Lighting the lamp of education

This story is yet another generous gesture by my friend Ritu Raj Mate shown to me. He not only gave the story theme to me but also drive me to their house. That’s why I have always insisted this to my juniors where ever I have worked that have one person who knows the city and also the city’s people who can keep providing you stories from time to time. The trust factor is very important because one can be taken for a ride too, by means by the source trying to plant a story to nepotism him or whom he wants to be written about. So first one has to check the credentials of the subject on whom they are going to report about so that it matches that of your sources information. Well anyway after I visited this lady who was self funding her education programe for the underprivileged children, I knew that this story would make to the HT Bhopal Live paper of the Hindustann Times, Bhopal edition, on its own merit.

It’s a story of staunch social commitment as heart-warming as it is inspiring. Denied any Stat aid, a lady in the Madhya Pradesh State capital of Bhopal has been ploughing a lone furrow to shine the light of education on street urchins.
He own failure to make it as a doctor fired a strong desire in Mehraj Nadim to prepare slum kids to make it to the top professional league. She launched a primary school, Legion school in Koh-e-Fiza locality in n1997 to fulfill her dream.
And it’s not run-of the mill education either. Some of he charges have made it to the best schools of the State Capital on the strength of their academic performance. Take, for instance, Serish Iqbal, who was later admitted to the St Joseph’s Convent Girls School on Idgha Hills.
The teachers, all of whom comprise Muslim women, share the feeling that free access to education should be made the country’s policy in order to facilitate nation building.
The academic curriculum in her school in her school has some unique features. “Children are taught four languages – Hindi, English, Urdu and Sanskrit,” she says with obvious pride. “Verbal and written language skills are the key to a successful future,” she says.
Including the hands-on principal in Mehraj, the school has seven teachers; all paid a token sum of Rs 300-500 per month. ‘We’re here top extend a helping hand to Mehraj in her mission. Salary is only incidental,” says Faiza, one of her colleagues at Legion.
The journey for Mehraj and her school began on a humble note. “We had only four students to begin with,” she reminisces. But that was the least of her problems. The slum dwellers were reluctant to send their children to school. “They wanted the kids to start working early for extra income,” she says.
Untiring efforts to convince them was the first obstacle she overcame. Now, the school has on its roll over five-dozen children in different classes. For those in Class IV and V, basic computer training is mandatory.
Despite the wholesale effort, Mehraj is till handicapped by some odds. For one, cash for meeting the school expenses. “While the teachers have been gracious enough to work on paltry honorarium, there are other unavoidable expenses,” she says.
She has to provide them with free books and stationary. Then, there are shoes and uniforms for those children who come from the lowest strata even amongst the slum dwellers. “I have often taken money from my husband to meet the expenses,” the lady -on-a-mission says.
To her utter disappointment, the Government agencies haven’t been supportive enough. “My application for State Government aid has vanished without a trace. I’m still awaiting the Union HRD Ministry’s response to my letter,” she recalls.
The support from her husband, Syed Nadim-ul-Hasan is the best part of the Legion tale. He couldn’t have been more cooperative. “My parents have also chipped in from time to time,” she says, confident that as the school grows, so would the list of benefactors from the immediate family circle.

Come R-Day, these boys will slither down flying chopper

This story idea was given to me by my good friend in Bhopal Ritu Raj Mate, who was training these NCC cadets in slithering down from great heights as part of their preparations to use these practice jumps from a chopper at the 2003 Republic Day Parade at New Delhi. Four NCC Cadets were hand picked to do this dangerous but yet fun jump from a flying chopper in front of our President of India and The Prime Minister of India. Ritu Raj Mate who was himself a disciplined cadet during his younger days was given the charge to give them the basic training to get the scare of height from their minds first. When he invited me two weeks of the cadets onward journey to practice on their real jumps from a flying chopper, it was exciting and also great to have a word with the future defense personals. I thank Ritu again for giving me another wonderful story.

Every morning four boys can be spotted climbing down the rope from a high tension wire pole at Bhadbhada dam like an agile monkey. No, neither the boys are into some kind of monkey business nor practicing any rope trick, so to say. They are the four talented National Cadet Core (NCC) corps selected to slither down the rope from a moving helicopter at the Republic Day Parade in the National capital. The boys – Ravinder Rajput, Anup Karmakar, Phool Singh Netam and Sheshnaryan Namdev look pretty excited about the practice. That is of course, understandable. For, among the audience to watch their well-practiced feat will be the President of India A P J Abdul Kalam, the Vice President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
If the boys are excited their trainers and supervisors are no less so. Entire NCC Directorate for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is keenly looking forward to the R-day.
The four boys are put to a rigrous drill every morning by the commandant Brigadier Das Gupta (deputy DG MP & Chhattisgarh), Colonel R R Gadkary, Subedar D S Chouhan, Havildar H M Data Ram and Ex- NCC cadet Ritu Raj Mate.
Colonel R R Gadkary informed that this would be for the first time that the cadets would Para drop with rope from a helicopter. “It is going to be an excellent one.”
The contingent is leaving for New Delhi on December 29 where another 25 days will be more crucial training period for the boys.
The will start actual practice of slithering down the rope from a helicopter.
Ritu Raj Mate says that when he was a cadet he had had training in all sorts of adventure sports. He feels that the early training has stood him in good stead now that he is imparting training to these boys.

Children toil as world observes Anti-Child Labour Day

This story was work over two days and was published on the eve of the Anti-Child Labour day, in the Hindustan Times, Bhopal edition in 2003. What I like about this story was I was able to free at least three children from their job and they were later admitted into a government run school by an NGO working for the welfare of the children in Bhopal.

Even as the whole world observed Anti Child Labour Day, 12-year-old Rashid toiled away in simmering afternoon heat to eke out a living by pushing a cart loaded with wood up a slope along with his father in the State capital’s walled city.
Like Rashid, there were hundreds of children who were seen doing all kinds of arduous jobs unaware that the world was observing a day to bring their childhood out of the clutches of drudgery and hard labour.
For Kamal, a daily wager at the sugar cane juice stall on Hamidia Road, it was sweating it out in the heat roiling his frail hands around ensuring that the last drop of cane juice drops into a vessel, while he gets paid a meager Rs 20 a day. Kamal contributes this amount to his mother’s kitty to keep the hearth warm.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there were an estimated 246 million child workers around the world aged between five and 17. One out of every two children aged between 6 and 14 has no access to primary education.
The ILO website also says that 14.4 per cent children in India, aged between 10 and 14, are engaged in labour.
But the statistics does not matter to 13-year old Amir Khan who helps his father at a road side show shop near the Lower Lake. If he does not help his father, his two brothers and a sister cannot go to school, he says.
Another 10-year old, selling locks at the bus stand says that he does not know the place of his birth and the names of his parents. He lives with a group of people who brought him up on the pavements of the Bus Stand.
Though India celebrates the Children’s Day on the birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, little is being done for them, as the number of child labourers grows every year.
If the trend of child labour is not curbed, India soon will have the largest population of child labourers in the next five years.

100 pahalwans fight it out

This story was another treat because when I was roaming the streets of Bhopal in search of some stand alone visuals I saw an huge crowd entering a dingy alley surrounded by old broken buildings which had a small but sizeable ground to fit around thousand people. I quickly entered in and found to my luck that the traditional wrestling was on and they were fans across a spectrum of age group vociferously egging their pahalwans to get the gold for them. So after interacting with many people in the event which otherwise is not known to many except for those who have visited this venue over the years. This story was published in the Hindustan Times, Bhopal edition in 2003.

Ecstatic crowds cheered their guts out at the jam-packed Banne Pahalwan’s Akhada as the foremost pahalwans of the City of Nawabs wrestled in the mud in a surcharged atmosphere at the prestigious annual wrestling event held on Sunday.
The Akhada, which produced greats like Muhamad Ali Pahalwan was again enlivened on Sunday as scores of bouts of scintillating ‘kushti’, were witnessed in a thrilling atmosphere.
As the pahalwans flexed their muscles, roared and pounced upon their opponents with vengeance, the crowd enjoyed each and every moment of the scores of bouts of traditional kushtis.
No less than 100 wrestlers flexed their muscles at the competition, which brought back nostalgic memories of yore when ‘Kushti’ was the most popular of sports activities in Bhopal.

And when Vijay Pahalwan trounced Afsar Pahalwan in the end to emerge the winner the kushti loving Bhopalites became wild with joy. Even after the kushti ended, the audience howled on as if they were in a trance enjoying every second of the one hour drama in which pahalwans pinned their opponents with electrifying application of ‘daaon-pench’ and ‘paintra-baazi’.
As per the rules no bout could be extend beyond 10 minutes and pahalwans fought at a dazzling pace with many ‘kushtis’ ending within minutes.
Even there was no age bar. Loud cheers were heard with the end of each bout. No wonder the atmosphere was so charged that even after the event ended, the audience was craving for more.
Not only the winners were honored, the losers were also given trophies in this unique event.
‘All the participants are given trophies as that no one goes disheartened’, says Ayaz Pahalwan, the organizing secretary of the event.
Banne Pahalwan who organizes the event feels that the State Government is not bothered about promoting traditional wrestling.
‘It is the intrest of a few people which is keeping the even going through all these years’, he adds.

Saras Plane - Crash, takes three pilots lives

The images taken by me of the Saras Plane during the Aero India show in February 2009, was short lived as it crashed within a month, along with three of the best pilots of the Indian Air Force. The plane which was still under experiment, plunged to its end on March 6th 2009. The images you see below of the accident site were taken by my team member Mohan Kumar B N and the video pictures were taken by an onlooker who happened to be at the right place at the right time.

SARAS AT THE AERO INDIA SHOW - FEB 11th to the 14th, 2009 at the Yelanka Airforce base in Bangalore.

These are the only few images I had taken during the India International Air Show. During the show I did not realize the importance of this plane and so I just took a few pictures as a matter of stock images. But after the Crash these images proved to be very lucky for our newspaper (DNA-Bangalore Edition), as we were able to compare the images pinpoint and tell our readers that it was the same plane which crashed.



