, and hardly gave him food and water to drink. He was like a slave and Najib began to relate to the goats he was looking after.”

Here is an extract: 'Without any mercy, the arbab dragged Nabeel [name of goat] out and commanded me to raise his hind legs. Then, in the blink of an eye my Nabeel’s manhood also fell on the ground, soaked in blood like that of many other goats… the day Nabeel lost his manliness, I too lost mine. I haven’t yet figured out that mystery — of how my virility vanished with that of a goat’s.'

After speaking at length with Najib, Benyamin immersed himself in the character that he had invented in his mind. “I tried to imagine the thought process of a person who lives all alone and has no contact with other human beings,” says Benyamin. “There is a danger of losing one’s language.”

Benyamin says that the majority of Malayalis working in the Middle East have bad experiences. “In the labour camps, located near construction sites, they are treated inhumanly,” he says. “But nobody will speak it aloud.” So Benyamin decided to write about Nabeel’s experience.

After his job as a coordinator in an electro-mechanical company in Manama, Bahrain, would end at 6 p.m., he would go home and work from 7 to 11 p.m. Then, if his wife, Asha, a nurse, was on the night shift, he would have to look after the children, Rohan, 8, and Kezia, 5. But he plugged on steadily and finished the novel in two years.
   
When it was released Benyamin was worried about the reaction. “I had a fear that people would say that the book is an exaggeration,” he says. “But in the end the novel was embraced whole-heartedly by readers in large numbers.”

Asked for the reason behind its success, translator Koyippally says, “It is a simple and honest narrative. ‘Goat Days’ offers a fresh perspective of the Malayalis working in the Middle East. This issue has never been addressed before in such depth. The few earlier books were sob stories. But Benyamin reveals the true grit of the Malayali worker.”  

Adds Benyamin: “Anybody living anywhere will be able to empathise with Najeeb. He is able to escape from the farm after nearly four years and ends up triumphant. In the end, it is a novel of hope.”

(The New Indian Express, Sunday Magazine, South India and New Delhi) 

A classy act all the way

Meherzad Patel's play, 'The Class Act', provides rollicking laughter and subtle lessons. The director, a twenty-something Mumbaikar, is witty and talented

By Shevlin Sebastian

Photo by Manu R. Mavelil

'The Class Act', is set in a classroom, with a blackboard at one side, posters on the wall, one of which has 'Black Comedy' written in large letters, a table and chairs. And it is Mr. William's acting class for a bunch of crazy people: a loud-mouthed Parsi by the name of Mehernosh Siganporia, a young Muslim, Mohammed Abdul Khader Sheikh, the tall, kurta-clad Mahesh Kadam, Dolly Gandhi, a TV actor, and a Goan hotelier, Victor Rodrigues. And it is this motley bunch that is trying to learn acting.

The actors introduce themselves, and Victor says, “The first time I sang in the church choir, 200 Christians changed their religion.”

When Victor is asked to fall over backwards from the top of a box, and develop the trust that Dolly will hold her, he says, “I can't do that. My family jewels will get stuck in my throat.”

He also gives an apt definition of divorce: “To rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.”

The man who has written all these catchy lines is a twenty-something Parsi called Meherzad Patel, who acts as Mr. Williams in the play held recently at the JT Performing Arts Centre at Kochi. Apart from 'The Class Act' he has written a farce on teenage angst called 'Like Dat Only', another one about a Parsi, Rustam Screwwala, called, 'Rusty Screws', a third drama called, 'Four Square', and shows in Gujarati and Hindi.

Meherzad got his impetus when in Class 10 at St. Mary's school, Mumbai, during an inter-house competition he directed a play called 'Snow White and six-and-a-half dwarfs'. “It was a parody,” he says. “So Snow White was a huge, dark, and broad-shouldered boy who towers over the rest. The dwarfs play different characters who were in the news at that time, like Sourav Ganguly and David Beckham.”

The play bagged the first prize and some of the student actors, like Sajeel Parakh and Dhanesh Irani, are in ‘The Class Act’ also. Later, in St. Xavier's College, Meherzad did not get much of an opportunity, but things opened up when he joined the Government Law College. “There was far more free time,” he says.

