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CHITRA SANKARAN: My years of growing up in Chennai were rather idyllic. I was born and brought up in a family of independent thinkers. Since both my parents were doctors, they were not only educated but also were very progressive people who encouraged me to think more and take my decisions on my own. Especially my mother, who was an extremely strong lady. She was someone whose life and thoughts influenced several people, including me. My mother went to London in the 1950s to pursue her postgraduate study in medicine. Instead of staying back she decided to come back and join the medical service. From there she rose to being the first lady Vice Chancellor of the first ever State Medical University in Tamil Nadu. Being raised by such a strong mother had a very profound impact on me. I too followed suit and left for London when I was 23 years old. I lived there almost a decade. It was a great time. It was a big learning curve of my life. I completed my PhD from the University of London and worked there for a few years. The good thing about working in an university environment is that you meet so many like-minded people, it helps you grow as an individual. And that is exactly what happened in London. I met people who knew so much, who had a different level of understanding of issues, it was interesting and very intellectually stimulating. After spending some good 10 years in London, I was beginning to miss home. Therefore I thought of returning back to Chennai. There I started teaching in a women’s university. However my stay was limited to a very short period of time. I got a better opportunity in Singapore and I decided to move again. So I packed off for Singapore and I have been living here for nearly two decades now. People when move to other countries, they often face many issues. The cultures are different, mannerisms are different, it is whole new world you are thrown into and mostly you do not know how to react. There are people who have had bitter experiences in the foreign countries. But I can truthfully say that I did not face any identity issues or any kind of racism here in Singapore or in London. As aforementioned I spent most of my time in an university environment. And one surely cannot expect such things to happen in these places as everyone who is academically inclined has been trained to think critically. They have all had great exposure to radical and critical theoretical perspectives. Most of them are liberal intellectuals who believe in liberal politics. Perhaps I am most fortunate. However, I would not deny that these issues do exist. I have heard several stories where people who are less fortunate, complain about racism, sexism and other issues in their workplace. And this problem is not peculiar to Singapore. It is prevalent, to a greater or lesser degree, everywhere in the world. People often ask me about what pushed me towards feminism. I really can not think of any particular incident that made me shape my thoughts in this manner. My upbringing was rather privileged, but I would say that many around me were not all that fortunate. I witnessed how a patriarchal society functions. I feel that it was no surprise that I was naturally inclined towards feminism. My interest in the subject was essentially a cerebral attraction to an important cause. However, Feminism is only one of my topics of study. The other, however slow it might be, topic that interests me deeply is post-colonialism. Both these theoretical perspectives interest me at a personal level, because they impact me on my personal location—as a woman and as a postcolonial individual— but at a broader level, they interest me because they are about how groups that perceive themselves as disempowered and are fighting to gain equality with more empowered groups. This fight is a difficult one because, given the nature of the politics involved in both fields, power is rendered invisible by the powerful groups. For example, a common myth that is perpetuated by men is, “Oh! Women are all very liberated now. They are more powerful than men! What do they lack?” These kinds of statements show how difficult a fight women have on their hands. One of the ways in which power operates is to cloak itself. It normates and naturalises unequal power politics by making it appear natural. When people say that God or Nature meant man to protect and rule over a woman; our Shastras ordain it; etc, they are doing nothing but hiding behind a shield. Main or ‘malestream’ power, at least in the teeth of opposition, operates most effectively by cloaking itself. This does not mean that all men are better off than all women. Obviously, trajectories such as educational qualification; earning capacity; affluence, all these work to empower people regardless of gender. However, within a group of equally qualified people, you will find that males have more power than women. The theory of feminism is quite layered and varies from place to place. It omnipresent of course! But penetration levels are different. And it is a natural thing, like any dynamic and thoughtful movement this theory as well keeps evolving. According to me the feminism is a deep rooted belief that both genders are equal. Even if you grant that they are different this should not lead to differences being hierarchised. When Europeans came across other cultures and colonised them because of their superior artillery and naval power in the 17th Century, they set out to divide the world between the ‘West and the Rest’. They could not treat difference as equal. What was alien to them had to be labelled as ‘inferior’. So “beyond Europe became before Europe.” They could not accede that different cultures develop differently. They thought that there was only one path to advancement. A similar mindset seems to operate in gender relations as well. I think wherever on earth you are, the fundamental philosophy remains the same—that women deserve to be treated equally in every sphere of life. They deserve the same rights; e.g. equal pay for equal work; etc. How this philosophy manifests itself may change from time to time within a culture and from culture to culture. Here in Singapore we have women’s toilets painted in pink, in India you will notice that the Delhi Metro uses pink sign boards to signify the women’s coach of the metro. This is nothing but stereotyping. Women do not subscribe to the pink colour and men do not subscribe to blue. It is regressive thinking. I believe any kind of stereotyping is reductive; and reduction is certainly the anti-thesis of progress. This is because reality is always complex and is meshed in several shades of grey. Yet another stereotyped notion that exists is that feminists hate men; that they usually fall prey to misandry. This is a misconception that comes out of a very limited and antiquated view of feminism. Currently most feminist theorists believe that patriarchy (or the rule of the Fathers) strait-jackets not just women but also men. Men too are forced to conform to stereotypes of masculinity just as women are compelled to conform to stereotypes of femininity. People of both genders who do not conform are punished under patriarchy. Women are certainly punished more severely and viciously; rape; molest; honour-killings are all common occurrences in a world which encourages misogyny. But men suffer too. If a boy wants to be a dancer, how many families (in India or in many other parts of the world) would encourage him? If a boy is perceived as ‘soft’ the instinct of his parents is to say ‘toughen up—you are a boy’. They say these things because they realise that otherwise society at large will punish him in various ways. So under patriarchy, misogyny is pervasive. So pervasive that we are all educated to be in denial about it. But if there is misandry, it is perpetuated by patriarchy not by feminists, except perhaps by radical feminists. They may have their reasons. When I teach this subject to my students I can see a visible change in the thought-process, but this needs to go beyond the confines of the university campus. The male students in my class who choose to pursue a module in feminism are usually rather more thoughtful and more mature than the average, indoctrinated male. So they usually respond very positively to the theories taught in class. This definitely is a positive sign that change in happening, however slow it might be.
