Social media crises need deft handling

It’s a cakewalk, really. You know this thing called social media; setting up your social team, managing your company presence on a bunch of social networks, it’s all pretty easy…that is, it’s easy compared to handling a social media crisis in today’s hyper-connected, real-time world. Manning the social media fort when a crisis breaks is truly the test of your organization’s social media prowess, the kind of stuff that separates the wheat from the chaff. At these times, there is no way your brand can run and hide, disconnect your computers and phones and pretend that the problem doesn’t exist – nothing that can prevent your customers, your prospects and your competition (shudder!) from taking to the social media streets and expressing their opinion.

Consider the case of Volkswagen India. A couple of years back, Volkswagen India ran a innovative vibrating print ad for one of its newly launched vehicles, but when the ad drew comparisons to certain adult products, Volkswagen responded with a hugely sexist and derogatory tweet about how women did not understand real driving experiences. As you can imagine, the dam broke and outrage began to flow on social channels. The company’s response while this saga played out? Silence. Then there was the case of Samsung being charged with abandoning independent Indian bloggers that the company had invited to a foreign country because they refused to turn into brand promoters at the firm’s global technology event, but when the story broke on several international news outlets and on Twitter, Samsung took well over the better part of the day to issue… a press release – completely ignoring the maelstrom of negativity that brewed around its brand online for the next couple of days. And who can forget Adobe, who in the face of one of the biggest password database hacks of recent times, chose not to communicate about this issue on their social channels and web sites altogether! For the users who were left wondering if they were impacted by the password breach, their silence was… deafening.

Contrast this with Buffer, the social media scheduling site, which was recently severely hacked. As soon as the firm realized the nature of the issue, the social team swung into action, reaching out to customers acknowledging that they’d messed up, and explaining what they were doing to fix the problem–and this was before most customers were even aware there had been an attack! Over the following 24 hours, a dedicated page on their home page was updated by the hour, and the social channels were used to broadcast progress updates till the matter was resolved.

Notice the difference in how each of these firms handled a crisis on their social platforms? While there is no one silver bullet for all sorts of social media crises, there are a bunch of best practices widely considered to prepare you for the worst. 1. Have a Plan: I cannot overstate this, but your social media activities must be tied to a plan, and part of that plan is to have a clear list of what steps need to be taken should a crisis come up. Your plan should include a link to your Terms of Service, a list of who within the company needs to be notified and what steps should be taken to recover initial control of the situation. Think of it as a fire drill - the same way most companies have disaster planning procedures for offline crises, similar processes must be in place for social media.

2. Pay Attention: The most important thing your brand needs to do is pay attention and listen to the conversation. Going into a crisis blind is not recommended, and you should actively use Google alerts, RSS feeds, Radian6 and HootSuite or other listening software to listen to conversations inside and outside of your brand. These tools will be particularly handy to identify the issue, how it started, who the fan or customer impacted is, and why others are rallying behind the issue – understanding these key elements is critical to shaping a considered and compassionate brand response.

3. Own the Mistake…quickly: In today’s fast-paced digital conversation, speed matters. Your initial response should let the public know that you are acknowledging the issue since ignoring it only makes matters worse. Being as transparent as possible – and as quickly as possible – is key. Don’t let matters fester.

4. Frequent, transparent updates: In the midst of the crisis such as Buffer’s, it’s easy to lose sight of communicating status to your customers in an effort to do what it takes to fix the issue. Consider this - being in the dark about a situation like this is perhaps the most frustrating part for customers, and your timely updates will go a long way in eliminating that problem. And while removing posts or claiming your were hacked may seem the easy thing to do, it’ll just come across as what it is – a cover up.

5. Set The Right Expectations: If you’re a 4-man shop or you just don’t have the bandwidth to respond to the issue in real time, set expectations upfront on the timing within which people should expect your response - be it 12, 24 or 48 hours. Be specific, ensure that the expectation is communicated…and stick to it!

6. Always Keep your Cool: Never get into a public argument with users by posting something negative or argumentative to their comment – doing so will undeniably make matters worse. Take a deep breath and consider how you would react if you were on the other side.

7. Build a dedicated crisis page: Develop an area on your website or blog that contains all the information about the crisis and what is being done about it. Use this when responding to followers and fans, by directing them to that dedicated page to help streamline communication and maintain a consistent message to the consumers.

8. Be Prepared to Create: Depending on the nature of the crisis, it may take a number of content formats – a video, a blog post, a photo gallery – to make a convincing case to your followers. If you’re planning to go through your external web design firm to make this happen, you’re dead in the water. Ask yourself – can you get a video from your CEO on YouTube within 3-6 hours, anytime of the day or night? If the answer’s no, some video recording training and a heavy dose of preparedness is the order of the day.

Rajnish Sharma takes a walk down the literary path with Anita Nair, as she knits a creative web of words

For someone who started out as a closet writer, Anita Nair has penned a splendid destiny for herself under the sun with her talent out there for all to see (rather read) and marvel at. She admits, however, that she didn’t see herself as a writer till very late, though as a child she was fascinated by words and the thought of spinning stories with words.

Anita credits her creativity to her ‘almost perfect’ childhood. “My family consisted of my parents, brother and dog and we were closely knit. All of us read a great deal (except, of course, the dog!) but I read books with a hunger that was almost frenzied…” and contrary to what most people seem to think, Anita clarifies that she didn’t grow up in Kerala. She only spent her summer vacations there in her grandmother’s house. “I was a very observant child and gathered the sense of darkness that prevailed beneath the beauty of the old and large house my grandmother lived in.”

Anita attributes her passion for stories to her parents. She reminisces, “My mother fed me stories so I would eat. And my father was a brilliant raconteur whose tales alternated between vintage magic realism and anecdotes that sparkled with wit, mostly drawn from his working life. They also had a great eye for the absurd and together all of this exercised a great influence on my imagination.”

When and how did her literary journey really begin? Looking back, the prolific writer says that her first job as a journalist taught her the importance of observing and paying attention to even the smallest detail. Secondly, factual research was the first step to investigative writing. Finally, she had to try and shun the banal and seek interesting angles to stories. “What for me was the crucial lesson was that human interest stories could be found just about anywhere. All you need is to know how to look for it…”

However, it was while working at an advertising agency that Anita actually decided to become a full time writer. It so happened that one day she wrote a short story and left it on her desk. A friend who read it appreciated the story and suggested approaching an editor at the Times of India. A year later, the editor advised her to consider publishing her short storiesand with that, her books started appearing on the stands.

“My foray into creative writing began with short stories, and slowly I moved on to writing novels. I think writing was initially an interest for me, but later it became a serious compulsion.” Anita adds that her stint in advertising helped her craft her writing to the extent that she learnt to edit the flab out. “Advertising is a great apprenticeship for a writer.”