Taking the opportunity, Meherzad worked as an assistant director in the musical, 'The Wizard Of Oz'. And it was a learning experience for him. “I understood that things that can go wrong at any time,” he says. “A backdrop can fall on you suddenly. You have to ensure that the mikes and lights are working properly. Make-up should be done early, and not at the last minute.”

Meherzad, who set up Silly Point Productions in 2008, has a different approach to acting. “I give my actors a simple instruction,” he says. “There is no joke at all in our plays. We are performing for the sake of acting, not for the sake of getting a laugh. The humour lies in your character.”

And to fine-tune the satire, Meherzad keeps changing the lines. “We tailor it according to the audience,” he says. “If is a younger group, we will use more four-letter words. For the older crowd, they would prefer a smarter and well-scripted joke.”

One reason why the plays are popular is that Meherzad works a lot on the script. 'The Class Act' took six months to write, while 'Rusty Screws' took two years.

“If you rush through you will not get the content you are looking for,” he says. “Mumbai is the big inspiration for me. In this city, you get all types of people – from angry bus drivers to laid-back college students. It is put out in a daily buffet right in front of you. The jokes people tell you are not just that. It is their real-life experiences. When you put this on stage, it makes the play more realistic.”

And despite being the son of chartered accountants, his realistic parents have given him the leeway to do what he wants. “They are a little scared of me,” he says, tongue in cheek. “Seriously, they come to watch all my plays and enjoy them thoroughly.”

But Meherzad admits that being a full-time playwright is an uphill task. “I can probably earn much more as a lawyer,” he says. “But this is a passion for me and the creative satisfaction that I get is probably something money cannot buy.” 

(The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi) 

 

The he(art) of the matter

The internationally reputed Atul Dodiya, talks about his passion for art and how the hatred between communities is a disturbing trend in India now

Photos: Atul Dodiya; painting of Mahatma Gandhi on a steel shutter

By Shevlin Sebastian

Atul Dodiya is a busy man. Before he came to spend two days in Kerala, to view the sites of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the Mumbai-based artist had just returned from a ten-day trip to Copenhagen where he took part in a group show. One day after he returned from Kochi, he flew to Paris where he was holding a solo show of his works at the Galerie Daniel Templon.

Atul has been one of India’s leading artists for more than twenty years. And his desire to be an artist crystallised when he was only 11 years old. Expectedly, there was opposition that the son of a civil contractor wanted to be an artist, but when he failed twice in his Class 10 examinations, the family realised that Atul was different from other boys. In 1982, he joined the JJ School of Art, and passed out as a gold medalist.    

As he says simply, “You don't become an artist. Either you are an artist or not. And there is no substitute to hard work.” So Atul spends more than ten hours a day painting and the rest of the time he is thinking about his work. “It is a 24 hour obsession,” he says. “Even after so many years, the passion burns brightly inside me. If you don't have passion it is difficult to achieve anything in art.

Atul is well-known for his realistic paintings. So he has drawn images of his father, sister and friends, as well as a series on Mahatma Gandhi called, ‘An artist of non-violence’. “It is a bit hypocritical that when you have an image of Gandhi on the Indian rupee note, every third road is called MG [Mahatma Gandhi] Road, and every government office has his photo, his philosophy of non-violence has been abandoned,” says Atul. “There is so much of tension between the communities. We see so much of violence due to communal riots and terrorism. The 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai and the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat : How do people become so evil? Gandhi had always fought for love and dignity for fellow human beings, but that is no longer there now. Art should reflect that.”    

Atul’s turning point as an artist took place in 1991 when he went abroad, to France, for the first time on a French government scholarship. “I wanted to see the original works of great masters,” he says. “I saw great paintings by Picasso and Matisse and many modern masters.”

Today, he is an avid fan of Picasso. “He was fearless,” says Atul. “I went to the large Picasso Museum at Barcelona, and saw how this man at the age of 14 did a huge realistic painting and later, as he matured, he created the unique art form of Cubism. There is 80 years of work and you can clearly see how Picasso has evolved as an artist.”