D Srinivas captured these video images of the burning and mangled remains of the Saras plane which crashed on the outskirts Bidadi 30 kilometers away from Bangalore on Friday, 6th March 2009.





These moving images of the remains of the Saras Plane taken by my team mate Mohan Kumar B N showing the various moods of people as well the investigators trying to get some lead as to why the crash occurred. Some of the images show the charred remains of two of the three pilots and also of the inconsolable co-workers of the NAL who were handling the Saras Plane project.

Hisaab-kitaab days are up

This story idea was given to me by a friend who was a businessman over dinner. He told me how the invasion of the computer has put to end an age old tradition of manual writing on the ‘Hisaab-Kitaab’ book. After learning more about the book which was facing extinction I went around the old Bhopal area to find out more about them and then after getting enough material spoke to my editor who asked then asked me to file the story during my stint with the Hindustan Times.

Diwali may still retain all its pristine glitter but the sale of the traditional account books “Hisaab-Kitaabs’ – the kind that have taken a nosedive, thanks to the invasion of information technology. These colourful books bound in red cloth with ‘kadhi’ strings cost between Rs 40 and RS 500.
Traditional businesses open new accounts on Diwali day and the old books are usually replaced with new ones. The book comes in various categories of accounts to be kept such as “Kaachada Hisaab-kitaab”, “Tibandi hisaab-kitaab”, “Choubandi hisaab-kitaab”, “Matabandi hisaab-kitaab”. The book itself is two to three feet long and about a foot wide with 150 to 500 pages of paper either white or pale yellow. These books are in demand during the Dhan Teras during the Diwali festivals.
According to Gore Lal Ramesh Kumar Jain, owner of the oldest (55years) “hisaab-kitaab” shop on the Marwari Road in the walled city, the sale of the book has dipped in the last five years by 25-30%, primarily because well-off businessmen have opted for computers to maintain their accounts.
The city has only three such shops and all of them are in the Chowk Area. According to Maulana Syed Saab of one such hisaab-kitaab shop, people used to come from Guna, Barailley, Sehore and even other states to buy the account books till about 10 years ago.
The hisaab-kitaab books used to be made in the City by the Jains till the 1980’s. But they left the business because of huge losses. Now the books come from two different cities, with the pages coming from Indore and the cover from Nagpur. The books are merely assembled here and sold.
The old order appears to be changing, yielding place to the new. Businessmen say though small traders and businessmen may continue with the tradition for some more time till the red-bound “hisaab-kitaabs” would slowly be replaced by the sleek and fast computers.

Faith, they all believe in

This story was done after a lot of roaming the streets of Shivajinagar and the Saint Mary’s Basilica church on the eve of Christmas in Bangalore in 2007. After I spoke to a lot of people selling them I was lucky to find a Hindu man decorating the crib of the church. After collecting the raw material I took the help of another co-worker Vaishalli Chandra to write since I had to file a load of pictures for the Christmas special which Bangalore Mirror was getting out.

Do you believe that commercialization takes out the fun from celebration? Think again. Look around and see how the air is filled with good cheer. There is a flighty, happy feeling floating every-where. Stalls selling decorations are copious, little trinkets to adorn the tree, mini Christmas trees, Santa caps, wreaths, candy sticks, lights, confetti….
One such stall in the busy Rusell market belongs to Jameel Jaans who has been selling decorations for over three decades. He started his business when Christmas was largely celebrated by the Christian community. While conflicts between the Arab and Christian worlds keep our leaders busy, Jameel has proposed selling Christmas toys to little George and his cousins, and Dasara toys to Govind and Krishna.
A thorough businessman, he also does a Santa once in a while by giving away decorations to Christian run-NGOs or selling his decorations at discounted rates for the needy. Jameel says, “The festival like any other is about sharing and caring, I just do my bit by helping bring a smile on a needy family’s face.”

And then there’s Mushtaq who has been selling decorations for the past twelve years. Clearly, it’s time for celebration whether it is Eid, Deepavali or Christmas. Every year, at St Mary’s Basilica a set of people decorate the crib. Most of them are non-Christians, Mohan who is part of this group is all set to visit Sabarimala this year. But he made it a point to be there in time to help decorate the crib. It just goes to show how festivals not just help families bond but also people from different communities.

People, today, need a reason to celebrate and it truly reflects in the spending pattern. Mushtaq says, ‘The sale of decorations has gone up by four to five per cent this year. There are people who buy bulk. With corporate coming into the city a lot of them have turned the festive spending around. Today, it is about being happy.’
And this festival breaks all barriers. It is indeed hard to escape the snow white bearded, red-nosed man who charms his way through the chimney.

Naxals Scout for Techies

This story was given to me by Rituraj Mate who met Govindan Kutty the spokeperson for the Naxals a week before his arrest and asked me if I was interested in speaking to him too. I did a telephone interview with him and asked him to supply the document the naxals had prepared during their annual congress at an undisclosed location. After receiving the full document from Kutty, I asked my co-worker Niranjan Kaggere (who was very interested in doing this story with me), to read the document fully. After he had finished he was planning to do another angle for which I advised him to write that the Naxals are on the look for techies so that they could strengthen their hands and also get world attention on the click of a computer button. This story was discussed with K R Sreenivas the Resident Editor of Bangalore Mirror and then the final text was put to print on December 12, 2007.

Bangalore is one of the cities being targeted by naxals as a recruiting ground for tech-savvy urban comrades

Silicon city had better watch out. Its high tech an glitzy reputation of the country’s own home-grown terror movement. And it won’t be long before the red corridor along eastern India beats a path to Bangalore. Sources within the naxal movement said that a ‘tech’ overhaul of guerilla squads, with a focus on urban areas, is on the anvil.
It is not only techies whom the naxals aspire to rope in; they have ‘plans’ even for the medical fraternity. They party plans to grow networks of sympathizing doctors and hospitals where comrades can be treated. Speaking to Bangalore Mirror Govindan Kutty, a spokesman of the Communist Party (Maoists), said that despite recent setbacks, the movement would be reorganized and intensified.
Buttressing his remark are the ‘guidelines to guerrillas’ adopted at the party’s congress held recently at an undisclosed place, which talk of urban network in cities like Bangalore as a ‘back-up’ for guerrilla squads fighting in remote forest areas across the country.

Govindan Kutty with a friend during his service to the people in these pictures provided by him.

The pictures of the naxal carders during training with sophisticated weapons at undisclosed locations provided to me by Govindan Kutty.

Admitting that there has been a considerable setback in the party’s urbanization plans, Kutty philosophized, ‘setbacks, victories, defeats, up and downs have to be faced by any revolutionary movement.’
Almost echoing his statement the draft guidelines of the party mailed to this newspaper leaves one in no doubt about its urban agenda. ‘In the past 30 years, there has been a disregard towards the tasks of the urban movement. As per the ‘Policies of the Revolutionists’ findings of the ninth congress, the urban areas, with over 60 per cent of the gross domestic product and a huge population, have a growing role to play in the economy as well as in the revolution. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to quickly correct the imbalance.’
The CPI (Maoists) guidelines focus on urban areas with a large working class. The guidelines urge naxal activists to reorient and reorganize urban outfits, and call for urban and working-class ‘specialization’ (read, representation) in high level party committees. Cities in the party’s cross hairs are Bangalore, Ahmedabad-Pune corridor, Delhi, Chennai and the Coimbatore-Erode belt.
In a detailed e-mail, Kutty said, ‘There is a perception that Maoists are against developmental activities. If we were against development. People would not have supported us. Without development, the country cannot progress. But the question is: development for whom? ‘For MNC’s or a handful of traitors who mortgage out country for a song, or for the majority of common people?’
According to the guidelines, ‘Technical help from the cities will in the form of repairs and maintenance of fighting, communication and other equipment of the guerrillas of the PLA, and preparing comrades with technical, electrical, electronic and other engineering skills to take up the challenges in forest and rural areas.’
In other words, the common man’s perception that the naxal movement is restricted to rural and forest areas of the country may no more be relevant. Cities like Bangalore will increasingly be beach-heads for the comrades’ power through the gun’ Agenda.

GUNS AND BRAINS
Urban comrades with good technical skills are the essence of the party and the revolution, according to the guidelines. The idea is to provide working-class leadership an technical support for the people’s war in rural areas and remote places. Unorganized sectors like textile and small scale units – labouring under poor working conditions – are seen as potential recruiting grounds. As the guidelines put it, ‘We must distribute ourselves very well in key industries and set up a strong base.”

VIRTUAL WAR
Naxals are furthering their agenda in cyber space too. They are banking on urban sympathizers with whose assistance they can track, counter and attack the ‘enemy’(read, the state) via the internet.

Clerics opt for E-cards this Christmas

This story was given to me by Father John Neduncheril after he had read an E-card story written by me for the Hindustan Times, Bhopal edition, in 2002 during the Diwali celebrations. So I went to meet him the next day and found the story to interesting of how this year to save cost the sisters of various churches were sending e-cards rather than the traditional cards to their relatives and friends across the globe. After this story was carried in the paper he became a good friend and I got some very good stories later on from him and his fellow friends.

A Global phenomenon has finally caught up with the clerics of the City this Christmas. The Fathers and Sisters of various churches are using e-cards to greet their counterparts and relatives.
Take for example Sister Hakim who was busily penning her message on an e-card and downloading pictures of Santa Claus on the computer to send to other Sisters and relatives down South. Like Sister Hakim hundreds of other sisters all over the City are logging on to famous e-card sites everyday as the Christmas nears, sending out cards by the dozens to their near and dear ones and peer group members throughout the world.
The IT bug has bitten the entire cleric community in the City right from the Archbishop who himself uses a computer, says Father John Neduncherill, who is selecting an e-card to send to his fellow father in Kerala.