There are old film posters......some of them made over four decades ago. But there is no hint of decay in them, no yellowing of the edges, as if time has conspired to preserve the freshness of the canvas just as the films themselves have transcended the barriers of time. A short walk past the poster-adorned walls of Sahyadri Films in south Mumbai’s tony Tardeo area and we are ushered into a wood-pannelled room. The first impression is that the room has lots of books. Many, many books. Buried in some of them and deep in thought, is the man we have come to meet braving Mumbai’s notorious evening traffic. He looks up, his face fills up with a warm smile and he immediately puts us at ease. A quick handshake later he offers us tea and then asks us to ‘shoot the questions.’ Shyam Benegal is a legend, a genius behind the camera. But he has just shown us that he is also a very nice man to know. From the time he made his first film Ankur in 1973, Benegal has defied the odds. Most of his films, variously called a part of ‘new cinema’, ‘alternate cinema’ or the rather irritating ‘middle cinema’ (“stupid name”, he says) succeeded at the box office when many of his contemporaries failed to crack the commerce code. Yet when it came to National Awards—the final word of praise for serious cinema—no one matched up to his 11 National Awards spanning four decades. When funds for new cinema dried up in the mid-70s, Benegal outfoxed doomsday sayers by getting five lakh dairy farmers of Gujarat to ‘produce’ his award-winning film Manthan (each of them contributed `2 and then, after the film was released, turned up at cinema halls in truckloads, making the film a runaway hit). When in the mid-80s, cinemas, facing the heat from television channels, stopped showing serious cinema, Benegal scripted and directed three stunning documentaries for Indian television, sponsored by various arms of the government. And just when critics figured he had grown too old to adapt to the times at 66 years, came his path breaking films Zubeida (2000) and then Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008), where the lines between ‘alternate’ and ‘mainstream’ cinema blurred forever. Benegal brushes such praise, however, with a wave of his hands. Flashing an almost embarrassed smile he is quick to either call it ‘luck’ or ‘good fortune’ or even pass the praise on to others. “National Awards are not always for the most successful or popular film. It’s more about films with a message, films that take up a social cause or talk about a national issue,” he says when asked about his ‘stranglehold’ over the award. Similarly he heaps praise on his mentor, Satyajit Ray, for not just opening his eyes to how good cinema could be made, but also for ensuring he got the Homi Bhaba Scholarship in the 1960s to go abroad and study film-making—the singular event that finally made a young Benegal determined to move from advertising to film-making as a full-time job. As we realise over our hour-long conversation over chai, photo shoots and anecdote sharing—Benegal is almost reluctant to accept the ‘legend’ tag or that of a genius. But those who have watched his handling of a young Shabana Azmi in Ankur, or how he brought the best out of an untrained, untried Smita Patil in Bhumika, would swear by his genius. During a scene in Bhumika (1977), the main protagonist (Usha/Urvashi) looks into the mirror, staring at herself. The audience watching her in awe, are privileged to witness the birth of a star—Smita Patil. It is possibly also the moment when many of those people truly comprehended the genius that is Benegal, as he effortlessly moves from his usual ruralscape to an urban story of a woman’s quest for identity and fulfillment. Loosely based on the life of Marathi stage actress Hansa Wadkar, Benegal’s Bhumika revolves around Patil’s character. With Usha, Benegal creates a complex personality, one that craves normality and convention, yet defies every notion of both. Patil gives the performance of her lifetime as Usha and Urvashi, and it is a privilege to watch her grow from a young woman to a screen star and finally to an embittered middle-aged mother. Bhumika of course was a special film which marked a departure in Benegal’s usual story-telling style and is considered to be one of his best. However, it is all but impossible to select ‘the best’ out of a body of work which spans across 50 years (he made his first documentary in Gujarati, Gher Betha Ganga, in 1962). Benegal has woven many tales, and all of them differently. Examining his films, a leitmotif does emerge—all of them bring India’s margins to the mainstream. He has always portrayed sexual and societal inequalities through his characters—either through his strong-willed women fighting gender politics; exploited unorganised labour sectors; struggles of ‘lower castes’ and tenant farmers. Before the Rizvis, Kashyaps, Banerjees and Dhulias burst across the multiplexes of India, the country’s voiceless found a hero in Benegal. No one championed their cause like him. Other members of new wave cinema (Benegal’s contemporaries) did focus on similar themes, but they portrayed a reality so ravaged that its humanity was often lost in all the bleakness. That was never the case with Benegal. From the time he made his debut, he tackled the terrible while entertaining. Now at 78, he is far from being “done”. “I am busy with a television mini-series on the Constitution. The project is like a personal challenge; a 10-part series, 10 hours long. It is proving to be a momentous task and will take an year to finish; but we are researching, talking to people and so far have managed three parts. It is a work in progress,” he informs in his characteristic deep voice. Considered as one of the founders of India’s new wave cinema, Benegal began his career in the 1970s. From then on and to this day, he has directed and scripted films which have helped shape India’s reputation on a global platform. What is refreshing about him is his creative fire, which is far from being doused.
PLAYING HOOKEYBenegal was born in Trimulghery, a small garrison town near Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh. He was born on December 14, 1934, in a Konkani-speaking family. He completed his graduation and postgraduation in economics from Osmania University’s Nizam College. “My father was a still photographer and ran a studio. He was a painter, an artist, a draughtsman and a keen amateur filmmaker. When I say amateur, I mean he made home movies on a 16-mm movie camera. It was a Paillard Bolex, a German camera. Whatever he shot, he would then edit and put together as family entertainment,” he says. And his Gandhian father was pretty strict about the “kind” of cinema he would let his sons watch. “He would see films made by New Theatre and Prabhat Film Company. He would take us (his elder brother and him) to see one film every month. What he didn’t know was that I was seeing other films too. He was Gandhian in a way. He didn’t want us to see too many films which depicted violence—even if in a patriotic way. But I was playing hookey and going to the theatres every Thursday,” says Benegal with a chuckle. “When India gained its independence I was 12-and-a-half-years-old. I don’t remember much about those days, but remember visiting the cinemas often. Our town’s standalone cinema would show three films in a week—an English, a Hindi and a regional language film. I grew up watching all sorts of cinema.” His first cinema happened at the tender age of six and from the first scene itself, he was ‘hooked’. “The magic never left me. From then on I decided that I would be a filmmaker. I was not interested in the star system or in actors, but in the process of filmmaking. So I read up as much as I could,” reminisces the director. “My eldest brother, who still lives in Kolkata, was studying art there. He was keen on films and subscribed to Penguin Film Review. It had serious articles on editing and directors. After he read them, he packed and sent them to me. I had a growing collection of books and magazines on cinema which was a rare possession for a young fellow.” Parallely, Benegal was also “trying to find ways of expressing himself which were not going to be simply a clone of what was being made in the mainstream industry”. By that time Benegal was too entrenched in the movies made by neo-realists such as De Sica and Kurosawa to overtly indulge in ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. Books could teach him tonnes, but not everything—they did not tell him what films did he wish to make. To figure that out Benegal took time off, slowed things down a bit. “I hoped to direct a film one day. But I didn’t understand exactly what sort of film would I direct. I started to write scripts and began a film club at college.” What gave him direction was, surprisingly, swimming. Both the Benegal boys were a sports-loving lot. The filmmaker was both a pugilist and a swimmer. “I used to represent Hyderabad in the state-level swimming championships. In 1956, I went to Kolkata for a championship. In Kolkata my uncle ran a commercial art studio. He was a well-connected man as his firm handled publicity for all English language films. Side-by-side, he handled the commercial publicity for Uday Shankar’s dance troupe. He knew of my fascination so he casually invited me to see a film by a new director.” The film, Pather Pachali, was by the ‘new director’ Satyajit Ray. “I saw Pather Pachali 12 times within a week. I was stunned. It gave me a sense of direction. It gave me hope that I could probably find my own, original way into filmmaking without having to tread the same path as anybody else. I would soon have my individual voice!” The process to become one of India’s best had begun.