But all this wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Balancing a full time career, a baby and home was by no means a cakewalk, “so I had to snatch time to be able to work on my first book. Also, as I hadn’t even thought of what I was going to do with my stories once they were written, there was no pressure to write in any particular way. Yet, I felt compelled to keep at it day after day. And importantly, as I was a closet writer, I had no way of recognition to evaluate a writer’s merit and sometimes it isn’t as if the writer is even someone whose work is commendable. This shallow device for literary recognition used to distress me; however, now it merely amuses me to see how everything anchors on the 15 minutes of fame.”

Speaking for herself, Anita says with disarming candour that the literary establishment in India hasn’t treated her work with the seriousness that the literary establishment in Europe treats her work with. But “my readers have never failed me.”

So how does a novel take shape in her mind? Anita has an interesting answer to that. “A novel is born from an idea or a thought that tends to disturb the calm of my mind. Very often it is probably because I don’t understand it enough. And so the novel that derives from this commotion happening in my mind becomes my own exploration of that idea and trying to understand it better.”

Elaborating further, Anita says, “What happens is that every day there are several times when I chance upon a word, idea, picture, scene or even thought and think – here’s a story. But what ultimately gets written is an idea that is so powerful that it refuses to dislodge itself no matter what happens. For me, what is supreme is a good story and character driven narratives... naturally, this is what motivates me to write the kind of books I do...

What about the theme of her books, is there a favourite one? “Though I hate to repeat myself in terms of theme, there is one recurrent theme that is buried deep within the warp and weft of the narrative. Namely that in the relationship between individual and society, I have always stood up for individual happiness rather than societal acceptance. That, if there arises a conflict between individual happiness versus social acceptance, individuals ought to be strong enough to put their own beliefs first.” She adds, “My biggest source of inspiration has always been life. Human beings must be the most fascinating creatures on earth. Everything we do, we say, how we live, whom we love and hate, why we go to war, what instigates violence, what inspires kindness - everything is a source of inspiration for me.”

“Once I think of a story line or when an outline sets in my mind, I sit through the book; I progress from scene to scene. When I am done, I read through and re-work. As I write, the plot or the main theme of the story progresses. The crux of the story is always there in my mind, but the story is evolved. The first draft is always by hand and then I key it in. Then, of course, my publisher reads it.”

Well, does this popular writer have any favourite authors herself? “I am a voracious reader, my taste in reading varies from the highbrow to the pedantic, so there isn’t a favourite book, the list is long and uneven but to give you a quick run through: John Updike, Tom Wolfe, E. Annie Proulx, Alan Holinghurst, Harold Robbins, Kundera, Kalidasa, Thomas Harris, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Mukundan... generally what draws me to a book is the story telling rather than how lyrical the telling is. If a writer marries both, then I am his or her slave for the rest of my reading life. However, science fiction and fantasy are not my cup of tea.”

What have been the influences on her work? Says Anita, “My most seminal influence has been Jorge Amado, the Brazilian writer and perhaps the earlier novels of Llosa.”

How has the writer evolved with each book that she has written?

“Over the years what I have discovered is that with each book I feel the need to raise the bar and make sure that I don’t get stuck in a comfort zone of writing. Hence with each novel I have sought new territories to locate it within.” This also has made her work in different genres from poetry to literary essays to plays and now, even a screenplay.

On the trend of popular books being adapted into films in India these days, Anita says that while some work very well, the others are utter disasters. “I suppose that there is a combination of reasons. The average film audience is no longer willing to accept formulaic films and need to be enthused about what is going to be presented before them as a film.”

On the personal front, Anita says that her parents, brother, husband and son mean the world to her. In fact, says the doting mom, “I learnt from my son to trust people only judiciously and to be less naïve.” The multifaceted Anita also loves music, films, gardening and gastronomy.

As a parting shot, says Anita, “I look at my bedside table now and see how it groans under the weight of books. The pile of books on it could totter and collapse at any moment. Defying all laws of gravity, they stand, possibly by the sheer weight of their collective intellect, and perhaps my cussedness!”

The lure of these mountains....

That the best boarding schools in Bengal were in the mountains is a home-grown truism that has been in circulation for almost a 100 years now. The British only intended to set up a sanatorium in Darjeeling, an accessible resort like town where the Europeans, lashed by the tropical heat and plagued by its unfamiliar ailments, could escape to for a ‘change’. The missionaries would naturally follow soon after, and soon they would establish some of the best educational institutions in pre-independent India. In Bengal, it wasn’t Darjeeling alone, but Kurseong and also Kalimpong too, small hill stations with glorious views of Mount Kanchenjunga that became school towns.

Thirty years ago, I went to one such school myself, but only for a fortnight. The stern behaviour of the wardens and matrons was new to my eightyear- old life, the code of strictness a sky that followed me wherever I went. Long before snoopgate, those who studied in boarding schools were alert to the omniscient gaze of supervising and scolding eyes. A ‘senior’, that category which is part of the obedience maintenance mechanism that drives the boarding school disciplinary apparatus, told me, ‘Look at that mountain. That is the Kanchenjunga. It is watching you’. For years, from the foothills of the Himalayas, in Siliguri, where I lived, I would look at the mountain range with a subdued sense of anxiety, and even trepidation, if I was up to some mischief.

When I took up my first teaching job in Darjeeling, I began to partly understand what George Mallory might have meant when he said ‘Because it’s there’ of his impetus to climb Mount Everest. For when my colleagues and I tired of teaching and grading and perhaps also of each other, there was only one destination we wanted to visit–the mall, especially what is called the ‘back mall’ by locals, and from where we hoped we would see the Kanchenjunga. In those four years, the Kanchenjunga gradually changed from an authoritarian figure watching over my actions to someone more liberal, even liberatory, at times also an accomplice. It brought elasticity to our lives and allowed us to do things beyond the curriculum of middle-class living. I have to confess, almost like a naive romantic, that it made us new to ourselves.

Watching Satyajit Ray’s 1962 film Kanchenjunga after nearly two decades since I last watched it, it was of that disobedience that I was reminded. The film is quite extraordinary for its obedience to the unities of time, place and action: the action takes place near the mall in Darjeeling, and everything happens in the space of a day, actually half-a-day. A wealthy family from Calcutta is taking a holiday in Darjeeling. The patriarch, a man feted with a title by the British rulers before independence and now with a well-paid job in an important position in Calcutta, tells a fellow mate at the hotel that this is his 70th day in Darjeeling this time, but he hasn’t been fortunate in getting even one glimpse of the Kanchenjunga. That is how the film begins, and through the next 100-odd minutes we see him waiting for a sighting of the mountain range, his daughter placing a bet on that, as if that view would be a life changing one, a necessity before they return to their humdrum lives in a tropical city.

In this, they are like pilgrims. This secular tourism, this need for the Kanchenjunga to reveal itself to the visiting tourist at least once like a piece of epiphany, provides the scaffolding of Ray’s film.