Father John of the St Thomas Church says that IT is very good and he has taken a head-start to promote it with in his schools and churches all over the country.
Various e-cards are available with flash mode and it is all very easy to handle, says Sister Hakim. Sister Sukrutha nods in agreement. “Well, I have send at least 35 varieties of cards to various sisters all over the world so far,” adds Sister Hakim with a smile.
Father John says that though he is quite new to the computer (last 6 months), he finds it just great and adds that by just a click of the finger he can get thousands of e-cards to chose from, something that cannot be done in card shops.
Well, e-cards for now have come to stay during the various religious festivals throughout the world over this year’s “Merry X-Mass” would be electronically wished and received.

Two men on a right (s) mission

This story was by sheer chance when I was roaming the streets of Bhopal that I saw these two guys on the motorbike whizzing past me with a Karnataka registration in Madhya Pradesh during my stint with the Hindustan Times, Bhopal. I overtook them and asked them to stop to have a word, only to find that they were on an all India tour to spread the awareness on human rights. My story for December 8, 2001 was done.

Two bike riders from the silicon city of Bangalore have made it their mission to ride all the way to the National Human Rights office in New Delhi in an effort to raise awareness about human rights.
They would submit a memorandum to the NHRC chairman demanding social transformation for peace and development on the “World Human Rights Day” on December 10.
S V Giri Kumar and K R Shiva Kumar from the Peoples Movement for Human rights were on their way to Gwalior on Sunday, when they spoke to Hinduatn Times in Bhopal about the small but assertive movement they have begun.
They began their journey in Bangalore on December 5 and reached Bhopal at 12 on December 8. They would reach Gwalior tonight for the last leg of their five-day ride.
They feel their expedition would spread the knowledge of human rights among villagers so that they can approach the commission to exploit to the maximum. Shiva added they have had very good response at almost all the stops they have had so far.
Citing their experiences till Bhopal, they said students in almost all the villages have had no time to think about human rights violations in their respective villages as they were preoccupied with their studies. The working classes have little time to spare for such concerns, Giri Kumar said.
Asked about their ride through Madhya Pradesh so far, both replied with undisguised disgust that the State had few roads or street lights, not to speak of the near-absence of safety markers on the highways.
They hoped the State Government would do something about the roads and provide clean potable water to villagers.

Avian visitors are here again - Bhopal

This story with a load of pictures took the maxim time for any story which I have written. Anup Dutta a vivid bird watcher and who to my luck was working with me in the Hindustan Times – Bhopal edition and me planned it out and we set about ensuring that we get the main varieties of migratory birds which yearly visit the lake city of Bhopal. It took us two weeks ensuring that we visit the various lakes inhabited with these birds. But at the end of the two weeks when our editor asked if the story along with the images were ready we gave it a lot of thought and finally said yes. So what you get to read is of two weeks of hard work from sun rise to sun set. Since I did not have the proper lenses to photograph these beautiful birds we made use of whatever we found the best possible from the hundreds of pictures taken by me. This piece was published in February, 2002.

Every year in winters Bhopal is home to some airborne visitors from across the globe who fly in irrespective of the prevailing socio-political climate. This year too they are in town ignoring the aftermath of September 11.
Over there, the deep corridors and marshes of Upper Lake and Van Vihar National Park have become an oasis of birds enveloped in breeze, fog and mist. Early in the morning the dawn chorus can be heard (but not seen) with the bird choir still indiscernible from the leftovers of the night fog.


(Top Left) A group of migratory birds returning to the Van Vihar as the sun sets, (Top Right) The endangered Blackneck Stork and (Left) Saras Crane, also known as 'pair for life'.

The waterbed of the Upper Lake and Van Vihar provides tranquil environment and congenial habitat for the water birds.
This year too, thousands of migratory birds have made these areas their temporary abode after crossing thousands of kilometers to escape the cold northern winter. As always, the winged visitors are from Myanmar, Baluchistan, Himalayas, Pakistan and Tibbet. And, some of them are endangered species.

Fiesty times for the feathered kind (left), Spoonbill (black legs with spoon like bill) (right).

One Balcknecked Strok (endangered), Comb Duck (second record after a gap of two years), a group of Openbill Strok are among the ones been sighted this season. The HT team saw in the misty morning light, a pair of Brahminy Duck suddenly taking off from the group of Pintails and Common Teals. Within a wing beat a Comb Duck was followed by the group of Pintails. Next in line was the Spotbill breaking from the water almost as a group, honking lustily and pumping their wings. Close to them were the standing Spoonbills.

White Ibis (black color from the neck to the bill) and little egret (left), Openbill Stork (gap between bill and pink leg) (right).

Spotbill or Grey Duck (yellow tipped dark bill and spot on the end of the back in male (left) and Gery Heron (black dotted line on the mid part of the fore neck) (right).

Brahminy Duck in Flight (left) and Comb Duck or Nakta (second record after a gap of two years) (right).

A painted stork with a fisherman (left) and Greenshank (white eyebrow, black mark between eye and beak and three white stripes on tail) (right).

As the sky became brighter, the birds cleared the birches on the shore, and began to spread into two line trailing the leader. Then as the small flock circled just around the marshy land and wings creaked rhythmically, the birds drifted into their characteristics in a V-shaped formation. During the day, most of the birds prefer to stay in the middle of the lake only to return to the banks of the lake as the night sets in. The best place to encounter these flying beauties is the western part of the lake. White Ibis, Painted Strok and Large Egret can be seen masticating at the entrance of the park from the J S Swaminathan Marg.
Bird lovers are thrilled over the arrival of the migratory birds in the Upper Lake.
Over the years, the winged creatures have shown a special preference for this site on account of it being free from human interference.
One hopes that they continue to do so for all times to come.

Tasty foodstuffs for the fasting season

After various stories about a variety of issues, one day I had gone to eat kebab’s at the chowk area of Bhopal during the month of Ramadan (Islamic month of fasting) and what a treat I had to myself. Apart from the kebab I had a tummy fill fenny (not the Goan fenny), shreemals and many more. So go on and read it as to what makes these road side food stalls in the chowk area of Bhopal to tick and click at the same time. This piece appeared in the Hindustan Times- Bhopal edition on November 6, 2002.

The entire walled city is abuzz with activity with people busy with preparing delicious meals which Muslims have after breaking their daylong fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Each year, the 100-odd bakeries all over the Old City get busy making the ‘shreemals’, “kazla’ and of course the famous ‘fenny’ preferred for the Sheri, the pre dawn light meal.
What is surprising is that all the items are very simple in ingredients and have the same base (maida). These are done up with three different patterns. A yellow color is added to some of them to make them attractive for customers.
Mohammed Razi, who runs a roadside shop near Moti Masjid, claims he is the only one who makes the Delhi and Lucknow’s famous ‘kazlas’ which are ‘namkeen’ in taste and heavier that the other two traditional fast-breakers.
For Anwar Bahi’s ‘fenny’ shop, also near Moti Masjid, it is business time. He uses two sacks of maida every day with 10 tins of Dalda with it and admits he does not compromise on the quality of ‘fenny’ which is very popular all over Bhopal.

And as for the ‘shreemals’ the one famous for making them is Mohammed Saeed’s bakery on the MLB College road. Saeed says with a smile that stall owners from as far as the bus stand on the Hamidia Road and even further come to him for the soft, fluffy breads during this holy month.
Salim Bahi, who owns a bakery in Ibrahimpura, says more than 500 to 600 sacks of ‘maida’ are consumed every day all over the City during the month of Ramadan and adds this business, is on a non-profit basis.
Yusuf Khan, another stall owner in Ibrahimpura, says he does a business of about Rs 2000 to Rs 2500 a day after expenses and says his shop sells ‘fenny’ throughout the year. At his shop, the old rate of Rs 2 a fenny prevails. Business or no business, these small 100-odd bakeries will be busy for the next month ensuring empty tummies get their fill after sunset.

Convention to stress for global peace

This story was one luckier one. When I had been to the Bhopal airport to cover the arrival of some political person from New Delhi to sort out the difference between the warring factions in the then Digvijay Singh led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. It so happened that I saw more than a dozen of Buddhist monks waiting for their religious leader who is the President of the Mahabodhi Society of Sri Lanka an also the Sanchi Stupa in Madhya Pradesh. After speaking to them and asking them the importance of the visitor, I approached him on his arrival and spoke to him for 20 minutes standing at the arrival exit door.

Fifty two-year old president of the Mahabodhi Society of Sri Lanka Ven. Banagala Upatissa would be leading 1000-odd delegates to the Buddhist convention starting here in Bhopal tomorrow. The venerable priest disclosed the convention would focus on global peace and other issues which would make the world a better place.
Ven. Banagala spoke to Hindustan Times at the Bhopal airport on his arrival here today. He said the rise in terrorism globally is alarming for priests like him all over the world. Only faith and religion can change the mindset of the hard-core terrorist, he said, adding hatred was being created by a few political parties, which are using religion to achieve wrong ends. He said conventions, such as the one in Bhopal, would enlighten people about faith in God and not political leaders.
As to why Sanchi was not chosen for the convention, Ven Banagala replied bad roads, acute shortage of water supply and shoddy telephone lines there had posed a major problem. “It took me two days to get through to some Japanese delegates on telephone from Sanchi”.
He said he had apprised the State Government, which needs to act on the problems. As it is, he said very few travelers are visiting Sanchi these days, and if the situation continues even they would not be seen, he said.
Asked what the Mahabodhi Society of Sri Lanka would achieve through this maiden convention, Ven. Banagala replied “we will seek to send a message to the world that we would like to have peace,” adding he had invited other religious leaders too for the two-day convention.
He was all praise for the then Home Minister Mahendra Baudh of the Congress Government, and said that he was organizing the convention and added that the minister readily agreed to the idea of the Golden Jubilee convention and had even attended a few courses in Buddhism in Sri Lanka.
Born to a family on Sri Lanka, Ven. Banagala has five sisters and four brothers. He also has some roots in Bhopal, having attended college in the State Capital and completed his Masters at the SSL Jain College in Vidisha in 1975.