LEARNING AT LINTAS AND ASPAfter finishing his higher studies, Benegal found himself at crossroads again. What could he do for a living? “I did the obvious—travelled to Bombay looking for a job. Since I believed that I had some capability as a copy writer Bombay was the place to be. There, I met Guru Dutt. He was a cousin. Guru Dutt asked me to assist him in a film but not as a first assistant. I was to ‘just hang around’. I was not willing to do that. And I thought that if I ‘hung around’ too much, I could carry an influential director’s traits, habits and aesthetics into my filmmaking, which I didn’t want,” he admits. So, in August 16, 1958, he began a ‘proper job’ as a copy editor at Lintas Media Group. “It was a useful job as it would pay a decent sum of `175 per month. I didn’t mind it at all as I received an opportunity to travel–particularly to the Northeast—after our agency found that several Lintas advertisements were not being shown in NE cinemas. So, I was packed off with three trunks full of ad-films to Assam. I placed them in cinemas across Assam—Dibrugarh and Margarita—and then to other states such as Nagaland and Manipur which were strife-torn at that time. It was a great learning experience.” And the time was right to be in the advertising sector. “We were the second-generation of advertising professionals after pioneers such as Durga Khote (the yesteryear iconic actress who started her own advertising firm back in the 1950s). Within six months of joining Lintas, I ended up writing scripts, directing, editing and recording films—doing just about everything. That is how I learnt to make films!” After his learning curve plateaued at Lintas Benegal quit to join ASP (Advertising, Sales and Promotion; an advertising firm). He began heading its film and radio departments and gradually rose through the ranks to manage the firm’s creative department. It is a period he recollects with fondness. It was his toughest and most rewarding period. “I was also working on a film script based on a story I had written for my college magazine. The story caught my fancy, so I decided to make a script out of it. Eventually it became my first film, Ankur,” he says. Initially few wished to finance Ankur till Blaze advertising Services stepped in. “They were the largest distributors of ad films in the country. At one time they had around 2,000 cinemas captive across India—a near monopoly, except for the south of India. They offered to produce Ankur and I agreed.” Meanwhile, Benegal had applied for the Homi Bhaba Fellowship. Rather, Satyajit Ray had recommended his name without letting the ‘student’ know. “Because Ray suggested it, I guess no one could possibly say no,” remembers Benegal. “I had met him on the sets of Nayak and he had seen my work which consisted of three documentaries. Ray had seen Child On The Streets and liked it. I had the fortune of sitting with him and chatting over a length of time, every time we met.” Soon, Ray became a ‘referee’ to Benegal’s career. Because Ray had recommended it, Benegal made Blaze wait for a year before they could start with the film as he went off to study filmmaking. A year later, Ankur happened. And there was no looking back thereafter.
Benegal considers himself lucky that most of the actors he introduced to Hindi cinema had come with excellent training. “None were newbies. Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) came from the NSD had worked with Girish Karnad in Tughlaq. None of these actors were picked from the streets. Om (Puri) and Amrish (Puri) had theatre backgrounds. Shabana (Azmi) of course was from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Only Smita (Patil) had absolutely no background in acting, but she had a spontaneity that was extraordinary. So she made up for not being a trained artist. It was never difficult to direct them. They were already honed.” Benegal’s later films Nishant, Manthan, Bhumika and Junoon added strength to the New Wave Cinema movement that began in the 1970s. Benegal had the distinction of being the only filmmaker for whom the poor became producers. “Manthan and several other films of mine had cooperative funding,” he admits.
Late 1970s and early 1980s saw the decline of the new cinema as television became national for the first time. In the early 1970s India had no entertainment but films and television was restricted to Bombay and Delhi. By the beginning of 1980s and post Asian Games, the country had terrestrial means to broadcast television, which meant that television began to take away a lot of the cinema revenue, which were growing by 6 to 7 per cent annually till then. Post-television era, revenues plummeted and some films started to disappear from the citizen’s entertainment dossier. “The first types to disappear off the stream were the ones that were off mainstream. You see, if you managed to fill the theatre even 80 per cent (in a hall of 1,000) you managed to break even. You had to be 90 per cent or more full to get even a little trickle as a producer. Also this was the time that Amitabh Bachchan was ruling the roost. He led the era of blockbusters and multi-star casts. So 60 per cent of the industry depended on stars,” he explains. During that period, when Indian new wave cinema witnessed a collapse, Benegal moved his attention to the upcoming mass media medium, the television. He produced a teleserial Bharat Ek Khoj based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s book Discovery of India for Doordarshan. “It was not an easy period. Because of the subjects I chose which were not in popular demand. The industry economies meant that if your film did not meet popular demand, you didn’t stand a chance. Thankfully, I didn’t have to compromise. But yes I briefly gave up filmmaking and went into television with Katha Sagar, Bharat Ek Khoj and Yatra to keep myself afloat. Bharat Ek Khoj changed everything for me, with its 53 hours of filming. It was made to last.” The early 1990s he returned to the Big Screen thanks to funding that he received from The National Film Development Corporation of India which produced Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda while the Ministry of Health funded Saamar and the Ministry of Child and Family Welfare chipped in for Hari Bhari, about a woman’s right to reproduction.
Today Benegal has a finger on the multiplex audience’s pulse. Compared to a lot of non-mainstream directors, he seems more patient with the (often) ridiculously formulaic Hindi mainstream cinema. While addressing its concerns in an April symposium, Benegal pointed out, “It (Hindi mainstream film industry) is an expensive and serious business. Very expensive. And films flop. Despite or, perhaps, because of this, the Indian film industry ticks. Flop is a relative term. Very few films are known to fail altogether. The only thing that might happen to a film is that it may recover its cost over a longer period of time. It is but natural that distributors who market films have defined them as those meant (a) for the masses, (b) for the classes, (c) art films that will attract no audience. The films that are likely to be the biggest successes are the ones made for the ‘masses’. They could be defined as films that are utterly naive in their story content, with non-existent character development and two dimensional emotional and intellectual attitudes.” Benegal is also kinder. Which is why probably his work has managed to find the balance between mainstream Bollywood and the so-called art or parallel cinema. Surprising his fans he entered Bollywood with Zubeida, Welcome to Sajjanpur and the most-recent, Well Done Abba. “You have to stay young, to feel the pulse of the younger generation. When I did these recent films, I wasn’t really moving to the mainstream or doing commercial films. Those lines were blurred long ago. Both genres now borrow liberally from each other. What would you call Omkara or Gangs of Wasseypur? I stuck to my core but also adapted to the changing times,” he says. “That is something you have to do. Unless you adapt to changing times, you will be dated. Today’s newspaper is hot. Yesterdays news is dead. I do not want to be yesterday’s news,” he laughs. The energy, the enthusiasm this man exudes at 78 is infectious, almost unreal. At 19, he was a swimming champion, representing his state Hyderabad in the 800 and 1,500-metres at the national championships. It was a swimming championship that brought him to Kolkata in 1956—fate some would call it—and introduced him to Ray’s Pather Panchali, a film that he admits changed his life. But it his training in long-distance swimming (if you think 1,500 metres is a walk in the park, try doing 30 laps in an Olympic-sized swimming pool) that has stood him in good stead at 78. “Swimming long distance teaches you never to give up. It teaches you endurance, it teaches you to think on the move, innovate and survive,” he says. That’s exactly what Benegal has done through his career. And that is why he has withstood the test of time and emerged as a legend. A true legend in the annals of the Indian film industry.