Monisha, the youngest daughter, studying English Honours at Calcutta’s Presidency College, is being wooed by a well established Bengali man. Her father hopes that this would lead to marriage, and his endorsement of this possibility is now common knowledge in the family. Monisha goes for a walk with Mr Banerjee, but not before he admits to losing a bet about the Kanchenjunga making an appearance on the final day of their excursion. She refuses to accept the bar of chocolate, saying that there is still time–who knows, the Kanchenjunga might show up after all.

There are other characters, none without problems. The man whose share of problems seems to be the least is Monisha’s maternal uncle– a widower, he only wants to find a bird whose call he has heard. That will make the amateur ornithologist happy. There is another uncle in the film–he once gave private lessons to Monisha’s brother. Now he wants Monisha’s father, his former employer, to give Ashok, his unemployed nephew, a job. Monisha’s brother-inlaw discovers that his wife has been having an extramarital relationship. No one in the film is, therefore, quite ‘at home’.

We are aware of two forces working simultaneously–the Jane Austen-like push that would lead to the marriage between Monisha and Banerjee; the other is the pull of the Kanchenjunga, the mountain peak still invisible, becoming a kind of magnetic centre. By the time the film ends, many conversations and conclusions have been made: we realise the unsuitability of the materialist Banerjee as husband for the rather sensitive Monisha; we have also been witness to an awkward conversation about wealth and entitlement between the unemployed Ashok and Monisha; Monisha’s mother, silent throughout the film, sings a Tagore song at the sighting of the Kanchenjunga; Ashok has also, after helpfully fetching a red muffler for Monisha’s father, refused a job offer from him; and Monisha’s sister, after tearing the letters that her lover had written to her, returns to her marriage.

Ray structures all these incidents towards a seemingly final resolution that these isolated human events, together, might lead to the appearance of the Kanchenjunga. Yes, quite like a prayer. But in this case, the prayer is not so much a plea as rebellion. Monisha’s dominated mother decides to put in her feeble lot behind her daughter’s decision; Ashok later confesses to Monisha that he now regrets refusing the job offer, and that if it had been Calcutta, he would not have been able to take that decision. Ashok accepts that there is something about the mountains that abetted this private rebellion. Monisha’s sister is rebelling against her old self too, but it is Monisha, timid in her outward behaviour, who ‘rises’ like the Kanchenjunga, a fact that makes Mr Banerjee ‘lose his bet’.

What is it about the Kanchenjunga that makes this unexpected interface with rebellion and a leap towards a freedom of the self possible? Is it Kanchenjunga, then, that abets the people’s movement for the formation of the state of Gorkhaland?

It was a landmark judgement by the apex court in April 2014 granting transgenders recognition and identity in Indian society. They became the third sex and came under other backward castes as an economically backward class of society. A significant step no doubt, but is it sufficient?

Inder Salim//Before going into the political repercussions of the Supreme Court recognising the ‘third gender’ and the biological differences in rest of us, we might need to know one or two things about mutation. Briefly, a mutated entity is the result of the sum of ‘errors in the process of replication, or caused by the insertion or deletion of segments of DNA’. Although it is rare, but in nature, this is part and parcel of almost every life form on earth. Good or bad, we have no choice but to accept nature’s this moody randomness.

So, we know its scientific reasoning, but we are clueless about how a papaya suddenly looks like Ganesha, a form which is entirely of our mind’s generation; or, how two carrots give us the illusion of a naked woman’s torso. I believe that most constructs which inhibit our mind are artificial in nature and, therefore, deserve instant ‘deconstruction’. Wait, if we are too obsessed with the form of Ganesha or a woman, we are likely to find a resemblance of it in tree trunks, river stones, in gushing water or even in slow-moving clouds. Our ideas can infect not only the mutated products in nature but also others. Nothing wrong in it if one marks the difference and moves on; but, if our ways of looking at things around us begin to segregate and then discriminate, a political will is likely to germinate.

Before knowing how the subject around sexuality is deeply political, I must quote from a favourite modern text: ‘Sexuality is not innate. It is a product.’ Those who know how not to let their sexual drives be highjacked by the so-called natural drives will quickly connect with the purpose of this quote here. Our sexual drives are stimulated by our own ways of living, rather than what is gifted to us naturally. We are mostly attracted by something which is knowable and identifiable, which is normal, as long as this behaviour discourages any practice that ends in violence. In the name of ‘naturalness’, we cannot impose our sexual preferences on the other. That may be normal in animals, but certainly not among human beings. My intent here is to argue that we must, at least, know how to contest those notions in our social structures which routinely recycle particular identity formations in the garb of tradition or available mindset. We are never surprised that most of the differences that differentiate gender happen on the site called the woman’s body. She is always something or the other: a vidwha (widow), a lugai (wife), a kuwanri (virgin), a randi (proustite), a garabhwati (pregnant), etc. Is it surprising that most members of the third sex attempt to resemble the same onion called woman?

The third sex is, perhaps, like a no-man’s land between the territories of two countries. It is often perforated by wind, birds, trees, rain and by creative minds all over the world. Simultaneously, the third sex is neither a woman nor a man, and this is how we manage their presence in our society. But, we, both men and women, need to know how they present themselves to us while they remain what they remain: they either resemble a man or a woman on the street, not a dog, not a monkey, not a cow. They swim in the same river of garments in which we do; they devour the same processed food which satiates our hunger; and, they use similar toilets which we do. Where on earth they look less than any other human being?

Perhaps, we have not sufficiently fallen in love with our own beloved that we begin to talk too much about this third sex. Had the political atmosphere in our country attained some degree of maturity, which is now sadly in the hands of right wingers, we would have been talking about other progressives notions of leisure ideas of happiness and peace. But, all we think is how to isolate the third sex from the galaxy of the rest of population. Unfortunately, for few of us, who happen to be at the helm, all the stars looks similar: either they are planets or stars. So, what is the fuss about knowing something beyond our composition on earth inhibited by either Men or Women and now few Hijras too? But, this excessive simplification leads to shape a ‘law’ which automatically discriminates millions among us. That is certainly not because of any biological differences in us, but because we choose to mark people Man, Woman and, now, Hijra. Are there just three forms of us? The fact is that each individual human being is a different species in itself. Don’t we have names, account numbers, identity cards and different tastes and preferences for our appearances? Don’t we have preferences for which gifts we give to our beloved and what scent we spray on the wrist while heading for an embrace with our beloved? Don’t we have our preferences to make love in our funny ways? Who will legislate all that is happening between two lovers in the bed? Who will verify the amount of sex which two or more than two experience in their spaces? Who will sit on judgment on the nature of transactions between two lovers? Who has the time to enter the ass of others and smell it and apply some law on the nature of smell extracted from that smell? Funny for me, but there is a full-fledged law which was unfortunately inserted by the colonial rulers to protect their own folks from us during their rule. But how strange is it that they left behind scores of other laws which are not only obsolete but recycle a mindset which is not ours!

Christina daniel//On April 15, 2014, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court of India recognised transgenders as the third gender. While the verdict has been welcomed across the country and is expected to help millions who face daily prejudices, the classification of transgenders as part of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) under this ruling is problematic.