Chance Tragedy presents City Photographer a rare opportunity

This story was handed over to me by the photographer himself after he returned to Bhopal from bone chilling experience of witnessing the worst ever helicopter crash in the history of Switzerland. Sanjay Jain who runs the Central Colour lab in Bhopal and with whom I was associated with to process my official film and make prints during my stint with Hindustan Times, spoke to me as to how he gave his own death a slip by five minutes.

A chance tragedy got an amateur City photographer a picture of his lifetime – some-thing even professional would trade their right hands for.
The rare accident had two helicopters crashing into each other in mid-air at Nandez Valley in Switzerland. Seven Indians and a Swiss national were killed. It was the first and the worst crash witnesses in the history of Switzerland aviation.
And Sanjay Jain, proprietor of Central Colour Lab, who recorded the incident for posterity, had taken a sortie in one of the choppers just minutes before they collided.
He says the sorties started with one chopper. Another was added mid-way to facilitate the first to go on another assignment. After a few rounds, the second chopper asked for reinforcement as there were many people waiting for their rides.
As the third one approached for landing, it crashed into the second chopper, which had taken off from the spot. The choppers collided 15 to 20 meters above the ground and 150 meters away from Sanjay’s lens.
Sanjay says just the prospect of framing both the approaching choppers prompted him to click the photo. Little did he realize that split seconds later they would crash into each other?
Himself a versatile photographer, Sanjay from his childhood had a knack of appreciating good images.
His own sortie had just taken five minutes. And Sanjay sys “I enjoyed every second of it.” Air Glaciers – a private Swiss company ran the helicopters.
As for his trip to Switzerland, Sanjay says it was organized by the Kodak Company to felicitate the buyers of photographic materials and sellers of cameras and films in the country.
They were first taken to Germany to take part in the world’s biggest photographic event called Photokina – the world’s best photographic technology exhibition.
The groups of Kodak representatives, on their way back, to India were taken to Switzerland, for a two day lay-off after their hectic schedule.
Sanjay adds contrary to what he had heard of efficiency in the West, the rescue operation at the accident site were woefully lacking. The sorties themselves were from a local football ground. There were no precautionary measures in attendance – no ambulance or fire tenders.
Besides the place was very far from Sion- the main city. Sanjay and the others there took the bodies out of the choppers, since the rescue team reached 40 minutes late. To top it all, the Swiss doctors who came after hour displayed what could be called reluctance to examine the bodies.
Meanwhile, three other Indians who were injured are recovering in Switzerland.
As for Sanjay he says he is game for more such rides, any day.

Training to be Gentlemen

This story by me was given to me by Ritu Raj Mate a good friend who used to train the NCC cadets in adventure sport. So when he told me the background of what all these students are taught apart from adventure, I thought this angle to cover these students some of them who have never eaten in a spoon or worn a tie would be a great story for the paper. So I quickly contacted the Commandant of the NCC for Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh and requested him if I could be allowed into their camp to write a story, for which re readily obliged in December 2002.

Each year, 110 NCC cadets (65 boys and 35 girls) from Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh are groomed to be sent to various friendly countries as part of a youth exchange programme (YEP).
The journey for these young goodwill ambassadors from cadets to officers is a long one. But at the end of it, the cadets emerge perfectly well-mannered gentlemen, groomed a year ahead of their passing-out by senior officers of the 4 MP NCC Battalion of Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh.
The cadets are put through their paces under the watchful eyes of DG MP & Chattisgarh LT General Das Gupta, camp Commandant Col Gadkary, YEP in charge Col MP Patil and Lt Col Ajay Dubey. The cadets learn everything right down to tying their shoes laces and minding their manners at the dining table.
The training starts for the cadets with learning to correctly pronounce difficult English words, geography, history, economy, current political happenings, religion, capitals, customs, languages and currency values of the countries they would visit under the YEP, says Lt.Col Ajay Dubey.
Adds camp commandant Col Gadkary “We teach them basic manners, the culture of India, interview techniques and above all, the word “truthfulness”, to ensure the cadets act like true ambassador of the country.
The day begins very early for the cadets, who also prepare for the Republic Day parade. In the afternoon, selected cadets gather in a hall to refresh themselves about the YEP, says Lt.Col Dubey. Here a few former YEP fellows lecture them about their experiences.
Cadet Captain Rashmi Agwekar, who visited Vietnam in September last, says it proved a wonderful experience for her. She says she came back with a lot of knowledge of the country and a horde of friends from there.
These cadets not only learn for their personal growth but for the overall growth of their school and college they represent, because they go back to pass on these tips to their juniors too.

Fiction to Reality

This note which I had left in the pro Barack Obama campaign site in 2007, which eventually turned out to become a reality in 2009. I had quoted a phrase using the words from the Irving Wallace book “The Man”, is now in the Organizing for America online blog. So I thought to put it up in my personal blog too.

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Save the World of which is left before it is finished

Fiction to Reality
By Photojournalist - Mar 3rd, 2007 at 11:44 am EST

‘I Douglas Dilman, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States …..’ this quote from a book written by Irving Wallace (1916 – 1990) “The Man”, says it all to the changing times which the American politics in going to witness in the next years Presidential elections.

Irving Wallace had written this fiction book in the 1960’s without the slightest of dreams that one day this would turn into reality. Barack Obama who is running for President in all probability will take the lead run from Hillary Clinton.

This Village keeps Govardhan Puja Spirit Alive

This story was part of the Diwali package which I had written for the Hindustan Times, Bhopal in 2001. During my ride to visit the village side I had go a whiff of what kind of fun they will have one day after the Diwali festival. So I followed it up and landed at the village where every year this play is enacted to keeps the tradition going.

The Bovine element in the cow-belt festival psyche may be withering away in the urbanized settings of the State Capital but the traditions of Gavardhan Puja, performed to worship Lord Krishna the next day of Deepawali, come into their own in villages on the city’s outskirts.
It’s another matter that the same day, a religious Chief Minister Digvijay Singh was performing the traditional foot march around the Govardhan hill in Mathura that , as mythology has it, was lifted by Lord Krishna to save his devotees from a downpour of catastrophic portions.
Gora Gaon, a tiny village near Bhadbhada reservoir – the type that dot the City’s boundaries without ever being noticed was the scene of a traditional challenge thrown at a mendicant drifter “Baba” by a snake-charmer to prove his prowess of the occult.
The wide-eyed villagers gathered in large numbers to watch the exchange in awe in the hamlet dominated by Meena tribe that hails from Rajasthan but who has sizable population in pockets of Western Madhya Pradesh.
Starting his rituals, the Baba soon went into a trance, shaking, shivering and mumbling incoherently. He claimed to possess recondite powers to even transform the fortunes of men.
The snake- charmer followed up by doubting his claims, derisively mocking at the Baba for being a phony. As the snake-charmer, Raghu Sapera, began to blow his pipe, Baba’s gyration and incantations grew more fierce. Women crouched and kids shrank away behind elders in fear.
Both swore at each other in a dialect for more than one hour while running into knocks and corners of the village and in between creating an mock fight. After a half a dozen such mock fights the Baba finally settles the score by ensuring the death of the snake –charmer, thus ending an generation old tradition of the Evil (snake-charmer) being killed by the Good (Baba).
Soon the elders started to stand up and gave away loads of money to the traditional artists who have played this very same role for more than a decade now.
The tradition village skit over with the elders happy that the evil in the village has been killed, while the middle aged were seen assuring the their young ones had learnt a lesson or two, so that they could keep the alive the tradition and festivity of the Govardhan Puja going in future too.

Villages doll themselves up to welcome Diwali

During one of my weekly scooter rides into the villages I happened to see the ladies of villages paint their home wall exteriors and interiors with cow dung and chalk powder. After talking to them, I got to know that this was their way of ushering in the festival of lights. Most of the other newspapers in Bhopal had stories of people preparing for the festival of lights while we at the Hindustan Times, Bhopal showed the village side instead.

Barely a few kilometers from the loud and shimmering Diwali celebrations in the State Capital, the rural hamlets are abuzz with preparations for a more simple and traditional festival of lights. Despite the in-efficient rains – which have spelt a difference of fest-harvest bounty and disaster for adjoining villages separated by just a few kilometers – the villagers are upbeat about welcoming the festival.
Houses with the thatched and tiled roofs are being given a new look with women shading from the front by applying fresh cow dung paste on the outer walls of their homes. Come to think of it, they’ve never even heard of the oil-based distemper that’s so popular in the nearby State Capital.
Villages on the Old Sehore road have a different pattern for decorating their homes than their counterparts from the Hoshangabad road side. The villages of Gora, Bisankedi, Ratibad, Neelbad and Sehore first plaster the walls with cow dung and then paint drawings with white and red limestone water.
In other parts, they just make do with the cow dung paste. “This is because we on the Misrod road have forgotten our traditional values,” says 70 years old Umrao Singh Patidar. He adds that since the city of Bhopal is growing in all directions, they had to stop performing the tradition “Gau Pooja” on Diwali. “The BDA has acquired the land on which the entire village used to get together every year to perform the Pooja,” he rued.
The villages on the Old Sehore Road have managed to keep alive their reverential rites for the bovines.

Fourty years old Sharda from Ratibad village feels that city slickers should watch the full pooja rites collectively performed by the villagers to go back to their roots. She adds that the tradition cuts across caste and creed.
25-year old farmer Ganshyam Patidar from Jaatkhedi village off Misrod says that this Diwali is a happy one for him and his family because the rains were enough to reap a good harvest.
However 60 years old Hari Singh, a farmer from the Neelbad village on another side of the State capital, says it is a poor festival for him because of the excessive rainfall towards the end of monsoon that damaged his standing crops.
The cow owners strike a rich harvest during Diwali with the demand for milk going up by 75%.
Harvest or no harvest, the quaint Diwali traditions of the rural folks will go on for the time being, till such time that being, till such time that the State Capital’s miasmic urban sprawl engulfs their little hamlets and fields.