Use networks wisely to make your company name more visibleThe resume is dead; at least it should be, given that it is no more than an inconsistently formatted and often exaggerated version of a professional self. Just ask any background screening firm, and they will tell you nearly half of the resumes they verify have some education or experience embellishment. Keeping the modern job-seeker honest is the new professional online profile, such as the one hugely popularised by LinkedIn, where thousands of recruiting professionals are sourced every day. With your educational and professional history available to everyone— clients, colleagues, ex-colleagues and batch mates—to whom you are connected, not to forget recommendations, the online profile is a far more credible representation of yourself. Would you not agree? That’s a fact that is being acknowledged by firms looking for talent as well. What started with every large company and a number of start-ups advertising and posting jobs on LinkedIn, has now moved onto other non-professional social networks— Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant are using Twitter to share vacancies via @infosyscareers, @ wiprocareers and @joinCognizant. Dell lets you search for openings via their DellCareersAPJ Facebook page. And then there are the start-ups looking to make the matching game a lot easier. Take Path.to and Bright for instance. They mine your social presence and find jobs for you based on connections. Or Smarterer, which evaluates your stated skills via assessments, giving employers candidates with validated skills. There is SmartRecruiters, a free, cloud-based applicant tracking and social recruiting system, which lets recruiters post jobs on Facebook with a click. Plus a bunch of talent-based communities like BraveNewTalent, TalentCircles and SelectMinds, which match candidates’ interests and employers’ needs. Let us not forget Branchout, “The #1 Professional Network on Facebook,” which is re-creating LinkedIn within the entire Facebook environment, and their competitor BeKnown, which is a division of Monster. com. Together, social recruiting start-ups are helping firms piece together parts of the puzzle—who you are, what skills you have and what jobs you would be best at. Armed with this data, firms can jump-start their hiring process. With cloud-based recruiting platforms, there is no software to instal or learning curve to deal with. Just get the recruiting team on to the platform, post the jobs and you are set. In fact, platforms also make it easy to store all recruiting-related content and data in one organised place. Combined with external integrations with e-mail and calendaring systems, the platforms can bring enterprise-level recruiting capabilities to companies of all sizes, at a fraction of the cost. But keep in mind, it is easy for firms to get excited about the buzz of social recruiting and see no real results coming in. The investment in effort goes beyond a mere job posting. Firms have to see social HR initiatives as much more than another job board. Recruiting on social media is all about building relationships. This can be achieved only by creating discussions for users to participate in and sharing relevant information. Firms must use social mechanisms to start a two-way communication between the firm and a prospective employee. Otherwise, they run the risk of users becoming disengaged if they do not find a job of interest. And those who do will likely abandon the community since it no longer serves their purpose. But what if you are on the other side? Understanding the rules of social recruitment may be the key to improving your odds of getting noticed. First (the obvious) your profile must be up-to-date even if you are not job hunting. Not only will it not raise eyebrows in your current job if you make a habit of regularly keeping your online resume up-to-date, but firms can chance upon a better profile even if you are not looking. Next, be judicious about your brand. Not only should you connect with thought leaders in your space in LinkedIn forums (as you would in the real world), but you should also be mindful about other social media profiles you link to. Ask yourself this—do my blog posts or twitter account show me in good light? If not, it is best to leave it off your profile. Having said that, always remember that on the web, if it can be known, it will be known. So if your Facebook posts are personal, you may want to restrict profile visibility and certainly keep it off the radar for public search engines. Finally, remember that social recruiting is meant to be social in nature—strike up conversations with potential employers and firms you are interested in, either on LinkedIn or industry or domain-focused communities. (The Social Media Recruitment Survival Guide http://bit.ly/DW-SocRec)
The Indira Gandhi government did not have a plan, but does the country have one now?DURING A FINANCIAL Times Indira Gandhi told me during a Financial Times interview in February 1983 that her government would wait until a crisis in Assam cooled down before taking the next step to resolve issues that had led to some 3,000 people being killed. There had been controversial state Assembly elections in the state, and the government had sent in 75,000 troops to control the violence. The Indian Prime Minister said that she had “no plan as such” to resolve the crisis. The problems of illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh dated back to Indian partition in 1947 “and we can’t just wish that away”. Bangladesh should, she added, take back migrants who had entered India when their country was being created (out of Pakistan) in a 1971 war. Beyond that, she said blandly, her Government would wait. (Financial Times February 25, 1983). At the time, new to South Asia, I was shocked that a Prime Minister could stand back while so many people were killed, though Mrs Gandhi had belatedly visited the area. Now nearly 30 years later, the problems of Assam and other Northeastern states remain, and it seems that the Indian government is still waiting until the situation cools down. But the world is different, as has been demonstrated last month (August) in what was probably one of the biggest sudden mass migrations since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Tens of thousands of Assamese and other workers and students from Northeastern India fled home from Bengaluru and other cities in the south because they feared mass attacks after very-exaggerated social media reports of clashes in the northeast between indigenous Assamese tribals and Muslim settlers. Bengali speaking Muslims had been forced out of their villages in attacks staged by the indigenous Bodo tribe. This put more than 300,000 Muslim refugees in relief camps, which was of course an extremely serious human crisis. But the panic in Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai and elsewhere was induced by hugely exaggerated reports and pictures faking anti-Muslim atrocities that had never in Assam. One of the photographs on the net was for example of a mass grave in Bhutan after an earthquake there, and had nothing at all to do with India’s Northeast. These fakes were carried and spread by mobile phone text messages and other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which inevitably led to a government crackdown, temporarily banning bulk text messages, closing about 250 allegedly offending web pages, and claiming that many of the false messages originated in Pakistan (which Pakistan has rejected). There are many lessons to be learned from these events, not least the way that social media can be used quickly to stir up trouble in international as well as local conflicts. This is clearly a controversial area because there is, quite correctly, concern that governments should not use controls on websites and other social media vehicles such as Twitter and Google to block items that they find politically objectionable. On the other hand, there is a case for taking action for internal and external security reasons. That is a fine line which will be endlessly debated. There are also lessons about how increased labour mobility means that communities need to absorb newcomers, as well as about older problems such as the treatment of both ethnic and religious minorities and migrants from neighbouring countries. But perhaps the biggest lesson for India is that the seven Northeastern states—often known as the Seven Sisters—can no longer be treated Indira Gandhi-style as a distant delayable problem. Ever since independence in 1947, the Indian government has regarded armed insurgencies and other uprisings and illegal immigration issues in states such as Assam, Nagaland and Manipur as events that have virtually no impact on the rest of India, located as they are far away on the other side of Bangladesh. That is rather similar to the way that the growing threat from Naxalite (Maoist) rebels in central and eastern India used to be regarded as a distant irritant that did not need Delhi’s urgent attention – something that has been corrected in the last two or there years. This is yet another example of how India can no longer survive as it has in the past by simply turning muddle and adversity into some form of (often inadequate) success, assuming that everything will eventually function adequately. The pace of events and economic development—and now of communications—means that issues such as the Northeast can (to use an English idiom) no longer be swept under the carpet, as they have been for decades. The escalation of the various forms of social media—and economic integration— should indeed help to bind the country together, with the north-east being seen as part of India’s mainstream. But such developments can also split India apart, with the people like those from the Northeast feeling so isolated and vulnerable in southern Indian cities that they flee home. So the Northeast has indeed come to Delhi, in a political sense. It has also come as a social and economic phenomena with a vast influx of mostly young, energetic and friendly people who have come to the capital and the southern cities for work, or as students. “The staff come from the Northeast,” is a remark frequently heard about a restaurant. This is not said in a derogatory way, but as a slightly dismissive description of a people who, looking more Far East than most Indians, are indeed regarded as internal migrants from a distant part of the country and not as part of the mainstream, even though they have become an important part of these cities’ economies. Yet when Mary Kom from Manipur won a boxing bronze medal in the Olympic Games, India celebrated with a fervour that could not have been greater if she had come from Mumbai or Delhi. Next February, it will be 30 years since Indira Gandhi said in the FT interview that she was waiting with no plan. Various steps have of course been taken since then,but the Northeast has never been the focus of government attention that it needs to be, and the basic problems clearly remain. But the world is now different, as we have seen in the past few weeks, so surely the waiting game is over.