The judgment, which ensures transgenders will now have access to government welfare programmes and even have quotas in jobs and education, remains at best an economic response to the problems of the community. It ignores the gender dimensions that would need to be part of any longterm solution for transgenders.

In addition, the verdict follows the Supreme Court’s ruling on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, making a same-sex relationship an ‘unnatural offence’, punishable with a 10-year jail term. In effect, the ruling offers trangenders legal recognition and protection, but they would still be committing a criminal offence if they were to indulge in consensual gay sex. In this sense, the judgment is hardly a holistic response to the needs of the trangender community. So while being a transgender person is not an offence, indulging in natural acts as part of that identity remains a criminal act under law. It is indeed a curious, contradictory and confusing situation.

But even while the ruling has its shortcomings, transgender activists have welcomed the verdict as a step in the right direction. It is expected that the verdict will end the discrimination that transgenders currently face in pursuing educational and employment opportunities. In fact, they even report frequently facing prejudice at modern hospitals, where they are denied medical treatment.

Yet, the impact of the new legislation, like so many other things in India, will depend on its execution. In 2009, Parliament had in fact already created a third gender category on government documents for transgenders. Later, the Delhi government had even announced that they would pay adult hijras `1,000 rupees per month in acknowledgement of the hardships that they suffer. But, the poor implementation of these laws have made it difficult for transgenders to even get a driving license or claim welfare benefits. It is yet to be seen whether the new legislation is left languishing in a similar fashion.

In fact, if one looks at the previous experience of Nepal, which guaranteed the rights of all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as far back as 2007, documentation still needs to be processed to include the implications of this law in the actual functioning of the government. By December 2013, only three out of 2,00,000 Nepalese transgenders had actually changed their citizenship from male/female to the third gender, and most of them still could vote. It is important that the developments in India do not progress in a similar direction.

Of course, while the third gender have always played a prominent and even respected part in traditional Indian culture, the current prejudice against them dates back to the period of the British rule. In fact, some may argue that this is no different from the current discrimination against homosexuality, which is based on colonial instructs.

Clearly, what is essential for trangenders’ integration with mainstream society will then be social recognition. Most activists admit that education and awareness programmes will play a crucial role here. In this light, it remains to be seen whether categorisation among the backward castes or isolated monetary benefits will truly enable the mainstreaming of transgenders or even eliminate some of the derision that has come to be associated with the community in modern India.

Recognising this, the court has also directed the government to initiate awareness programmes to alleviate the stigma associated with the transgender community. While these have to still be implemented, they may have an even more significant role in changing public perception and ending the discrimination against transgenders.

Future battles will even need to be fought against the stereotyping of transgenders and the notion that they are best suited to certain employment opportunities within a society— comic roles in films, ‘tolly’ collection rounds or the paramilitary. The last two were actually serious proposed policies from different government representatives.

As the euphoria over the ruling wears out, it may also become increasingly evident that while the judgment has done much to move transgenders into a legal category, it has done little to reduce the social discrimination around the community. Changing mindsets in a conservative society is a longer journey, and that may prove to be a tougher battle.

Unsung and unrecognised brigade of Bollywood

Movie-watching has traditionally been a larger-than-life experience. That may no longer apply in the YouTube and smartphone age, where a screen can be smaller than the length of one’s hand, but most people still agree that the proper way to experience a film is on a big screen—even if the definition of “big” has shifted from a 70-mm hall to a 42-inch plasma TV.

No wonder that when people meet movie stars in real life, they are often taken aback by how small-statured and “ordinary” they seem—it is as if, at some sub-conscious level, we expect to see golden-skinned, 12-feet-tall demi-gods out of a Tolkien fantasy. But what about the people who really are “little” in terms of not being the marquee names—the ones whose contributions are constantly overlooked or undervalued?

Two things recently set me thinking about the small heroes. The first was Krishna Shastri Devulapalli’s fine novel Jump Cut, which is about a man named Ray trying to avenge the injustice done to his recently deceased father, a writer who was exploited by a powerful producer. The book has a prologue in which the child version of Ray and his sister watch the preview of a film that their father has worked on. Eyes fixed on the screen, they don’t dare blink until the title card they have been excitedly waiting for appears. “It says ‘Story, Screenplay and Dialogue by Vasant Raj’ in big letters that fill the screen.” That must be the father’s name, thinks the unprepared reader, but then comes the coda: “At the bottom of the screen, in barely readable letters, is the legend: Associate: Raman. Then it is gone.”

In terms of tone, Jump Cut is what you would call a light novel–the writing is warm and fast-paced, and there are many inspired comic passages. But the essential note of melancholia struck by that opening passage never quite fades; we never lose sight of Raman’s disappointments and his efforts to maintain his dignity. Ray’s quest to right the wrongs done to his father becomes more urgent, more worthy of a reader’s emotional investment, because through the book we are also privy to the dead man’s diary entries— these writings reveal the inner world of a taciturn, intelligent man who deserved better from life.

Around the same time as I was reading Devulapalli’s book, someone sent me a YouTube link to a song sequence from a 1964 film titled Aao Pyaar Karein. The sequence (which you can see here: bit.ly/Y3OF1m) has the hero, Joy Mukherjee, dancing with a friend who is daintily play-acting as a woman. The young supporting actor looked familiar to me when I first saw him, but it wasn’t until a few moments had passed that it struck me like a thunderclap. Here, clean-shaven and dressed in a formal suit with a bow-tie, was the actor MacMohan, who would many years later become famous to audiences for his role as Gabbar Singh’s minion Sambha in Sholay, sitting on a rock with a rifle in hand and answering his master’s questions. That role would lead to any number of parts as the main villain’s henchman, but in the black-and-white clip from 1964 MacMohan is unrecognisable from the screen persona he would eventually inhabit. His movements during the dance are lithe and graceful even during a strip-tease that ends with him in vest and striped shorts.

At this point in his career, Mac was probably a young actor hoping for a big break. If he had been better-looking (not that good looks are always a prerequisite for a Hindi-film leading man!), he may even have hoped for something bigger. Yet he ended up being known for what was essentially a one-line part, and this role stalked him forever. There is a very moving scene in the 2009 film Luck by Chance, in which MacMohan has a cameo part as himself. He is visiting an acting workshop, where the enthusiastic students ask him to say the line that made him famous. Mac looks down, pauses for a moment, then looks up and says the three words. “Poore pacchaas hazaar.”

Cynical viewers might call this a case of a man being invited to participate in self-mockery. But you can also see a performer making an effort to “act” for the two seconds it takes him to say the line. In its understanding of dignity of labour, the scene reminded me of Satyajit Ray’s short story Patol Babu, Film Star, in which a middle-aged man hired to play a part in a film discovers that all he is required to say is “Oh”, but then gets over his disappointment by uncovering the possibilities contained in the word.