And Atul also learned some lifelong lessons. “After seeing the paintings I realised that the great artists were not afraid of taking risks,” says Atul. “I told myself, ‘Never succumb to market forces, to your friends’ ideas, to the critics and their likes and dislikes, and the need to cater to current trends and fashions. Just keep everything outside the studio and paint the way you feel. That is why people often say I don’t have a style. Each show of mine is different, in terms of medium, subject matter, and material.”  

So, expectedly, he is going to do something unique for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. “It will be an installation art with photographs,” he says. “The sites are amazing and fantastic. When I am showing my work in Germany, France, Japan, or the Moscow Biennale, these spaces are ultimately in a foreign land. But here, for the first time I will be showing a work in my own country. The walls, the floors, the smells, the lights, it is all so familiar and I am excited by it.”  

Atul is also excited by Malayali artists. “Some of my finest contemporaries are Malayalis,” he says. They include Surendran Nair, Alex Mathew, Riyas Komu, Jitesh Kallat, Justin Ponmani, Jyoti Basu, Ratheesh, and Bose Krishnamachari. “They are dear friends and I respect them as artists,” says Atul. “Through them, I have learnt something about a different region in our country. There is a peculiar voice that one sees in their work. They talk about the life, nature, and a certain mythology. They, along with other international artists, will ensure that the Kochi Biennale will be a great show and will establish India on the international art scene.” 

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram) 

Having the right chips

Alex Thomas read an article in a magazine and became inspired to make a banana and cassava chip-making factory 

Photos: Entrepreneur Alex Thomas; Banano and Kappo packets 

By Shevlin Sebastian

In May, 2009, Alex Thomas read a small news item in the 'Dhanam' business magazine about opportunities of starting a snack food industry for banana and cassava (kappa) chips. In the write-up, the name of the equipment supplier, 'Heat and Control Australia' was mentioned. “I searched their web site and got in touch with them,” says Alex. “They are the pioneers in food processing machinery.”

It was a learning curve for Alex, since he was in the Ready Mix concrete industry. One day, a friend mentioned that there was a one-week course in snack foods at Ohio State University, USA. It cost $5,000. Alex went in September, 2009. 

“The most important thing that I learnt was that people buy snacks not for health reasons, but for the taste,” he says. Alex was able to see a potato chips factory in operation, as well as the manufacturing facility of 'Heat and Control'. “Participants included people from different parts of the world and I could get an idea of the snack food culture in those countries,” he says.

From Ohio, Alex went to Colombia to see a banana chips factory. The South American country has the largest number of banana plantations in the world. “In Colombia, workers handled the banana bunches (vazhakula) the way they would hold a new-born baby,” says Alex. “They ensured that it did not touch the ground during transportation.”

This was in marked contrast to what happens in the markets in Kerala. Workers just throw the banana bunches to the ground from the lorry. “That is when the raw material gets damaged,” says Alex.

After he returned, Alex prepared a detailed business plan, with the help of a consultant. “I explained all the activities that were needed to launch and market the product in a transparent manner,” he says. As a result, Alex secured a loan of Rs 6.6 crore from the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation. Thereafter, Alex approached well-known businessmen like C.J. George of Geojit and Kochuouseph Chittilappilly of V-Guard Industries, and they came on board as investors, apart from a few others. Eventually, based on an investment of Rs 15 crore, he set up a 20,000 sq. ft. factory at the Food Park at Adoor under the company name of Tierra Food India Pvt Ltd in May, 2012.

Inside the factory, the bananas and cassavas are peeled, then washed, and put through a slicing machine. Then it is taken to the frier and dipped in 1200 litres of triple refined palmolein oil. The chips are fried in two minutes and then passed through an ambient air cooler which cools it and gets rid of excess oil. “Thereafter, it will go through an inspection conveyor belt where over and under-fried chips are removed manually,” says Alex. “The chips later pass through a rotating drum which sprinkles flavours onto the products.” Around 55 workers are involved in this procedure.

There are two products: Kappo (cassava) and Banano (banana chips). Banano is available in two flavours: chilly garlic and salt and pepper. Cassava chips have three flavours: salt and pepper, tomato, and cream and onion. The prices are very competitive: Banano is available in 30gm packets at Rs 10. Cassava is available in 15 grams (Rs 5) and 32 grams (Rs 10).