Photographer Nemai Ghosh had three trunks-full of film negatives chronicling Bengal and Hindi film industries. And there he was, ready to dump it all into the GangesMy journey as a photographer began serendipitously. Often things in life which give us much joy begin such. A friend, Gopal Ghosh, owed me `240. He repaid the money in kind and I became a photographer. However, I should tell that story later. First a bit about the extended family I grew up in. My family was not an artistically-inclined one. But art was a good word for us—so much so that as a struggling photographer I would often seek help from them to tide things over in tough times. For them the art world was so sacred and required such talent and dedication that my intention of becoming a novelist was dismissed by a brotherin- law in seconds. I had shown him a draft of a novel which I had written and was mightily pleased with. Like a conscientious good Bengali gentleman, he poo-pooed the idea stating that unless I had read a thousand (or was it more?) novels I should not even dare to pen a line. There ended that chapter. I may have been fast to abandon my career as a “novelist”, but my relationship with theatre, actors and technicians—art directors, camera people and production assistants— has been a strong one. Theatre has been a passion since my youth. I eventually found myself in the Little Theatre Group run by Utpal Dutt, a pioneer of Bengal’s theatre scene. I received an opportunity of a lifetime to watch the legend at work, learnt concepts of light, darkness, shade, perspective, depth, tone and composition with him. Without realising, I learnt how to observe rather than just see. The stage also gave me my buddies. Those who would gather at my South Calcutta home for a game of cards. I did not play then and I still do not. But I enjoy the feeling of joie de vivre that games encourage—the laughter, arguments and discussions. It was during one such game (with me watching from the sidelines as usual) that I held my first camera. That particular day, friend Gopal Ghosh walked in triumphantly with a Canon8 QL17 (fixed lens). “Take a look,” he said holding it high for everyone. He knew that I had little idea of cameras and would show it to my friends who did. I showed Ghosh’s camera—found by his mother-in-law in her taxi and then obtained from the taxi driver for `10 as a bribe—to Joypratap Mitra, assistant cameraman to Satyajit Ray, and Bhanu Ghosh, production controller at the same team. Ghosh’s attempt to gauge his camera’s worth proved to be disastrous for him. “Keep the camera Nemai, if he lets you. You don’t have to buy film rolls, I will give you the cut pieces (rolls of films that remain in a reel after a scene has been shot),” said Mitra in a whisper. I started an argument with Ghosh. He wished to sell his camera for `600. I obtained it for `240, which I never paid, as it was a sum that Ghosh owed me. And the Canon8 QL17 was mine. One of my theatre colleagues was Robi Ghosh—a well-known Bengali comedian and constant fixture in Ray’s films, including Goopy Gyne, Bagha Byne, which was being shot in those days. Because Robi was involved in that particular film, theatre rehearsals were temporarily suspended. Armed with a newly-acquired camera and two five-feet rolls given to me by Joypratap Mitra, some of us theatre friends of Robi landed up at Rampurhat, where he was shooting. On that day, the team was rehearsing a smaller sequence in which water drops on a dhol creating a constant thud-thud; a simple shot, but so wellplanned by Ray. I was in such awe of this director’s sheer genius that I finished two rolls snapping his pictures. The technical know-how came from Joypratap Mitra and the angle was based on pure instinct and on what stage had taught me. In those days, I used to frequent a hub called Studio Renaissance run by BK Sanyal, one of pioneers who began the Renaissance Camera Group in Calcutta which later became the Photographic Association of Bengal. His studio was more like an intellectual central frequented by Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Ali Akbar and Ravi Shankar, to name a few. Sanyal was fond of me. With trepidation I asked the expert to develop my films. They are of Satyajit Ray, I proudly declared. He didn’t require prompting and disappeared into the dark room to come back after a few minutes to punch my arm and plant a kiss on my forehead. Carry on, he told me–it was like a blessing coming from the 65-year-old photographer. He was the one who gave me the idea to make contact sheets. And I made them on a lark—just to show the world that I had taken pictures of Manik-da, as Satyajit Ray was known. Life went on for a bit, till another card game brought Bankshicharan Bandopadhyay (a senior photographer and cameraman in Ray’s team) to my house. He was the one who informed me that Ray was shooting again. “Why don’t you join us? And bring the sheets along,” he said. I was more than happy to oblige. This time I had an audience with the master— during one of the breaks, Bandopadhyay called Ray over and asked him to look through the sheets. Though he hardly said anything—from that day onwards I had found a place in Ray’s sets. I never came on the sets as a documentarist, but I became one. I entered into a relationship of personal trust with the legend, which allowed me the freedom of space and free access to his private and public lives. I had complete access to his home. I could walk into his house at 6am when I knew he would be the one up and about, sipping his tea and reading his newspaper. Or go again at 11.30pm or 12.00pm when he would work under that solitary lamp in the studio. An attentive man to the core he would ask “How would you go home?”. Every time I would let him know that I lived close by. One night around 9.00pm, one of Manik-da’s camera assistants informed me that I was going for a shoot in Sikkim. Usually, Manik-da lived on his own, away from the crew on his film sets. As a director he was far more disciplined and had few vices, thus he preferred to be on his and study in the simulated studio sets, on location, with his close collaborators, his actors and technicians, or in any crowd. Through him my access to the Bengal film industry was firmly established—he was my Press Card. People took me far more seriously because Manik-da gave me access. It is true that I could not make a headway into the Hindi film industry though I have been a part of a lot of lives there. I became close to Jaya Bachchan, who was a Kali devotee. I visited her when Amitabh Bachchan had the major accident during Coolie with the prasad from Calcutta’s Kalighat Temple. I have been able to be there with the stars and actors because I have been emotionally invested in their lives, their stories and because I was simply interested in them. Needless to add that after Ray died, for two years I barely picked up the camera. I lost interest in it, till I made a journey to the Kutch region. It was a ordinary holiday with such extraordinary beauty that the camera beckoned once more.