Of course, there are many other cogs of film-making that operate, literally, behind the screen. Gregory Booth’s book Behind the Curtain: Making Music in Mumbai’s Film Studios is about the neglected foot-soldiers of Hindi-film music—the people who played the instruments in orchestras, arranged scores and in many cases made as vital a contribution to the final product as the music directors did, without getting a fraction of the recognition. These include the many members of the Lord family, beginning with Cawas Lord, who may or may not have participated in the scoring for India’s first sound film Alam Ara in 1931.

Cawas’s sons Kersi and Burjor carried their father’s tradition forward, and it has been estimated that over a period of four decades every third Hindi-film song had one of the Lords working on it. Some of these “back-stage musicians” didn’t even know which song would be appearing in which film. Their experience was at a huge remove from that of millions of Indian movie-lovers who have been enthralled by Hindi-movie music for decades; viewers who, when they hear a song like “Maang ke saath tumhara” (from the film Naya Daur), think of Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala on the horse-cart instead of wondering who played the instrument that simulated the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. When Kersi Lord, now well into his 70s, got a special award at a function, he admitted to feeling nervous when he went up on the stage. “I am simply not used to live applause,” said the man who had helped bring alive some of our most beloved film tunes.

Drishtee’s vision of self-sustaining social development at the grassroots informs all its endeavours.

It is Drishtee’s vision for sustainable communities that sets it apart from many other social enterprises working in the field. What makes it a visionary is not so much any grand idea, but in truth, the practical learning by doing spirit of the team behind it. Hence, there is no grandiose schema behind Drishtee’s endeavours. but a practical sense of purpose and an unwavering sense of focus. It is also strengthened by the founders’ can do spirit that has had them conquering every roadblock.

“The main objective of Drishtee is to try and create an impact,” says Siddhartha Shankar, President, Strategy & Business Development, Drishtee. There are NGOs that concentrate on the first method of achieving this objective—creating savings. There can be significant savings which are possible, concedes Shankar, but Drishtee has opted for the second and more sustainable way to create impact—by creating incomes. “We now focus on creating livelihoods. For that there are many things that you have to do along the way; one of the things you look at is creating accessibility.”

Dristee was floated in 1998-99 by Satyan Mishra, Nitin Gachhayat and Shailesh Thakur, three youths, who wanted to become entrepreneurs rather than take up regular jobs. Mishra, the co-founder and Managing Director of Drishtee is an Ashoka fellow and an MBA in International Business from Delhi School of Economics. With roots in rural Bihar, Mishra has a firm understanding of India’s rural landscape. He was nominated as ZDNet Asia’s Technopreneur of the Year later in 2006 and presently is a member of International Forums like Clinton Global Initiative and Young Asia 21 Forum of Rockefeller Foundation.

Thakur, the Strategic Thinker and Chief of Functions of Drishtee again brings a rural background with him. A graduate of Delhi University, he leads the new business team as Chief of New Ventures of Drishtee, while Gachhayat, a Masters in Business Administration from FORE School of Management, is and has been mainly involved with the functional teams responsible for developing new services and applications for rural India that can then be sold through Drishtee and other kiosk networks.

As Shankar says, the youths’ unusual choice of profession was beacause “all the three had rural connect and passion.”

Drishtee identifes and creates what it calls ‘milkman routes’ in a district through which it caters to a minimum of 20-25 villages by creating an ecosystem of microenterprises run by rural entrepreneurs with focus on women. The foundation of Drishtee is built on the principle of sustainability and not on a single bright concept with huge amounts at stake. It has been an evolutionary process and a journey of discovery for the outfit, which the founders built from scratch. The founders went to the grassroots for their lessons and improved and built on the basic premise learning from their mistakes.

The trio’s first major assignment was from the district collector of Dhar in Madhya Pradesh for digitisation of district records and implementation of government’s Government to Citizen Services (GTOC).

“This meant that they had to go to villages,” says Shankar, adding, “They did not have enough money, young as they were, to start on the big scale required.”

They did the next best thing. They went to the villages in search of entrepreneurs whom they could train for the project. They found school dropouts. After in-depth research, they selected boys who displayed a passion to serve the community. They trained these people offering them 80 per cent of their earnings; soon the services rolled. “The three youths realised quickly that they were creating huge value for the people of the village,” says Shankar. He explains, “Villagers have to undergo huge trouble and expense to get simple certificates like a birth certificate. They also have to stop work for some days. If they are provided such services for a fee, it saves them a lot of money and trouble.”

The services were a hit and gained recognition. It was also a sustainable service model as there were a number of villages requiring similar services. “If it is sustainable it can be replicated,” says Shankar and the three cofounders started replicating it. Word spread and Drishtee began getting invitations from other districts. “This was the first phase of evolution of Drishtee”, says Shankar. “It was the phase of e-governance.”

For Drishtee, technology plays a key role. As Shankar explains, “One of the significant issues in villages is access—to education, health, opportunity, information, etc. To create access you need to leverage tools like technology. That is the reason why technology plays a critical role for Drishtee.”

Thus, e-governance became a very interesting area, says Shankar adding, “It was a unique kind of e-governance. Nowhere else in the world was this kind of e-governance initiated. It was initially called GTOC.”

The second phase of Drishtee’s evolution involved the realisation that the sustainability of their e-governance project was on shaky grounds as bureaucratic transfers meant the end of the project in that particular district. But that did not spell the end of Drishtee. “We found interesting entrepreneurs in villages, some in a remote village who clicked photos and printed it in dot matrix and sold it for 50 paise,” says Shankar, taking us through the next phase of Drishtee’s growth. It was the phase of digital photo studio evolution. Drishtee encouraged village entrepreneurs to use digital cameras and inkjet printers. Now someone needing a passport-size photograph did not have to go to town.

But a bigger realisation for the organisation was the need for its own sustainability. “We realised that entrepreneurs’ sustainability was imperative; for Drishtee to be sustainable, the entrepreneurial chain had to be sustainable. This photo initiative was one of the measures,” says Shankar.

Digital photo service though doing well did not translate into a revenue sharing enterprise model for the enterprise. But there were small entrepreneurs who taught computers to children in villages. Soon Microsoft came forward and “We started teaching computers to village youth and that’s the historic connection with IT,” Shankar gives the reason for Drishtee’s strong IT foundation. Soon the organisation realised that there were farmers who had computer ambitions for their children. Drishtee brought to them a structured alternative. “It became a great service and we must have provided computer training to 60,000 to 70,000 students by now.”

The Microsoft experience gave them the realisation that Drishtee could be the platform for many private sector services. The next phase was the telecentre and kiosks phase of the platform. “We ensured there were private services, education photography, booking of tickets, etc. ICICI came forward and gave loan to our entrepreneurs. There were many services which each of these entreprenures could offer and these were services needed and desired by the community and led to savings for the farmers. This became a sustainable model and impressed the government.”

The Drishtee model came to be known as the common services centre and later was integrated with the government’s e-governance initiative. “We realised that the government was looking at our model because of its sustainability—economic and equally importantly, the social sustainability.”