And things have been moving along smoothly. In August, the company notched up sales of Rs 50 lakh. “We hope to reach Rs 1 crore in September,” says Alex. The branded chip market is worth Rs 100 crore in Kerala. “People are more conscious of hygiene and health these days, so they look for top-quality products,” says Alex.

The entrepreneur is expecting the company to break even in one-and-a-half years. “We never expected our product to be accepted in the market so fast,” he says. Alex's immediate priority is to supply 20,000 outlets in Kerala, which store branded chip products. “At the moment, we have only reached 12,000,” he says. “But the future looks very bright.”

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)

Highs and lows

COLUMN: Spouse's Turn 

Yamini talks about her life with actor-politician K.B. Ganesh Kumar

By Shevlin Sebastian

In January, 1994, Yamini Ramachandran was waiting to meet K.B. Ganesh Kumar, the son of politician R. Balakrishna Pillai, at the house of her neighbour at PTP Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram. This was the first meeting between boy and girl.

Ganesh, however, was an hour late. He had been held up at the shooting of the film, ‘Commissioner’, in which he was playing a young police officer. They met and spoke. “In fact it was Ganesh who did all the talking and I just listened,” says Yamini. “I found him refreshingly frank as he spoke about his film career and asked me about my studies.”

At that time, Yamini was doing her second-year MBBS at the Trivandrum Medical College. “I was not very keen to get married, because I wanted to finish my studies first, but I met Ganesh because my parents had received a proposal from the Pillais,” she says.

At that meeting Yamini was nervous. But what amused her was that Ganesh was even more tense than her and was perspiring a lot. “I never clarified later from Ganesh whether it was out of nervousness or because of the heat,” she says.

Anyway, it was the frankness that attracted Yamini and she said yes to the marriage. The couple tied the knot on May 20, 1994. And in 18 years of marriage Yamini admires her husband’s sincerity when it comes to his work, as an actor and currently as a minister of forests and environment, sports and cinema in the Oommen Chandy government. “Ganesh always gives more than 100 per cent,” says Yamini. She remembers that there are times when as the MLA of Pathanapuram, he has awoken at night saying that a particular bridge in the constituency was not ready.

“It seems, in his dreams, he is thinking about the construction of bridges and roads,” says Yamini, with a smile.

But Ganesh cares about human beings also. “For example, if a friend or somebody from the film industry has a problem, he will go out of his way to help,” says Yamini. But what she finds most attractive is that whether he is talking to a minister or a gardener, he will adopt the same behaviour. “There is a nice down-to-earth quality about him,” says Yamini. 

But as a father of Aadithya, 15, and Devaraman, 5, she will only award Ganesh 3 marks out of ten. “Ganesh is not there for them because he is too busy,” says Yamini. “He does not find time for the family at all. The elder one feels this strongly. But, lately, Ganesh has been trying to rectify this since I told him that Aadithya will be at home for another two years and then he will leave for further studies.” 

Another drawback is his lack of punctuality. “If he says he will come at 9.30 a.m. for a family outing, he will usually arrive at 1.30 p.m.,” says Yamini “I cannot blame him because he is so busy, but it is also in his nature to be late. So now I start getting dressed only when he calls to say that he is on his way.”

For a while the couple went their separate ways in 2001 when the marriage hit a rocky patch. But eventually, they got back together. “In the end it was pure honesty towards each other which saved the marriage,” says Yamini. “Ganesh bared his heart out. He realised his mistakes and I also understood that I had gone wrong at certain times. We had a lot of conversations before we reconciled.”

And the over-riding reason why they got back together was because, as Yamini says, “Whatever differences we had between us, our son Aadithya [Devaraman was not born then] should always have his mother and father with him.”

But it is not all sad and gloom. There have been happy times. “At home Ganesh can be jovial and fun-loving, especially with friends,” says Yamini. “He cracks a lot of jokes.”

And so life goes on. While Ganesh is busy in his ministerial job, Yamini works as a senior research fellow at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies. “I am doing my Phd on adolescent health,” she says.