Is it not an easy question to answer? If not a photographer I would have become a theatre actor. I really loved the stage.
Last amended in 1986, the IPTA (as it stands) does not directly penalise sex workers. It punishes soliciting, living off earnings of prostitution, and procuring, detaining of women and minors, brothel keeping, abetment to brothel keeping, renting premises for the purposes of prostitution, and conducting activity in the vicinity of public places remained. Clients transgress the law only if the sex worker is under the age of 16 years or if the act takes place within 183 metres of a public place or a ‘notified area’ declared to be prostitution-free by the government. In 2009, the Supreme Court came to a conclusion that the country was better off to legalise prostitution. Despite fierce criticism by abolitionists, people proposed that decriminalisation of prostitution might be a better fit for the India’s case of sex industry. Advocates for both decriminalisation and legalisation of prostitution are basing their arguments on the examples of other developed countries especially New Zealand, which is frequently used as an example of a country that has ‘successfully’ decriminalised. Though legalisation and decriminalisation are used interchangeably, they do not mean the same. To legalise something is to authorise it. When prostitution is legalised in a country, sex workers are recognised as professionals. Therefore, they have to register or get licenced as professionals, which allows a heavy intervention of government authorities over the industry. In Germany and Australia where prostitution is legalised, sex workers are required to submit fingerprints, photographs and personal information to the police station. To decriminalise, on the other hand, is to eliminate criminal penalties for or remove legal restrictions against. Advocates for decriminalisation of prostitution argue that the system allows the prostitutes to exercise their choice with voluntary consent to the customers. Advocates for decriminalisation of prostitution apply the same criteria to private consenting adult sex, to the principle of regulating sex industry. Therefore, they argue that prostitution should not be prohibited if it was performed in a privacy of one’s home or hotel and if the money is freely exchanged with consent. Advocates also argue that decriminalisation will encourage sex workers to seek help from police since prostitution will no longer be illegal. They also assert that decriminalisation will reduce crimes against women and men who are involved in the trade. DW talks to Indrani Sinha of Sanlaap (an anti-trafficking and anti-decriminalisation NGO) and Dr S. Jana of Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (prodecriminalisation) for a closer look.
INDRANI SINHA// The debate of decriminalisation in India has a history. Sanlaap’s fight has been against trafficking of minors, a common occurrence in this trade. When we began looking at the matter closely, Sanlaap was with organisations demanding decriminalisation of prostitution. At that point of time it seemed like a logical, legitimate way out of the conundrum. However, as we gathered more data, we realised that decriminalisation could possibly not be an answer. The demand of decriminalisation is that there would be no police raid, that women involved in the sex industry could not be arrested. However, one needs to remember a woman’s role in this industry. She is both the victim and the perpetrator—this business runs keeping women at the forefront. The women are often brothel managers and traffickers, because they win people’s trust because they are naturally trusted. If we say that a woman in prostitution cannot be arrested (in case the industry is decriminalised) then the business will be carried out by putting women as puppet heads while strings will be pulled by men, remaining invisible but wielding all the power, control and money. Participants (pimps, women in prostitution) have been asking for deriminalisation because it will allow some of them to hang on to the power that they have over the real victims—the trafficked minors. If a state keeps its brothels intact, then authorities are also authorising the demand for sex. When we say this, we are not commenting on sexual preferences or people’s sexual appetites—what is important to us, as an organisation and as part of the civil society, is to point out that there is no exchange of money between consenting adults to establish relationships—whether sexual or emotional. Sex work is not real work—it is essentially an exploitative relationship where one party is never free. As a society we are yet to move to a world where we consider everyone as equal. Unless we create such a radical society, talking of prostitutes as sex ‘workers’ will be futile. Because mainstream society will never accept women in prostitution as free individuals, entitled to rights. To pretend that we will be able to alleviate them by giving “rights” is just putting more power into the hands that determine their fates (pimps, brothel owners and middlemen who may also be women). We believe that brothels should be closed. If there are brothels then there would be people “running them”. If these people exist, then so does trafficking. There are few women in prostitution—a majority of women in prostitution are underage girls (minors) in clandestine prostitution. The government is accountable for the safety of all these women and minors. The proponents assume that once decriminalised, prostitutes will be willing to come forward to the police station for help in case of violence or abuse. However, the New Zealand case blatantly disproves their assumption. Further, in case of India, many prostitutes are illiterate and come from the low castes. Whether or not prostitution becomes decriminalised, their understanding of their legal rights as well as their view of themselves will not be affected by it. Their illiteracy already prevents them from understanding their constitutional rights, and their self-image is deeply controlled by the attitude of our culture towards people in the low castes, classes and in profession to which they belong. If decriminalisation affects prostitution, it will only add certain (more complicated) problems that New Zealand is experiencing because of decriminalisation.
DR S. JANA// Sex work is criminalised in our country through an existing Act called IPTA—though the Act does not directly criminalise sex work, activities pertaining to it, which includes soliciting, living on the earnings of a sex worker or renting out premises for sex work, can be construed as criminal acts (only a sex worker running her business on her own property is seen as running a legal operation). Women, men or transgenders who come to cities in search of (unskilled) work cannot afford to buy property. A lot of these migrant workers— whether they enter a profession willingly or not—live with landlords who do not give rent receipts that signify them as a legitimate boarders; making the stay unofficial. The situation becomes problematic because women, men or transgenders who are in this profession are left at the mercy of landlords. The second problem arises from the second clause, which makes it illegal for adults to live off the money received from prostitution. This clause affects the children when they turn 18 and are held responsible for living off their parents’ ‘illegal occupation’. Most of them cannot pursue higher education or seek medical help due to this clause. A lot of sex workers not only support their children, they are often responsible for the well-being of their families (parents, inlaws or spouses), who are held as ‘criminals’ in the eyes of the law. Soliciting is also a criminal offence. Interestingly, the act does not define the clauses under which an act can be defined as soliciting. The interpretation is left to the discretion of police, who end up exploiting and dehumanising sex workers even more. Historically red-light areas are established on the city fringes. As cities grow, red-light areas came closer to the residential, ‘decent’ areas. As need for real estate also grows, developers and real estate agents become other agents who harass sex workers. Often tenants are evicted from places they have called home for years. No one acknowledges sex workers as citizens. That they are a part of the 92 per cent of the unorganised labour forces in this country. That their problems are also those affecting the daily-wage labourers and domestic helps. They are equally, if not more, vulnerable because of the work that they do. The law that has been put in place to make their lives simpler, often victimises them further. That is why as an organisation we have advocated for the decriminalisation of sex work. What authorities need to decide is whether they aim to help a sex worker lead an independent life (and assist them to get out of his or her situation) or penalise him / her further. To equate sex work with criminal act is taking things too far. I am aware that a lot of people believe that decriminalisation leads to greater trafficking of minors. I disagree. I believe that making the ‘trade’ more systemic is going to have the opposite effect. If you go through evidences, trafficking happens in all unorganised sectors (agriculture and domestic help sectors). One never sees people getting trafficked to be made into IT workers. It is only the unskilled labourers who are forcibly migrated—because there is little system in the sectors. If a trade is regulated, for employers it is never lucrative nor profitable to recruit underage people. If you make it transparent then the possibility of recruting minors will automatically come down. If there is a brothel and people know where it is exists, then it would be easier for authorities to regulate trafficking of minors, carry out AIDS prevention programmes or regulate the health of sex workers. Sex workers by virtue of their low socio-economic and caste backgrounds, and because of the general prestige of women in this country; are incapable of exerting their agencies. Unless they are put in a place where they can collectivise, seek empowerment and exert their collective bargaining power, their lives will never improve and nor will their children escape their parents’ fate.