Cracker makers to cash in on current & trendy

This was a trendy and timely story I got, exactly after one month of the twin tower attack in 2001, in which terrorist used planes loaded with innocent people ramming them onto the twin towers, to raze it to dust. The cracker industry in Tamil Nadu raked in all kind of images on the covers to ensure that their product hits with a big bang. And sell they did but on the images of a sordid happening to mankind by some forces which keeps denying the authority of freedom to live for all humanity.

Like every year, for this Diwali too cracker manufactures have put up various motifs- current and catchy – on their product covers to woo customers.
So expect the images of 9/11 terrorist strikes and the crumbling twin towers as well as cracker bombs going by names like ‘4 Bangs’ to symbolize the four attacks in the US.
And that’s not all. Names from even Hollywood films seem to have caught the imagination of the cracker makers this year. Titles of such Hollywood block busters as ‘Anaconda’ (after the giant South American snake) and ‘Jungle Book’ for tiny-tots are also to be found on the color schemes of some cracker covers.
However, the pride of place must surely go to such Bollywood hits such as ‘Suryavanshi’, ‘Tridev’ and ‘Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai’ that have had their names modified in some cases. Then, there’s a scary angle as well with Khooni-Raat covers.
The cola wars also get a mention in a bid to up the cracker sales. The catchy one-liner “Yeh Dil Maange More” appears on some cracker wrappers, apparently to catch them young. Paan could well be a down market, but the ‘Paan Bomb’ may not be targeting just that customer segment.
Faces of doe-eyed and raven-haired Bollywood beauties like Kajol have been liberally used on cracker covers earlier as well. They retain their place this time too.
Since the Sivakasi connection dominates the cracker industry, Tamil starlet Roja appears on some sparkler packets. Other faces are of youth icons like Sharukh Khan, Salman Khan and Amir Khan.
The cracker makers of the sulphur city of Sivakasi have tried their best to make a strong sales pitch using everything that is current and happening. Some sharp acumen appears to have gone into selecting the titles, stars and starlets for the North Indian region.
Down South, the same set of covers have dusky South Indian heroines and macho action heroes enticing the buyers.

Making a Home away from Hell

This story was written when I was photographing the various Lord Ganesh idol makers in the city of Bhopal in October 2002, during my stint with the Hindustan Times. As I was framing some images for the newspaper I saw another tent which had loads of Gujarati people and so I walked up to them and started a conversation, and to my surprise these were survivors of the Gujarat riots who had crossed the state border all the way to Bhopal to start a new life. The story was immediately accepted by the Resident Editor since it had a double peg to it with Riot Survivors and of course the festival mood added to it.

Among the many Ganesha idol-makers in the State Capital, there are three families furiously at work trying to exorcise their demons from a gruesome past. These 25-odd people are staking their all in their work, hoping it would help them settle into a new existence far away from riot-torn Gujarat – once their home.
In what was in the first week of May, six days after the riots broke out, that the three families fled the state, leaving behind their burning shops and houses and a trail of memories. The three families met at the Ahmedabad railway station. They found the money they had could fetch rail tickets only upto Bhopal.
The “Jat Dala’ or the (head of the Group) says they saved a couple of families before fleeing. He adds they chose Bhopal as it was the nearest place they could afford and seemed promising for their business. All the families incidentally were idol –makers in Ahmedabad and residents of the Navarangpura and the Ambawari areas. Their group has 15 men, 10 women, and 15 children. The youngest is two month old Ketan who was born in Bhopal. Veera Anil, who used to stay with his family in the Navrangpura area near th LD College in Ahmedabad can not forget the horror that uprooted his family. “I lost everything in the riots, my shop, house and my sister Jamuna Dhai whom I could not save,” he sys with tears in his eyes. They point out there is a difference between the Gujarati-style idols and the ones made here. The Gujarati ones are all shiny with a lot of silver –work on them. Their prices range from Rs 50 to an exorbitant Rs 6001. As the families work in their temporary “studios’ near the Mata Mandir, it is difficult to miss their eagerness to rebuild their lives in the city of lakes.

Visually challenged makes move with 'Vishy'

This story was another one which was provided to me by Anil Mudgal, a very good friend who runs ‘Arushi’ a NGO for the welfare of the disabled and specially the visually challenged. One evening when I was taking an evening walk near the office I happened to bump into him and he was narrating that he would be leaving with a 15 members blind students for Chennai to meet Chess Grand Master Vishwanath Anand. And so this story was written.

“The Gift given at the year end, Lifted the motherland’s glory to unachievable heights, Said the mother in joyous mood, Keep this wonderful work always as high, Hey Anand remain elevated in this century, Happy millennium and a happy new year”

This translation of a Hindi poem penned by the visually challenged Radheshyam Panwariya (23) will be presented to the world chess champion, Vishwanath Anand, in Chennai on February 5, 2001. Do not think that what he does only is writing poems in awe and admiration. He has the gumption to throw gauntlet at the world champion across the chessboard. February 5 springs up another such moment for him to match his brain with Vishy.
The last time Panwariya played with Anand was in 1999. He played the white to lose to the Grand Master in 42 moves. “This year I am going well prepared to give at least a scare to the tiger of chess,” says Panwariya.
“I have done my home work well and made up some moves which the Grand Master will appreciate,” he added like an exuberant fighter.
While playing the last time Panwariya started with king pawn only to loose his queen Knight within five moves. “I was offensive though in the middle of the game Anand advised me to cool off. This time I will play safe and try me best to protect the knights as long as possible,” he said.
“if I can delay his victory this time, it itself is an achievement,” says he who started playing Chess at the age of 12. he thanks Arushi, an NGO working among the visually challenged in Bhopal for providing him all that is needed to stay ahead in the brain game.
On being asked about offering the white to Anand to play with, he laughed with a quip, “Do you want me to become a sacrificial goat? “Anand is the king in the white game and I will be finished in ten moves.”
After the game in 1999, Anand shared a few tricks of the trade with me. I have always kept them in my mind while playing practice matches with the computer. Though I have won a few practicing game, I lost many as well.” Anand did tell me the last time that he lost a game in five moves to his mother, when he had made some rash moves seven years ago. “Playing safe will always make the opponent think and in the process there is every chance that he makes a mistake on which you can make up moves to victory,” said the Grand Master.
On asked what he would achieve by playing with the world champion, “more knowledge about the game” was his reply.
“The Grand master is a good human being and so is his wife, Aruna. They spent a whole day with us the last time an hopefully they will repeat the same this year,” says Panwariya.
Though Panwariya knows that he will loose the game, he says, “If things go well in the coming years, I will keep challenging the Grand Master time and again till I win.”

Moti Masjid gets back its view

This was a story by chance as I was roaming the streets of Bhopal to get some offbeat and stand alone pictures that I noticed the workers of the BMC clearing the front view of the Historic Moti Masjid. After a few discussion with the workers, went back to the office only to be told by my Editor to file a small piece on what happened there at the spot.

The front (eastern) entrance of the historic Moti Masji and its park, was virtually closed for general public from the past about two decades, were finally reopened on January 8th, 2001, after the removal of a nursery in the mosque’s park.
According to Syed Aftab-uddin alias Tabbu Miyan, the nursery run by one Munne Miyan in the park of the mosque had partially blocked the mosque’s view and totally prevented the people’s entrance.
The land belonging to Shahi Auqaf had been leased to Munne Miyan who established a nursery and paid Rs 30 per day to the Auqaf.
Because the nursery occupied the whole park, the Muslims were forced to offer prayers on roads on both sides of the mosque on the occasion of Eids.
This will not happen on the coming Eid thanks to the BMC’s effort.
The BMC, on the direction of the Chief Minister Digvijay Singh (according to the residents) removed above 100 truckloads of plants and trees from the nursery to give back the view of the magnificent building to the general public.
Moti Masjid was constructed by Bhopal’s second ruler Sikander Jahan Begum around 1850. it is built of red stone and marble and a fine piece of Islamic architecture.

Laughing away the Demon King

This story again within the four walls of the Bhopal central jail was fun to write since I was present for the two hour session the inmates had with the members of the city laughter club on the eve of Dussehra. It was fun to join them and also write this story after my return to the open and false world.

The Central Jail inmates had a time of their lives on October 26, 2002. The premises reverberated with their Ho-Ha-Ha …… for over two hours. The inmates were guffawing to drive the demons out!
Full points to Laughter Club, Bhopal for the idea. Laughter was of course always the best medicine. But, this was clearly much more than a therapy session for the inmates. In large numbers the Club members drove to the jail and did everything to make the inmates laugh their woes off.
And going by the success of the event, laughing sessions may just become a routine affair in the Jail. “If this therapy helps, the inmates may have a weekly laughter session,” Purshottam Somkuwar, Jail Superintendent said.
“But, of course the Laughter Club members have to give their consent first,” he added with a chuckle.
“Laugh to drive the Ravan inside them away,” is how the jail Superintendent describes the endeavour.

For once 1,220 men and 60 women had no apprehensions when they were asked to welcome Desai, founder member and president of the Laughter Club. They were all smiles.
Ram Lal from Vidisha, an inmate for over four years guffawed ….. Oh Oh Aha Aha … Lal was laughing after one full year!
An inmate sulked in one of the corners. The Club members were in no mood to give up on him. Soon, the members were seen chatting with him and a few minutes later, the beaming inmate was introduced as Mohammad.
But, the Club members had a lot to thank the jail superintendent for. They were allowed to get real close to the inmates.
“We wanted the inmates to have a good time for a change. And this laughing session was the best bet,” P R Dhruve, Jailer in charge of Bhopal Central Jail said.
Women inmates had women for company. Club members ensured that all of them had fun. Some were shy and it was difficult to make them laugh, but they once got going there was no stopping them.
As for the inmates, some of them were all praise for the Jail Superintendent. “Things have changed after his arrival. Such novel functions are held quite often,” an inmate said.
Assisatant Jailer L K S Bhadauria later said, “It is good to see the inmates laughing. I hope such sessions help them turn a new leaf.”