However, Drishtee perceived the danger of becoming a subsidy model in this scheme of things. Around this time Mishra became an Ashoka Fellow and was exposed to Santa Clara University. The exposure brought Drishtee recognition and many people willing to help in their endeavour came forward.

Shankar who has been with Drishtee for eight years now, also joined around this time. He had left his corporate job of 24 years with ACC in search of a more fulfilling experience. His stint with United Nations too had left him dissatisfied. While working on rural marketing for ACC he had met Satyan and the latter invited Shankar to spend some time in the villages. “The experience humbled me and I decided to join the outfit,” says Shankar, adding “I haven’t looked back since.”

At this point Drishtee got into introspection mode with professional help pouring in. Shankar calls introspection the hallmark of the organisation. The group realised that they needed to be a rural based, dense organisation with a large number of services and products. As this new line of thinking dawned, they started linking up the kirana stores in remote villages to create a hybrid supply chain of services and products. This led to the third phase of growth—the endeavour to optimally utilise services.

“We targeted three ubiquitous services— computer education, financial inclusion and health.” Drishtee’s entry into finance and micro credit sector was accidental, says Shankar. “We were selling insurance for ICICI when we realised the importance of financial inclusion for farmers and later we became national business correspondents for SBI in this endeavour.”

Another round of introspection at this point made Drishtee realise that their platform was creating small impact for a large number of people as they were becoming a platform for partner companies. This gave birth to the 4C model where the big C is the community and the three Cs in the circle that connect to form the triangle are for—capacity for capacity building of the community; channel for linkages for enterprise to survive and capital to inject into the enterprise.

For now Drishtee is focussing on being a dense enterprise to create maximum impact in the areas where it operates. “We withdrew from places like Tamil Nadu, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, but we are back in the latter. We focus on areas where we are strong. We are growing in Bihar. We look at opportunity and funding before going ahead,” says Shankar discussing Drishtee’s strategy. Today Drishtee partners with a number of public and private sector organisations in order expand its umbrella of sustainable services.

The solutions are aimed at holistic empowerment of the rural people by providing them education, health, livelihood, enterprise opportunities and goods and services at minimum cost.

Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

I first came across the Cambridge Four–a ring of British spies recruited by Soviet Union scout Arnold Deutsch–thanks to my obsession over an actor who played (still does) detective Sherlock Holmes in BBC’s Sherlock. It was while 'researching' my favourite actor’s—yes, a juvenile label indeed—works that I came across the famous four (or five as they are often thought to be). My ‘favourite one’ had, in the beginning of his career, a critically-acclaimed play on an evening’s conversation between Winston Churchill and one of the famous four—Guy Burgess—often thought to be the ring leader of the gang. During World War II and well into the early 1950s, four meritorious students Kim Philby (Stanley), Donald Duart Maclean (Homer), Guy Burgess (Hicks) and Anthony Blunt (Johnson) were allegedly recruited during their Cambridge University days in the 1930s. Blunt and Burgess were members of Apostles, an exclusive society based at Trinity and King’s Colleges. A fifth man, John Cairncross (Liszt), also an Apostle is often labelled as the fifth man in the ring of Famous Five (not the Enid Blyton variety).

For his fourth book Ben Macintyre turns his attention to Kim Philby— one of the Cambridge Spies. Historically, this book may not offer much that is new, but it does tell the story from a different viewpoint; that of his friendships, most notably with Nicholas Elliott. In other words, this is not really a straight-forward biography of Philby, but focusses on his personality and on the Old Boy network that enabled him to evade detection for so long. The book begins with the meeting between Philby and Elliott in Beirut in January, 1963, with Elliott confronting his former friend about his betrayal of his country and trying to obtain a confession. He must certainly have felt betrayed personally too, as he had done much to protect Philby from earlier suspicions by MI5—defending and helping him when he was in difficulty.

Debate surrounds the exact timing of their recruitment by Soviet intelligence; Anthony Blunt claimed that they were not recruited as agents until they had graduated. Blunt, a Fellow of Trinity College, was several years older than Burgess, Maclean, and Philby; he acted as a talent-spotter and recruiter for most of the group save Burgess. Several people have been suspected of being the “fifth man” of the group.

This fascinating account looks at the early life of both men, their meeting during WWII and their career in the Secret Intelligence Service. Kim Philby was, from the beginning, a Soviet agent. The Old Boy network which had brought both Elliott and Philby into the intelligence service meant that while agents were secretive outside of their immediate circle, they were horribly indiscreet within it, trusting on bonds of class and social networking to protect them.

In this book, we read of Elliott’s and Philby’s careers, and personal life, including the jaw dropping appointment of Philby as head of the Soviet Section. As the Second World War ended and the Cold War began, Philby was able to inform Moscow of exactly what Britain was doing to counter Soviet espionage and, indeed, their own espionage efforts against Moscow. There is no doubt that Philby’s actions were an odd mix of defiant belief in the Soviet Union and an inability to take responsibility for his own actions.

As Kim Philby’s life descended into the drama of defection, Macintyre asks whether he was, in fact, allowed to escape. Would his possible trial been such an embarrassment to the British government that he was simply given the chance to leave? However, the real core of this book is his friendship with Nicholas Elliott and the two men are almost given equal space.

Personally, I found this a really interesting read and there is an enjoyable afterword, written by John le Carre. It is impossible to defend Kim Philby for his actions, but his story—both personal and as a spy— are certainly larger than life. If you have read anything by Ben Macintyre before, you will know that this is a not a dry and academic account, but reads almost like a spy novel. It is certainly a riveting read and another well written and entertaining book from the talented Ben Macintyre.

A book that celebrates small town India.

“Country roads take me home to the place I belong…” John Denver immortalised West Virginia with this hit song in 1971. But he did more than that. His folk-pop song evoked nostalgia in the hearts of the many small town folks who had migrated to big cities in search of success. Rashmi Bansal whose book title uses part of Denver’s song, effectively strokes the same feeling of yearning for the country home in our hearts.

Take me Home on the surface is “the inspiring story of 20 entrepreneurs from small town India with big time dreams”. Scratch below it and you find layers of meaning hidden between the lines. Let’s start with Bansal’s note at the beginning of the book. How many of us who hail from Patna or Patan, Ratlam as in Bansal’s case or Ranchi, Koduvally or Kasganj and the many small towns and kasbas of India, have not felt a little ashamed of our roots among our polished metropolitan counterparts?

That was perhaps when we were shallow and young, fresh out of our cloying restrictive backgrounds, drunk on the heady freedom of a westernised culture and ready to deny our own reality. Today, as Bansal feels, many of us have come to realise the value of our suburban upbringing, and perhaps secretly love and yearn like Denver…for country roads, (to) take me home.

Bansal’s book is a reiteration of all the values that you find in the interiors of India—a celebration of our cultural heritage. Here there is no tinsel, no false show, only hard work, grit, passion and a hunger to do something meaningful. Bansal is also demonstrating an economic fact about India here, that the world is taking note of—real India resides in its countryside, its small towns and cities. The tide may be finally turning, as Bansal notes.