Asked what advice she will give to a newly-married couple, Yamini says, “Whatever is going on in your mind, speak it out. Don’t keep it bottled inside and let it fester, and add further resentments and then have a big explosion. People make the mistake that the spouse will understand what you are thinking. That never happens. Also, you need a lot of patience to resolve problems.”

Finally, the tamping of the ego is very important. “There should be no ‘you’ and ‘me’,” says Yamini. “Instead, it should always be ‘we’.”  

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)

Steeped in the classics

B.V. Ramachandran Nair's shop, Viji Musics, at Kochi, is a treasure trove of classical music. He pioneered music fairs in Kerala

By Shevlin Sebastian

At 11 a.m. on a Thursday, customer N. Gopakumar enters the Viji Musics store on Press Club Road, Kochi, with a friend. He tells the owner B. V. Ramachandran Nair he wants Carnatic singer Kudamaloor Janardanan's latest CD. Ramachandran gives that and a couple of other cassettes. Inside the shop, there are large posters of the legends of Hindustani and Carnatic music. They include Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Rashid Khan, Gangobhai, Swati Thirunal, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, MS Subbulakshmi and Balamuralikrishna.

The shop, which began operations in 2000, sells only CDs of Hindustani and Carnatic music, bhajans, ghazals, qawwalis and sufi songs. Astonishingly, the songs of Rabindranath Tagore are also popular. Ramachandran shows a CD, 'The Golden Boat'. It contains songs that the Nobel Laureate had composed on the banks of the River Padma. “Even if people don't know Bengali, they enjoy listening to Rabindra Sangeet,” says Ramachandran.

There are about 30,000 CDs in the shop, presented under different headings, and placed neatly on wooden racks. And in Hindustani classical, it is Bhimsen Joshi and Pandit Jasraj who are the most popular. In Carnatic, it is Balamuralikrishna and Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar.

Ramachandran has pioneered the concept of music fairs. In Kochi, during the 9-day Navaratri festival, he holds a fair at the Women's Association Hall. Every year, he stages week-long or 20 day fairs in Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Palakkad, Kozhikode, Mallapuram, Kannur, Kasargod and Kanhangad.

And he has noticed an unusual pattern in the sales. If a singer belongs to a particular area, the sales are the highest for him. “In Palakkad, if I go with a thousand CDs of KV Narayanaswamy, they will be sold out because he hails from there,” says Ramachandran. “In Kozhikode, the CDs of MS Baburaj are best-sellers because he is a local. In Kasargod and Kannur, the albums of Jayashree Rajeev fly off the shelves.”

And sometimes misconceptions have been laid to rest. Recently, when Ramachandran went to do an exhibition in Mallapuram for the first time, music company executives told him to take a lot of stuff by local Muslim singers. “But I discovered that the people are more interested in Hindustani classical, ghazals, qawwalis and sufi songs,” says Ramachandran. “They did not care for the local stuff.”

To go for these fairs, Ramachandran has to hire a lorry. More than 150 boxes of CDs have to be loaded. He himself travels on the vehicle accompanied by four helpers. In the fair, he ends up selling 10,000 CDs. “There are people who wait for me every year,” says Ramachandran. One of them is APM Koya, a retired manager of the State Bank of India, who lives in Kozhikode. “He has the maximum number of CDs that I know of,” says Ramachandran. “Whatever song you ask for, he has a copy. He will come to the fair about ten times, looking for rare copies of songs.”

In this era of rampant digital downloads, Ramachandran is still going strong, because most of his customers are 50 plus and are not at all digital-savvy. “But companies like 'Music Today' and 'Saregama' are also taking precautions,” says Ramachandran. “They avoid selling too much of classical music on the Internet.”

Ramachandran suddenly says, “I am not doing this solely for profit. It is because of my love of music that I am in this business.” He stumbled on to the trade by accident. After 15 years of doing business in Saudi Arabia, he returned and, thanks to a suggestion from a friend, started a music shop at the GCDA Complex on Marine Drive, before he moved to the present location. Incidentally, Viji Musics is named after his wife.

Asked about his favourite singers, Ramachandran mentions the young duo of Sankaran Namboodiri and Jayashree Rajeev. “In my own way, I have tried to promote them a lot,” he says.

(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)