Prajapat paid sisterly visit

Rakshabandhan was celebrated by the big-time headline grabber of recent times in the State, former Congress general secretary Inder Prajapat, in the Central Jail along with hundreds of other inmates.
The man who pulled the trigger on his colleague and fellow general secretary Manak Agarwal was tied the traditional thread by his youngest sister Kiran Prajapat in his cell.
As for his victim – Agarwal recovering at the Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai – a cousin residing in the city tied rakhi. Agarwal had lost his own sister two years back.
Beleaguered Pradesh Congress Committee, president Radhakishan Malviya – in the dock for promoting Prajapat – returned to Bhopal from Indore after visiting his three sisters. Seeing this approaching correspondent, the much –troubled Malviya hastily said he had nothing to say.

Love binds within Prison Walls

What enabled me to over score the hordes of fotog’s in Bhopal was my capability to write, and this special imbibe was induced into me by my friends Jayant Kodkani, Vinay Kamat, Sumit Chakraberti and Balasubramanium at the start of my career with the Times of India , Bangalore edition in 1987-88. They ensured and taught me the art of news writing with a little flair so that the end product is readable by the common man on the streets.
Well this story too was another plus in the Hindustan Times when I reported the scene from the field and ensuring that the paper just did not carry a stand alone image but have an overall picture of the festive mood with in boundaries of the Jail premises during Raksha Bandhan – in 2000.

Even as the Prime minister was busy in New Delhi getting rachis tied by men and women of all faiths or rakshabandhan, the scene was no different at the Bhopal Central Jail. More than 3,500 inmates queued up to get their tied with the bonds of filial love by their sisters and brothers. Religion was no bar as Muslim inmates got their rachis from the Hindu siblings of their fellow inmates. Muslims inmates, present in large numbers, freely joined in the festivities making it a unique celebrations of communal harmony within the four walls of the prison.
The scene was one of total emotion for the jail inmates and their visitors, with the prison walls being colorfully decked up for the occasion with Dharis put up inside the main wall.
For some, and among them the jailer and the superintendent, it was a busy day ensuring no untoward incident took place. But their anxiety on that count seemed misplaced, for untoward ness of any kind seemed farthest from the minds of any one within the prison walls today.
Outside the jail, the relatives were allowed in, 25 persons to a group, on a first cum first basis after registering their names at the main entrance.
Inmates, who had no visitors, were moved to tears by getting rachis tied by the relatives of their fellow inmates.

The women inmates were also given a chance to participate on the joyous occasion with rachis supplied by the jail staff to tie to their visiting brothers.
Ramlal, an inmate, shed tears of joy seeing his sister, wife and their 6-month old baby. “I had committed a crime when she (the baby) was in her mother’s womb. I thank god for giving me this opportunity to see my baby now,” he said.
Razia Begum (name changed) was equally emotional to see her husband being tied a rakhi by relatives of a fellow inmate.
As for Heera, serving time for murder and who has had no visitors calling on him for the past two years, this year has been no different. But no regrets, he says. “No one has come to tie me rakhi, but my heart wells up just seeing my fellow inmates getting heir rakhis tied by their sisters.”
But in the end, the time granted to meet their relatives proved only too cruelly short. Not a few relatives complained about the short time given (15 minutes per inmate) with their loved ones. The jailer replied that they had to be very careful as these are women we have to deal with.
After the relatives left, it was back to the prison routine. The inmates were thoroughly frisked, their tiffin boxes and other pooja items checked before being handed back to them. Checking over, it was time to go back to their cells.
For at least once in the year, on rakshabandhan, it was their brothers that the women had come to see and not a condemned criminal.

Prisoners offer a lesson in self-help on water crisis

This story was planned when one day I was visiting the jail during the annual Raksha Bandahan that I saw two dozen hardened criminals being paraded in a line and taken by walk to the other side of the jail premises, so I asked the Jailer on their movements and he just brushed it aside and told me to call him later in the day after the other media members have left the jail premises. I did so that evening and he explained me the whole story, and asked me to visit if I want to the next day. I did so and landed up with another story to my credit.

The convicts residing with in the four walls of the Central Jail are set to teach a lesson or two to their compatriots on the outside. The jail inmates have their own solution to the current water crisis and accordingly plan to construct their own stop-dam at the Gandhi Nagar area of Bhopal, opposite the jail premises.
Till recently, illegal occupants had a free run of the place setting shops and houses on the Central Jail land. Thanks to the efforts of Jail Superintendent Purshotam Somkuwar the encroachments were removed. It was Somkuwar’s idea to set up a stop-dam and a farm in the area.
“When I saw the Bhoj Wet Land people breaking up the hills close by and dumping boulders in our grounds, I decided to make use of them by constructing a stop dam. The dam would make available potable water for the 2,500-odd inmates, 1,500-odd staffers and residents in a four KM radius. The 50 by 8 meter stop dam would span an area of 600 meters and run 1.5 meters deep. The entire construction would be undertaken by the Bhopal Central Jail inmates.
Somkuwar says the project would enable the Police Department to save Rs 5,000 per day in water expenditure for the jail.

He adds the rain water running down adjoining hills and flooding the area would be the main source of water.
“I have requested the BMC to give us digger machines to remove the silt. There has been no response so far, so I have decided to approach private organizations for their support,” he says. While the dam promises to solve the summer water shortage in the jail, for life convict Kanahiya Lal, it also promises a taste of freedom. Kanahiya Lal says it feels great to work outside the four walls without the chains – a staple scene in innumerable Hindi films. And while the hardened criminals confront the pressing problem head-on, it is high time the BMC and public in general learn a lesson and start thinking of the fate of the 15 odd lakes in the City. Hopefully, they have to approach the Central Jail inmates for potable water.

Pools shut doors for 'Swimming Prodigy'

This story after it appeared in the Hindustan Times - Bhopal edition in 2001, gave a great feeling to me, since I being from a sporting background, I had placed myself into the situation the boys who were using the Lower Lake as their swimming turf and bringing laurels to the State of Madhya Pradesh, while those who were slightly higher in financial status were given the privilege of training in the Government swimming pool. After this story appeared in Hindustan Times - Main Paper along with supplement srories in the HT Bhopal -Live and the Photo Story, Uma Bharati the then Union Minister for Sports intervened and ensured that all these underprivileged swimmers of the city of Bhopal are issued a card and allowed to train in the government swimming pools. This plain satisfaction which my story did for the boys of the fishermen community in Bhopal will always remain in my memory and am also thankful to Uma Bharati who had taken some steps to build the bridge and ensure that at least in sports there is no difference between the rich and poor.

Winning two swimming gold medals at the National level and about 75 gold medals at district and State levels during the past five years means nothing for the people who run the three swimming pools in Bhopal. Swimming prodigy 14- year old Sajan Batham would still have to practice in the highly contaminated and foul-smelling waters of the Lower Lake.
The doors of the swimming pools are close on Sajan and about fifty other youths of the fishermen community for they cannot pay the annual fee of Rs 1000 or above. Nor do they have the conveyance facility to travel from downtown Bhoipura locality on the bank of the Lower Lake to the swimming pools every day.
Sajan is one of the most promising boys being trained by Murildhar Batham who runs Dolphin Club.
In the national meet, Sajan participates in an amazing 16 events of the junior groups and eight of the senior’s category. The Batham community holds total sway in the district and State level championships. About 30 of the 45-member district team, participating in the current State Swimming championship under way here at Prakash Tarun Pushkar, are Bathams.
Nobody exactly remembers the number of golds Sajan has won at district and State levels. Not even Sajan himself. All his coach Murlidhar batham can say is “Sajan has won about 125 medals and no less than three-fourths of them are gold.”
But business is business. Neither the Capital Project Authority (CPA), which runs Prakash Tarun Pushkar, nor the Bhopal Municipal Corporation which runs Pari Bazar swimming pool can make a concession to the talented sports persons. Pay fees and acquire membership; health hazard from the Lower Lake and your talent both be damned.
Sajan and 30 others boys practice up to three hours every day in the Lower Lake. And yet they do not feel uncomfortable when they switch over to the swimming pools for the championship.

Sajan Batham (Left) and Sunil Batham (Right)

“I sure would like to regularly practice in swimming pools,” says Sajan with a sad look.
What facilities are provided by the State Swimming Association?
“Well, they allow us to compete in championships,” remarks Murlidhar. “In any case, the Association does not have funds to support swimmers adequately,” he adds. Sajan, though hurt and bewildered at not being allowed to the swimming pools, is undaunted. “I will keep winning till they come to me and offer to use the polls.” That, however, seems to be not possible in the near future.

Swimmers in Search of Water

Ranjit Bataham, a strapping 20 year old from the fisherman community is a temporary hand in the ongoing pulse polio campaign for a meager daily wage of Rs 30. his muscular tone doesn’t go with his menial job. He’s a swimmer in a league of his own, having made innumerable contribution in aquatics for Mahya Pradesh over the last eight years.
He doesn’t even remember the first splash in the historic Lower Lake of the State Capital. Boys from his community start that young. Ranjit has a unique legacy: his father Ravi Shankar was national and State Champion for over five years on the trot in the late 70s.
A word with the father-son duo reveals a shocking reality. Fishermen like them have been swimming in the polluted and stinking waters of the Lower Lake for decades before going on to be national champions. That’s because they aren’t allowed practice in the Government-controlled swimming pools in Bhopal, except for the odd meet because the State desperately needs the medals to show off. There’s no formal coaching. The love of water is all that keeps them going.
Ravi Shankar was a BHEL employee. Denied promotions despite earning bagsful of medals for his employer, Ravi Shankar turned to liquor to drown frustration borne out of neglect. When he was kicked out due to irregular attendance, unions demanded Rs 50,000 to help him get the job back. His latest vocation is taking tourists on a cruise in the Lower Lake and makes about Rs 60 a day. Fishing during pre-dawn hours helps him support a family of eight with about Rs 80 per day.
Ranjit, on the other hand, has quit studies and does odd jobs to support his family. “I have five younger sisters to marry off,” he moans.
There are many stories like this father-son duo. They don’t figure in the sports plans of the officialdom.
The indigent community went to the extent of pooling money to get a Sports Authority of India (SAI) coaching certification for one of its boys. Ishwar Ram Batham, another national swimmer, was coached at the SAI center in Patiala. Lack of opportunities forced him back into his dingy slum on the banks of the Lower Lake.