The long hand of international justiceTHERE can be no question that if President Bashar al-Assad of Syria falls, the International Criminal Court will want to put him on trial for war crimes. The long arm of international law will reach him wherever he flees to. The ICC has an unblemished record in bringing to The Hague, the Court’s headquarters, the people they want. As the great heavyweight boxer, Joe Louis, once said, “You can run but you can not hide”. This week a new term begins for the justices. In the last couple of years there has been the capture of the alleged war criminals, Ratko Mladic of Serbia, Bernard Munyagishari of Rwanda, Charles Taylor of Liberia and the decision by the UN Security Council to ask the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to send to trial the late Muammar Gadhafi. There was also the killing of Osama bin Laden who, if he had been captured instead, would have been tried as a war criminal. Today will resume the trial of Congolese politician and warlord, Jean-Pierre Bemba Not since the days of the Nuremberg trials of the leading Nazis has the public’s interest been so aroused on how to punish the “bad guys” (there are no “bad women!). The change of mood was aptly summed up by the former East Timorese resistance leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Jose Ramos-Horta, who said: “In this day and age you cannot kill tens of thousands of people, destroy a whole country and then just get fired.” International law, so used to run the common critique, is imprecise, often unenforceable and irrelevant. In 1987 the political scientists Stephen Haggard and Beth Simmons expressed the then prevailing view in academia that the study of international law was “virtually moribund”. Sixteen years later, in the wake of the Pinochet affair and with the trial of former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, these widely held notions underwent a marked sea-change. The media began to treat war crimes as serious issues for the first time since the trial of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Doubters, not least the US government, have come round to seeing that an ICC arrest and prosecution is a sharp weapon in the quest for furthering democracy, limiting war and furthering the pursuit of human rights. President George W. Bush during his last couple of years in office moved from his total hostility to the Court to quiet cooperation. Under Barack Obama the US has become a public enthusiast, working successfully in the UN Security Council to persuade it to ask the ICC to prosecute Gadhafi. If Obama wins a second term there is a good chance that the US will formally join the ICC. Alas, India doesn’t even debate membership. It is a non-issue for this democracy which thankfully doesn’t have a record of war crimes. I recall writing a column in 1992 arguing for an international criminal court to deal with war crimes. I received but one letter—from a law professor at the University of California who said he had had the same idea and had written about it in academic journals but no one in government was responsive and the idea was dead in the water. Then the war in ex-Yugoslavia shook up everyone’s complacency. Quite quickly a war crimes court for ex-Yugoslavia was established. This was the precursor for the subsequent International Criminal Court. It is a mark of how things can change once human rights activists seize a cause. The notion of universal jurisdiction has been brought out of the cupboard. Once confined to old issues such as piracy, the slave trade and attacks on airplanes it has suddenly blossomed into a tool that enables the prosecution of war crimes at the ICC and on a country’s own territory. President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, understanding the significance of this, argued in an article in “Foreign Affairs” that carried to its logical conclusion it will turn traditional notions of statecraft and the making of foreign policy on their head. So what about Kissinger himself? Many consider him a war criminal. At various times French and Chilean magistrates have announced they want to interview him. Christopher Hitchens wrote a well documented book on Kissinger’s alleged war crimes in Vietnam and Chile. During the war he and Nixon authorised attacks in Vietnam that were unnecessarily brutal- using napalm against hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children in the villages. They also authorised in secret the massive bombing of neutral, adjacent, Cambodia, which totally destabilized a thriving society. This is surely worse than what Assad is doing or what Mladic and the Congolese warlords have done. Unfortunately the Court cannot deal with cases that took place before it was created. Meanwhile, the Court’s reach and confidence is growing. At some point would be- war criminals will surely get the message there is no impunity for them if they engage in war crimes. The penny hasn’t dropped yet but I’m convinced before long it will.
Authorities may not plan enough for the country’s aged, but NGOs like HelpAge India doWhile we are busy patting our backs over India’s demographic dividend, we forget there are 90 million aged people living here currently and that today’s youth will be tomorrow’s senior citizens; older and wiser. Though our Centre seems oblivious to data that points towards our country’s impending state of being a more matured nation one day, there is one organisation that has been working since 1978 giving a voice to the seemingly invisible senior citizens of this country—HelpAge India. It was started by a senior IAS officer Samson Daniel. Post-retirement Daniel wished to start a home for the aged on a plot he owned near Chhattarpur (NCR). Though he had the land, he did not have the cash for construction. Thereby, he did what any smart person would—pestered friends, family and nodding acquaintances; anyone willing to lend an ear and money to the cause. His quest led him to an English gentleman working for a British organisation called Help the Aged. The gentleman gave Daniel a gift far more useful than capital—he offered him a chance to travel to Britain and learn the art of raising funds in a systematic manner. Upon returning, Daniel, who was an organised man to begin with, managed to raise enough money to allow him to construct an old-age home and left some extra. He decided to put that extra bit into building a welfare organisation for the aged called HelpAge India; inspired by the NGO, Help the Aged, which he had the fortune of observing closely. In 1986, a year after its Founder had passed away, HelpAge made its foray into Sri Lanka with MM Sabarwal (former Chairperson of Dunlop and Bata) at its helm. And HelpAge International began. Today, HelpAge especially focuses on advocacy and rights of senior citizens. Of all NGOs working for the aged in India, HelpAge has especially concentrated upon policy research. Their R&D department is responsible for conducting surveys on what the website calls ‘ageing issues’. It takes the survey findings to concerned national and international forums comprising policy-makers, academicians, senior citizens and NGOs working on age care. HelpAge is also responsible for creating awareness among stakeholders and citizens through seminars, workshops and booklets. Some of their publications include Senior Citizens Guide based on information on concessions, privileges and benefits given to older people by governments and private organisations. The NGO also publishes a Directory of Old Age Homes. Presently, HelpAge’s Chief Executive Mathew Cherian represents his NGO on various platforms such as the National Planning Commission, sharing data dug by HelpAge and participating in formal and informal discussions on Five Year Plan Documents and Union Ministry recommendations on the Plan document to the National Planning Commission. HelpAge is also a member of the National Council of Older Persons. After he was made responsible for the organisation, Sabarwal (a corporate manager and a great one at that) assimilated functions of HelpAge even further. Being a corporate man, he understood the significance of having the right people on the team. He organised the Trust, Board and day-to-day functions even further, bringing HelpAge closer to its present avatar. Currently, the NGO works in 23 state capitals. It has a presence in 8,000 villages where it runs 75 mobile health centres and 86 physiotherapy clinics. Around 22 state capitals have helplines run by HelpAge India where senior citizens can call and seek help whenever they are lonely, abused or need medical help. Talking to the DW team, Cherian points out that increasingly HelpAge’s helplines have been receiving calls related to cases of abuse meted out to senior citizens by their children. “The world is getting more and more impatient. Previously, people had the decency to wait for their turn—to become the so-called heads of families or to gain personal wealth. In this individualistic world, children want the house or the property as soon as possible. They see parents as a hindrance to personal profit. Perhaps that is why there are so many cases where people have resorted to violence against their parents to claim what is rightfully theirs and would be theirs anyway,” says Cherian with a touch of bitterness in his voice. This former Chairperson of Oxfam India is now the executive personnel presiding over the whole of the Indian operation. To a certain degree, he faults the Indian education system which disallows the study of moral sciences in institutions. His, and his teams’, efforts are now concentrated around making young people aware of the implications of violence meted out to the senior-most members of a family. “The Centre seems to have a problem with the study of moral science as they see it as an advocacy of religious behaviour. HelpAge was discouraged from asking the NCERT to include chapters on empathetic behavior taking examples from the Bible, Quran or the Vedas in the school curricula. However, we have pushed authorities to include lessons on ethical behavior in their school curricula. Finally, what HelpAge is seeking is fundamental; have a little decency to treat your elders with kindness and care, as much care as you would expect when you grow old. And we expect the authorities to take responsibility for the senior citizens of the country,” he explains. In India, where politicians, policy makers and planners are all above the average age of 60, it comes as a surprise that senior citizens’ rights are not prioritised. NGOs such as HelpAge are not giving up yet in their fight to a free world—free from domestic abuse and violence.