Impossible you may say, but read the book to find out how dreams are coming true in small towns of India. Bansal has kept the narrative simple with a liberal sprinkling of Hindi. The ploy adds an authentic touch to the stories, for small town India is not home to English speaking, blow-dried hair crowd, but the cousins, aunts and uncles, of whom Bansal speaks, oiled hair and Hindi or local dialect speaking.

Bansal has taken a revolutionary look at small town India and impels you to think and explore your nativity. Perhaps it’s time to go back home? Take me Home is a journey down memory lane, a book that tugs at your heart’s strings—an inspiration.

Tour an exotic bit of our globe

I have one piece of advice for people who are going to Ladakh for the first time: make your first trip as long as you can. The sense of feeling like a tiny speck amidst the grandeur of nature—these are emotions that you will never be able to conjure up on subsequent trips.

My very first visit in 1996 took the wind out of my sails literally and figuratively. Just the mere act of de-planing made me unsteady on my feet. For that, I had to thank the lack of oxygen at 11,000 feet above sea level. It was the thin air that made walking up a hill a task that required supreme effort. Multiply that by ‘n’ because the whole of Leh was nothing but a series of steep inclines! But it wasn’t just the hills and slopes: it was the beauty of it all. The landscape was largely brown, but if you think that brown is a boring colour, see it in Leh. Myriad hues will be visible to you if you focus and concentrate. By the time I left the town after that first visit, I was convinced that brown and its various constituents was a fascinating colour. It was the same with the weather and even the sky. At one minute, sitting in the garden of Shambha-La Hotel with the charming owning couple who have now morphed into close friends, the sky would be a cerulean blue. “Yippee” I’d crow to Pinto Narboo, the owner of the gracious guest house, one of the three finest in town. “Now I can go to Thiksey in half an hour” and wonder why I’d receive an inscrutable smile in reply. A few minutes later, it would become obvious as fleecy white cotton-wool clouds scudded across the sky, to be followed by more ominous grey cumulus ones making their stately progress through Ladakh’s vast sky. Light and shadows would chase each other: Sometimes I would be baking in the strong sunlight, a moment later freezing in the shade. Occasionally, it would be even more unusual: my head would be in the sun and my feet in the shade, feeling hot and cold at the same time. In 1996, tourism to Ladakh was almost aimed at foreign tourists and there was a sense of camaraderie in the charming garden cafe’s and terrace restaurants in town. You could overhear seasoned travellers hold fellow tourists spellbound about the exotic corners of the globe they had visited: Machu-Pichu, Mustang, Ladakh. When I took a taxi with four western tourists (in those days, sharing cabs to far-off locations was the norm) to Pangong Tso, I thought my heart would burst from so much beauty. There were long roads that swept through miles of countryside dotted with monasteries atop craggy hills. There were vast semi-circular arcs of wasteland strewn about with boulders of various sizes, as if a couple of giants played marbles at some distant point in the past. Apart from green, we saw every other colour of the rainbow – mountainsides that gleamed silver with mica or blood red with iron ore; mountains that appeared purple because of a trick of the clouds, or pink because of the presence of minerals. Pangong Lake itself was at the very end of the district of Leh as well as at the border of India. In fact, we were told that whatever we could see without the benefit of binoculars fell into Indian territory; after that was across the Chinese border.

No matter where my travels took me, it was a relief to come back to the coziness of Shambha-La’s upstairs living room with its colourful Ladakhi tables and comfortable sofas and exchange notes with the other guests. The highlight of the evening was the dinner that Tsering Narboo would have masterminded for us. Tsering is from Tibetan aristocracy with close family ties to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, while Pinto is Ladakhi. Food tended to be western with a Ladakhi dish of lamb sausage or a hearty Tibetan noodle soup. And when the Narboos dined with the guests at the hotel, conversation would take a surreal turn. Pinto’s father, the late Sonam Narboo, was a minister in the Jammu and Kashmir cabinet and had laid down the plan for the Leh airport. Pinto’s mother and several other high-born ladies used to rhythmically stomp on the airfield to make the mud settle down, in order that the tarmac could be laid! Tsering’s stories of travelling on horseback at the age of three from Tibet to Kalimpong is the stuff that films are made on.

I’m glad that on that first trip I visited all the monasteries I could. Phyang was where I was let inside the huge cavernous kitchen where two cook-monks worked mountains of dough for the evening meal. Thikse was where I visited at the crack of dawn for morning prayers. All those years later, when I close my eyes and concentrate, the almost metallic chanting of sonorous voices comes back to me. Hemis was where the interiors were being readied for the festival, so thangkas were being taken down and rolled carefully. Alchi was where wild roses grew in profusion around a monastery whose walls were painted from floor to ceiling in painstakingly drawn iconography. Chemrey, Spituk, Stakna, Thaktok—I set off to see them all at a stage in the tourism evolution where enthusiasm would get you further than merely proffering a few rupees against a “donation receipt”.

I have been back to Ladakh three times since, but I must confess that the initial wide-eyed wonder had faded. I have walked down the main Fort Road of Leh with the shops selling all manner of exotica, and felt a pang that the merchandise was not as attractive as before. I have wandered around the dun-coloured buildings at the foot of Leh Palace, now crumbling, and sighed that they looked like ruins now, more than living culture than they originally did. I even climbed up the steepest incline in the whole of Leh right up above Leh Palace, to the small gompa where thousands of coloured prayer flags fluttered furiously in the wind, sending messages of peace to the valley below. But the day I chose was far removed from the bright, sunny, breezy day of my first visit, and in the grey clouds, the mass of prayer flags took on a sombre note. Leh is now chock-full of hotels, large, small and luxurious, the better to accommodate the film crews that are now an annual feature. What remains is the genuine warmth at Shambha-La and Tsering’s cooking.

It is not just Jharkhand’s dance and music,but its identity that Mukund Nayak has taken to the world stage

The dhols beat synchronously, the nagaras take up the loud chant; the shehnai interrupts rapturously taking up the notes higher, as the thekoda, ber, narsingha, kara, nakara, jhanj and kartal join the symphony. As the music builds the rhythm, the feet take it up in rhythmic taps and glistening bodies attired in colourful saris sway to the building crescendo—Welcome to Nagpuri dance of Jharkhand. Called tribal classical folk rock by many a fan, the music builds the same hysteria in the listeners as does great classical English rock.

Our guest this month is Mukund Nayak, one of the prominent exponents of Nagpuri folk dance and music who has travelled the world in his mission to propagate it. “I am proud to be born in a community which is known for making soul stirring music and great indigenous traditional musical instruments,” says, the internationally acclaimed artiste.