“When I approached SAI center in Bhopal after completing training in Patiala as a coach, I was told that it was a waste as there was no vacancy. “They added that swimming is not going to be promoted in Madhya Pradesh.” He then approached the State Swimming Federation only to hear the same answer.
The last swimming coach at SAI center in Bhopal was Dilip Singh Chouhan in 1995. Ishwar says if swimming is promoted in Bhopal, an unbeatable team could be produced.
“The Swimming Federation in Bhopal and Madhya Pradesh do very little for our community who are gifted swimmers from an early age. We are not even allowed to enter the pools for training,” Ishwar complains.
For the swimming team of Bathams & Raiwakars, the day starts very early, at 4am, catching fish. A two hour swimming practice follows from 7 am and after that it’s off to schools and colleges. Food, of course being low priority. Twenty-year-old Sunil Batham, a national swimmer and present State Champion with an unmatched record doesn’t know nutrition. He has taken part in 15 championships and meets including school-level, national opens and State championships, and has a haul of over 75 medals. “All we need is proper training and nourishment to produce results,” he says wistfully.
Sajan Batham is another swimmer who at 19 already has more than 50 medals, “All we need is the SAI canter to adopt us and the results will follow,” he says.
The list of national swimmers this small community has produced is long and medals are visible in all the community households near the Kali Mandir on the banks of the Lower Lake.

Can Uma Bharati & SAI help?

If sports lovers back they would have enough reasons to feel proud of the achievements of Limba Ram & Kamala Sidhi. Former Union Minister for Sports Margret Alva had started a scheme for the Sidhis in the costal belts of Karnataka. The scheme paid dividends. Present MP and Union Minister of Sports Uma Bharati would do well to initiate a similar scheme for the swimmers of the Batham & Raikwar community in Bhopal. Any delay would only kill the sport for this community, which youngsters already feel is a waste of energy. Instead they want to concentrate energies on their generations –old profession and catch fish for the “thekedars’ at an ever-decreasing price.

AWARDS ELUDING THE COMMUNITY
The Ekalvya and Vikram awards coveted by every State sportsperson have eluded the swimming community of the city for more that a decade. The last swimmer to have received the Vikram award for swimming was Deepak Joshi in 1990. Though their coach has been applying for his wards for the last 5 years the Lower Lake boys have yet to find favour with the Sports Department. The community calls it bias, and cites their extraordinary performances at the State and national levels. Sunil and Sajan Batham seem to have got the worst of the deal. Rajender, head coach of the community, says Indore swimmers wlk off with the awards with much less achievements. Last year’s Ekalavaya award winner for swimming has only a single National opens silver medal, he points out.

Reaction form the Union Minister for Sports:
After the Hindustan Times carried this story Union Sports Minister Uma Bharati who was in Bhopal, ensured that all the swimmers from this community were given an pass to enter the government run swimming pools and also were issued a free bus pass. As for SAI adopting them, Uma Bharati had issued an order asking SAI to work out the modalities of adopting them and had the director to submit a detailed report on how many would actually make it to the SAI center. This reaction from an Union Minister was very helpful and now the Bathams and the Raikwaras of the city of Lakes have started to swim their way to glory, only a few more years and one will get to see a flood of swimmers from this very bank at the Lower Lake fighting for honor in the elite of the elitist in the field of water sport.

Hairy bid for a world record

Santram Vaghel had some to the Hindustan Times office in Bhopal in 2003 saying that he will be putting his moustache for a world record. It was a nice human interest story and I spoke to him at length and what you get to read is from an interaction with him at the reception area.

Santram Vaghel swears by his moustache for anything and everything in life. And why not? It is not an ordinary one. At 16.3 inches (45 centimeters), the 42-year-old farmer from Bagsevania village near Bhopal plans to grow it for a couple of years more and bid for a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
Stretching his upper lip hair to its full glory, Vaghel says an old goldsmith friend inspired him to grow his moustache. He had gone to borrow money from the friend, who asked him to mortgage something of equivalent worth. Santram promptly gave him a hair from his moustache for the RS 6,000 he borrowed.
Hi proud possession has only grown in worth fro him since then, and for the past 10 years he has not tried to hinder its untrammeled growth.
Ten years back, he sported a 22-inch moustache. He had to remove it after a son expired. Had it not been for that unfortunate incident, he would have long overtaken the Guinness record being held by his compatriot from Rajasthan, he says.
Though he is the only one in his family to have that big a moustache, he says now some villagers have also taken cue from him.
It remains to be seen if Vaghel becomes yet another man from the state to make it to the annals of the Guinness Book of Records. Or if any of his inspired village peers beat him to it.

E-cards spelling ruin for traditional greeting cards

This story you get to read was a chance when during one of my evening walks at the new market area in Bhopal, I noticed that they were no takers for the traditional cards in 2002 and this was for the use of E-cards by the all and sundry to greet their near and dear ones.

The charm of the traditional greeting cards seems to have a serious challenge from cyber-space. Some of the vendors and outlets dealing in theme cards for the season over the counter are being forced to rethink their business model as some have reported sales dip to the tune of a staggering 60 per cent.
New Year, some say, might not bring any cheer for them. Those who offer a complete basket of gifts are better off., but only slightly. Card vendors and stall owners in New Market have cut by half in some cases to push sales and clear the year’s inventory.
Since, season’s greetings occur only once a year, all our New Year cards would turn useless because themes for the next year might change, says Rajeev, stall owner. He adds he hopes to recover at least a part of his investment this way.
The e-cards have hit business so badly that there’s no other way out except sell at heavy discount, says KS Chauhan, a part-time street side vendor in Old Bhopal area who makes some money on the side through this business during festivals and New Year. “E-cards are convenient. Never mind if they are impersonal,” he rues.
So what if there are e-cards says 20 year old Nina and adds that though she sends e-cards to her friends and relatives, she was doubling up the effort by sending traditional greeting cards as well. “I hope my snail-mail cards are more permanent,” she adds.
According to Ravinder, a stall owner in New Market, the sale of cards has been dropping at a rapid pace in the last three to four years by an astonishing rate of 20 to 25 percent annually. He plans to fold up this business if the trend continues.
He has hopes in the likes of Radhika, another net-savvy girl, who shuts down her computer goes hunting for traditional cards which her friends will preserve for life and remember her even when they get old.
Shushank, an internet buff says it’s about time everyone came out with the truth. “Who in the world has time to keep count of the cards and that too for so many years?” he asks rhetorically. So he reckons sending an e-card free of cost is fine.

Dot.com jail in the making

This story I got because of my personal contacts which I had built inside the Bhopal Central Jail administration. They called me to tell me that they have set up computers with internet facilities for the use of the jail inmates. This was the first of its kind in the jails in the country and so I went ahead and visited the jail to know from the inmates on their new hi-tech facility provided to them by the authorities in 2001.

IT would be IT or Dot.com time for the 30,000 odd prisoners in the various jails across the State next year as they get trained to make use of the latest computer technology and the Net. This huge project was initiated by the DG Prisons Shakeel Raza who said that linking the various jails through computers is a better alternative to manual labour dependent and expensive work.
Talking to the Hindustan Times, Raza said that the first phase is to link all the central jails and then later on link the sub jails to them.
The project is costly says Raza and adds that ‘though the Police Head office has shrunk our budget we will go ahead with it.’
Some prisoners who are learning computer operations at the Ass jailer and the jailer’s office within the jail premises say that they are having fun with the computer and have a better opportunity to get a job once they are out of jail without having to pay to learn it.
The jail Superintendent says that even official letter written to higher officers are typed and saved by the jail inmates on computers.

All bio-data’s and old files of the jail inmates are now keyed in and loaded onto the system that would enable anyone around the world to access them.
The cost of the new conference room done up at the jail head quarters has been marginal for the jail department as the total man power came from the jail and only the raw materials had to be bought for them says DG Raza.
The jail department has ambitious ideas of creating a well-stocked CD library so that the CDs are duplicated and used in various presentations made by the state police department and other department within the State.
“The project in very big and we have plans to educate the inmates along with my officers on video conferencing in the near future,” says DG prisons Raza, ‘this will enable all to know each other well and thus reduce the burden of paper work for the officers’. This would also act as a medium for education on various vocations taught in the jail and thus reduce the problem of looking for good teachers, he adds. But there would be checks and balances and filtering too on the use of the computer with internet facilities.

Ganga Holds out rich Promise

This interview was done on the banks of Ganga at Shivpuri in Uttarkand when I had gone to cover the Four Square white water challenge in 1994 for the Deccan Herald. Below is the extract from the interview I had with Albert Wood who was the then President of the International Canoeing Union and also the European Kayaking Union.

Albert J Wood, President of the International Canoeing Union as well as the European Kayaking Union, is a soft-spoken gent from the British Isles, the main force behind water sports.
His credentials cannot be questioned, for he has toiled with great success during the Olympics and the recent Asiad in Hiroshima. Speaking to Deccan Herald, Mr Wood dwelled at length about the sport’s future, the new disciplines to be added for glamour’s sake.

Do you think the Ganga is good enough for an international meet?
Well, the river is superb with a surrounding just out of the world. The flow of water is not at all dangerous. I feel that the Ganga could be the main center in Asia.

Why was this sport shelved at the Olympics?
Lack mof funds, no support from the Olympic Committee, and various other factors which I am disinclined to elaborate on.

Was it that the sport itself was dangerous and hence the discipline was dropped after the Munich Olympics in 1972?
The sport is not dangerous at all. People who know swimming can always take to the sport like a duck to water. Actually after the Munich Olympics the then president of the Canoeing Union said the Union had run out of funds which to my knowledge are not correct.
Then the Olympic Committee said the sport is dangerous and that they did not have the funds to host the sport at the next Olympics. These two are the main factors which led to the ouster of the sport.