A funny quick read from a first time authorTHE BOOK POSITIVELY squeaks with enthusiasm for Alma Mater, the million-dollar company that (now an author) Varun Agarwal co-founded with his buddy Rohn ‘Mal’ Malhotra (Rohn, we are told, believes in numerology seriously enough to drop an ‘a’ from his name). At the end of the day, How I... is more about Alma Mater than it is about Agarwal. It is an honest book, has a really long title and is a breezy read (should not take you more than three hours). Because Agarwal plays it safe and dismisses his own capacity as a writer (“You see, there IS no inner Hemingway in me!”) right at the beginning, he robs his reader of the power to judge his style. Which is a pity— because the style or the sheer lack of it is refreshing. Reading How I... is like reading a diary. Agarwal is a very young man (guy) and writes like one—inconsistently. He comes across as thoughtful, brash, hyperactive, lazy, needy and independent, all at the same time. For the ‘older readers’ flipping through the pages of How I... could be exasperating, especially the presence of different fonts on every page plus the italicisation. The disparate fonts highlight voices—spoken by Agarwal, or other people or by the little green men in his head, and random comments to ease your way through the eating and drinking scene of Bengaluru (the writer loves a bit of grub and booze). Technically footnotes should appear at a page’s end. Here, they are peppered all over. Just because. If there is a milder literary equivalent of trolling, this book could be it. His own story is passionately told by the writer. We could merit him as a better storyteller than he is a writer. Of all the chapters, Down Memory Lane was quite the adult one where he inadvertently provides an insight into his personality. Otherwise, Agarwal reminds one of the smart, privileged twenty-somethings you see on Delhi roads. Obviously Agarwal is that guy. But he is also that guy who fought fate, his mother, her best friend and all odds to start a million-dollar company. Alcohol is not called liquid courage for nothing, and everyone dreams big in a bar. Agarwal’s that guy who actually did something about his dream, despite a hangover. It is this point that makes How I... stand out. It is inspirational and speaks the language of the youth. Before you dismiss it for its inconsistent editing, language and space troubles, read its core point of how a boy braves parental and societal pressures to think out-of-the-box.
A fantasy of epic proportions and quite a page-turnerIT IS SAID that as a child JRR Tolkien missed reading an epic—say something similar to a Mahabharata, Ramayana or even a Beowulf—which was exclusively ‘English’. That lacuna, it is said, led to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. What began as a children’s project, ended up being just the sort of saga which Tolkien had missed while growing up. A reason why Lord of the Rings becomes significant while looking at Krishna Udayasankar’s Govinda, is because Udayasankar applies a similar formula, like Tolkien, to weave her magical tale. Tolkien, the master of his craft, constructed a counter-mythology from pagan elements, already present in local myths and lores, into an universal tale immersed in ever-lasting themes such as conflict between good and evil, heroic quests, marvelous journeys, abduction, rescue and romance. Udayasankar takes the Indian fascination for magic, incarnation, renunciation, friendship, and of course, romance, to the next level. She pulls a desi trick— takes the Mahabharata (already a rich tale) and makes it a bit more human, and thus quite believable. Govinda, as Udayasankar has promised her readers, is the Book One of the Chronicle Series, which may end up being a five-book-long saga. The writer has her next two books all planned in which we hope she will continue to carry her magical tone. Now, for a bit of truth. Due to time constraints, the book lies on my bed-side table with end pages untouched. All right, I lied. I have no bed side table. I have no way of figuring out what kind of a cliff-hanger Udayasankar leaves her readers with. Even if I did, I could not write about it. However, what I can write about are the moments—and the book has quite a few—in which Udayasankar catches us by surprise. For one, she grabs her readers’ attention when she introduces Panchali (Draupadi). As Udayasankar said during an interview, “Panchali is every woman. She is beautiful and accomplished, but she is ordinary in the sense that she faces her fair share of highs and lows. And she does not always succeed. But that is not due to the lack of trying.” Udayasankar’s Panchali (she is a central character in the plot) is believable. An archer, a rider and a woman with a refined mind, she is as different from Draupadi, as Govinda is from Lord Krishna. Other characters— Shikhandin (who the author admits she enjoyed writing a bit more than the others)—gain far more prominence in Govinda, than he had in the Mahabharata. For those who do not have a basic idea of the original epic (beyond the tele-serial, Amar Chitra Katha and abridged versions i.e.), Govinda may appear confusing. The characters are known by their lesserknown avatars—Krishna as Govind Shaurya, Kunti as Pritha, Draupadi as Panchali, Yudhistir as Dharma. Udayasankar has done an impressive amount of research to build her world, a project she began in 2008, while she ‘had the idea of the book ever since she can remember’. The twist in this brilliant tale comes from the concept of the firewrights. In her interview Udayasankar called the fire-wrights ‘experts’ with special powers—they lend that magical oomph to an otherwise familiar story. At the core of this saga is the power struggle between mystical firstborn dynasty of scholar-sages—descendants of Vasishta Varuni— protectors of the Divine Order on earth and the Angirasa Family of Firewrights (weapon-makers) who has defied them. In the aftermath of the centuries-long conflict between these two orders, the empire of Aryavarta lies, a shadow of its former glorious self. The book begins with the death of the last secret keeper of the firewrights which leads to a series of events. And in the midst of it is Govinda Shauri (Lord Krishna—less divine and seeming more manly), cowherd-turned-prince, an army commander in Dwaraka, who uses his political canny to counter deception and treachery. If you do crave for a bit of murder, romance and political manipulation Govinda (as the jacket cover reads) is indeed your tale. At the end, a good mythical-fantasy saga is about a bit of fun. Well, Udaysankar’s Govinda is a lot of it.