Nayak was born in Bokba village of Simdega district in Jharkhand in 1949. “A child born in the tribal belt of Jharkhand cannot but be a dancer and a musician,” he says. It is a way of life here. The dance of Nagpuri or Jharkhand tribals is a celebration of life itself—an unabashed love for life, living in community and the joy of sharing. Nayak believes that his love for music was instilled in him by his parents and the ambience of his village. He credits his roots for where he stands today; it certainly is a symbiotic relationship between the artiste and his muse.

Young Nayak, who belongs to the Ghasi tribe, would invariably sing in school functions the traditional songs that he had learnt at his parents’ knees. “The Ghasi tribe is majorly into farming but music and dance are also an indispensable part of our life. Music is something that can inspire anyone and at any point of time,” Nayak states the simple truth. The tribal music was a hit in his school and thus began his tryst with destiny.

The artiste was an observant child. “I watched the activities of the villagers. After dusk, the village looked like a fair where everyone celebrated life with music, drums, dhol and folk songs till late night. Yet, early next morning everybody was back in the fields.” The hard working yet equally fun loving culture of his tribe inspired Nayak to not only get connected with the grassroots music, but also find ways to promote and preserve it. As he grew older, the ritual of evenings spent at the village dance and music fair translated into a lifelong mission for getting it a place under the sun. “Though people in the village were reluctant initially, wanting me to focus on my studies, I convinced them with my vision for the development of the culture of Chhotanagpur and the entire Jharkhand region,” says Nayak.

To club all of Jharkhand under one head of folk dance would be a grave injustice to the indigenous people of the region. The dances are peculiar to distinct tribes and even occasions and reasons. Paika is performed by the Munda community and is war dance—a stylised representation of rituals connected with war. It is symbolic of the tribe’s great war against the British and is performed with shields and sword. Hunta dance is the hunting dance of the Santhals and is a presentation of the pre hunting preparation with bows and arrows to the culmination with the final kill. Mundari of the eponymous community is a wedding dance, while the Barao dance of the Oraon tribals is remarkable for its music and richness. The Jhumur by far is the most famous and is performed by men and women separately known as Mardani and Jenana Jhumur, respectively. Mainly a harvest and cultivation ritual, it is so joyous in its expression that it is performed on all happy occasions. There are others like Jitika, Danga, Lahasuya, Domkach, etc., that have distinctive identities. While Nagpuri is the official language of Jharkhand, the dances are unique in the variety and richness of their raga and tala.

Coming back to his vocation, Nayak says, “The revival and preservation of our rich folk culture was vital.” The BSc student would have ideally liked to become a teacher but somewhere the thirst for music and dance overpowered and brought him back to the land of forests. It was the time when people like Bharat Nayak, Bhavya Nayak, Praful Kumar Rai, Lal Ranbir Nath Sahdeo and Kshitij Kumar were working actively to preserve the dance and music of the region.

Nayak returned to Ranchi from his village not for a better life, but now with the sole aim of reviving tribal folk dance and music culture. During this time, the state was also going through an identity crisis as part of Bihar. Inspired by the cultural activists working for the revival of Jharkhand’s identity, he joined the league. Nayak began with writing songs on contemporary problems of the time and soon put together a troupe. They started performing the songs at public places. His efforts were widely appreciated and Mukund recalls, “My journey as a performer began way back in 1974 with my introduction at Akashwani. But my first performance on a larger open platform was at Jaggannathpur Mela in Ranchi.” Later the large, open stage ambience became such a major part of the folk activist’s life that he says, “Now at times, without the stage I feel incomplete.”

In 1980, when Regional Tribal Language was recognised, Nayak became associated with Ranchi University and his passion for music became part of the textbook of the university. “In 1981, I came in contact with Dr Carol Merry Baby who was conducting research on Karam Music of South Bihar and I got a chance to work with her.”

However, it was still a few years later in 1988 when Nayak and his troupe stepped out on the international platform and performed at the third Hong Kong International Dance festival of The Hong Kong Academy for the Promotion of Chinese Culture. The landmark moment has some bittersweet memories attached: “It was my first visit abroad and performance too. I remember when I shared this with the people at my village they laughed at the thought of their dance being performed in a foreign land.”

Nayak’s path from the remote interiors of dense forests to international acclaim was one of personal struggles and sacrifices. A chance meeting with college friend Jagdish Charan Lehri, a poet working with Akashwani, opened the door of opportunity for him. An audition at Akashwani ensured a regular job for Nayak and in 1985, the veteran folk artiste took his efforts to another level by establishing Kunjban. “I think Kunjban was my first organised effort to promote Nagpuri culture.” He calls it a joint effort of his family, friends and relatives.

Some people to whom the artiste remains indebted are Praful Kumar Rai and Jagat Mani Mahto for their support and Mahavir Nayak, Bharart Nayak, Kshitij Kumar and Lal Ranbir Nath Sahdeo for the inspiration, in Nayak’s own words.

The vision and mission of Kunjban, his organisation devoted to promotion of Nagpuri cultural, is “preservation, development and nourishment of tribal folk dance and music, which is not just an art form of state of Jharkhand, but its identity across the globe,” says Nayak. Kunjban is the Training Centre for Chhotanagpur Folk Music and Dance, but its focus is Nagpuri Jhumar. Nayak explains, “In both dance and music forms, I have expertise in Nagpuri Jhumar and teach it to students in India and across the globe.”

Nayak has resident foreign students staying with him from time to time. Currently, Jimi Lou Steambarge, a US resident, is staying at his home pursuing training in mandar and dhol. Steambarge who met Nayak “12 years ago during a festival”, at the time she was working as a PR marketing professional, has been visiting Jharkhand for projects since that first meeting. “The major reason for this association is my love for the music and culture of Jharkhand, its pure tribal form, and it feels good to be connected to Mukund, who has given his entire life to preserve and develop it,” she says of her perseverance. Steambarge who is learning the drum expands, “And in a broader stroke, I am looking forward to doing some recordings and documentary with Mukund.”

Remember the bit about a woman being behind every successful man? In Nayak’s case it is his wife Draupadi whom he calls “a true and loyal life partner.” She has not only nurtured the children but also his passion as the first member of his troupe. A natural musician and a dancer just like Nayak, unlike him though Draupadi was, since childhood, totally devoted to devotional music. “When Mukund was forming his troupe and I realised that nothing was working out, I decided to diversify my genre and along with a maternal aunt started singing for him. This was the beginning of our association.”

Recognitions have come the artiste’s way— Jharkhand Ratna and Jharkhand Vibhuti. But that is not what he pines for. He would rather have the government make some concerted efforts for preserving India’s dying indigenous culture—like adapting the education system to make traditional and folk music and dance part of the curriculum. “Then only will the youths take it seriously and carry forward our legacy,” says Nayak. For now, he is content to work for platforms like Tai Pai Tribal Festival where he got the chance to mentor 20 illiterate artistes from his village and bring them international appreciation. For the guru, “My true recognition is to see my disciples like Manpuran Nayak, Devdas Vishwakarma, Ignesh, Nandlal Nayak and Parduman (latter two his sons) carry the flag of the ‘Soul of Jharkhand’ forward.