How was it revived and who are the main people to have played a part in it?
During the 1972 Olympics, two divisions of this sport- rafting and Kayaking – were among the disciplines. As the boats were very heavy, participants were always prone to immense danger if a raft or kayak keeled over. As science developed, so did the sport. Now we have rafts which are made of solid rubber. Even if they capsize, they will not sink. They will float with the current. And that is an undeniable advantage for the aspect of danger is almost totally ruled out.
Canoe and kayak are made if plastic and the same apply to the rafts. The sprot’s inclusion in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona was under active consideration following its review by the Olympic Committee. The Union and the public who love this sport have worked hard to get this sport back to the mainstream.

How many countries are involved in this sport, and how many turned up for the last world championship?
As many as 83 countries are involved in this sport. All of them are affiliated to the union. At the World championship in Sheffield this year, 46 nations took part and we are hoping for better attendance at the next meet scheduled to be held at Adelaide.
Some of the major countries involved in the sport are the United State, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and a lot of other countries in Europe.

Your impression about the Indians?
I am happy to find Indians don’t lack in physical fitness or stamina. But I am particularly impressed by the Kerala boys.
All the need is a lot of international exposure. Since India is endowed with superb infrastructure, the association can always get foreign coaches to get to know the latest. That should help in tapping the vast potential India has.

Seven in her bag, many more in her mind

This story was sheer luck when I was covering the World woman snooker championship for the Deccan Herald in Delhi in 1994, that I saw the Hindu correspondent talking to Allison Fisher who was all time great in the table top ball game. So I just joined in the chat and asked a few questions myself and later found that this chat turned out to be a Q&A piece.

At 26, Allison Fisher has already won the women’s world snooker championship seven times. In the latest edition of the championship, in Delhi, Fisher fought off Stacey Hillyard to complete a hat-trick of triumphs too.
In a dozen years in the game Fisher could proudly say she ahs won all there is in the women’s game. Not to rest on her laurels, the blonde from Hertfordshire in Sussex has stormed the mal bastion and promises to make a success of it.
Fisher spoke to Deccan Herald during the Highball world championship at hotel Le Meridien in the capital. Excerpts:

Q: When and how did you take to this game?
A: When I was seven years old I saw this game on TV and took a keen interest in it. In the evenings my parents used to take me to some of the social clubs. Most of them had a six-foot table and that is where I started my game when I was about eight. At 14, I got the big break when I was allowed to play with men.

Q: is anybody else in your family into the game?
A: No, nobody, though my father is trying to now. All my three brothers tried and gave up because the have no patience.

Q: Which matches would you rate as your best and the worst in your professional career?
A: I would rate the semi-finals here against Tessa Davidson as the best. I was three games up only to see the fourth which I by a difference of two points. This was the toughest and memorable one. The worst was again with Tessa in the semi-final of the 1990 world championship where I lost 5-2. I was not able to play one shot straight after being the world champion. That embarrassed me most.

Q: Which other player do you respect on the circuit?
A: I respect almost all of them but I have special regard for Tessa Davidson and Stacey Hillyar. Among men Steve Davis is the only one I respect though (Jimmy) White and Stephen Hendry are also good players.

Q: Who are the players to look for in the future?
A: Among the ladies, it is Kelly Fisher which in the men’s it is Ronnie O’Sullivan, because both of them are good positional players and crack potters.

Q: What made you move over to the men’s circuit?
A: I didn’t have much to prove on the ladies circuit. What was to be achieved had been done time and again. Besides there is more money and more experience to be had on the men’s circuit. In the women’s game, there is not so much prize money. I found it very difficult to find sponsor four or five years ago, and I remember I had to play with the same cue for close to ten years. Now that I am in the men’s circuit, and in the top 200, I have signed a four year contract with a Chinese company named Cue-Tec.
It is also a challenge for me and I have not taken it lightly though I have lost close matches to O’Sullivan and (Alan) MCManus. By the end of 1995 I think I will be able to challenge even the best players even if I am not able to beat them.
The standard of the ladies snooker has improved. While in the late 80s you had to wait till the semi-final for a good match, there are better matches to be had now right from the start. The men’s tournaments continue to get more publicity while the ladies events are pushed backstage.

Q: What can be done to improve the ladies scene?
A: All I can say is we need some dedicated people who have no other jobs other than making sure that tournaments are held regularly to enable the players to improve their skills and find sponsor for themselves.

Q: Why did you suggest clubs for ladies when they are already plenty of them in London?
A: Because the clubs we have back home are not places where a lady could go and have a few decent games.

Q: Have you ever played billiards?
A: I did try long back when I first won the world championship. Billiards needs more patience while snooker is a game which can be finished off. Billiards is very technical and I am not qualified for it right now.

A Fine Gesture

This story on an American teaching the Indians the dance form which they had ruled for centuries happened when I was sitting at the National School of Drama and taking to Krithi Jain the then director in 1993. So after a lot of phone calls made to Justin I finally managed to tell him that the story which I was working on is trendy and dance related, since he was reluctant to speak to me at the onset.

Dance: US-born Justin McCarthy, who came to India to learn Bharatnatyam, is now teaching Indians nuances of the dance. S Shiv Kumar profiles the guru

A young Justin loved the sound of music and the melodious pounding sounds of the feet – dance, but his parents forced him to learn the piano, and told him that dance is only for girls. It was at the California University that McCarthy, then 15, tried his hands at various dance forms such as ballet – and even karate. He joined the San Francisco Ballet School as a pianist. It was in 1978 that he witnessed a performance of Bharatnatyam by two reputed teachers and also the pupils of he legendary T Balasaraswati, from ‘Under the way of The Dance School’.

He joined the school as a pupil of Lesandre Ayrey and Mimi Janislawaki. After learning the basics for a year, he decided to move to Madras to learn the form completely. Overcoming stiff opposition to the idea from his parents and relatives, he set foot in the land of Natyam, It was in 1979, and he was 23. no sooner did McCarthy reach Madras that he took ill with jaundice, malaria and diarrhea.
However, he soon overcame the setback, and with an artist’s discipline and determination, spent hours every day learning the dance from stage by stage. Like other dancers I did not want to try my luck on the at a early stage during my learning process, which may have result in some people becoming disinterested in your dance.
His cherished moments to date are two group shows performed in Delhi in January 1993, the staging of Madurai Kanchi and Maruduha Attam from Sangam literature, and then later in October the staging of Jalkson Pollock visits Tanjore with five others. He has performed in Germany, Belgium and England where the audience turnout was not upto expectation.
McCarthy refuses to say if he is happy with what he earns teaching Bharatnatyam. “I make some extra bread by giving private piano lessons,” is all he would add.
McCarthy has also learnt Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit. He has no plans of going home for now. “When I set off for India in 1979 I had planned to stay only for five years. People tell me to set up a Bharatnatyam school back home, but I don’t think that will be fruitful ,” he says.

Man in a great hurry

This small piece written by me was published in the Deccan Herald reporter’s dairy. What was nice in this small piece was that I wrote about a man who transformed the face of the electorate and also the fort which holds such electoral process. I think by now you would have taken a guess? Yes it was none other than T N Seshan the Chief Election Commissioner – CEC of the Election Commission of India.

Countdown has begun… that’s how Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan’s encounter begins with the press photographers in Delhi every time they come across the ebullient former civil servant.
Seshan, who has a penchant for publicity and would invariably like to see his pictures in newspapers, normally sets a time-limit for lensmen to ‘shoot’ him before every important meeting he attends.

On September 28, 1994 too, when he, along with the other two Election Commissioners, met the leaders of various political parties, the countdown… was repeated by Seshan as photographers jostled with each other to capture the rotund CEC in their cameras at the Nirvachan Sadan, the headquarters of the Election Commission. Looking at the battery of lensmen ready to ‘snipe’ at him in the small, clustered hall of the Sadan, Sehsna cried out at the cameramen “the countdown ha begun” and to no surprise of the photographers started counting: 1000, 999, 998, … 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 …” and yelled ‘Now get out all of you.’ “The meeting will start now.” As the CEC continues to be the prize catch, he was promptly there to meet all the newspapers the next morning.

Lucy carries on for Harry

This one on one piece happened when I was covering the Davis Cup Semi-Finals between Australia and India at Chandigarh in the month of October, 1993. There was a very special guest from Australia whom most of the sports reporters had missed and since I had this habit of trying to go for the extra mile, I asked some of the Australian players who was she and collected enough information on her before talking to her. The story you see below is an extract from the 2 hour long conversation I had with Lucy Hopman on the final day after I had transmitted the action pictures to our Bangalore office for print.

For those who were at the Davis Cup semi-final at Chandigarh it was the chance to se a 73 year old lady with a tanned face and a figure that you get to see on Star TV. The lady is none other that Mrs. Lucy Hopman, the wife of Late Harry Hopman who was the most successful captain –coach in the Davis Cup history.
Under Harry Hopman’s watchful eye the Australians won the Cup 16 times in 21 years, and players like Neale Frazer, John McEnroe, Vitas Gerulaitis, and our own Ramesh Krishnan attend his Saddlebrook International Tennis Camp, at Tampa Bay, Florida, after he had moved to the USA. In 1985 Harry Hopman died, leaving his ever-smiling wife Lucy Hopman to carry on.
It was like a baseline ballet down memory lane as Mrs Hopman narrated her past. She married Hopman and recalls how much she loved him with a hint of tears in her eyes.
Lucy first met Harry when she was just 18 years-age when the Australian team was in the US for the Challenge Round of the Davis Cup. It happened again the next year, but this time the Australians triumphed, coming back from 0-2 down to beat the US. Then came World War II which caused a break in Davis Cup history. Thereafter Australia declined while the US grew in Davis Cup Strength.
As Mrs Hopman wipes her sweaty brow she adds with delight and pride that Australia won the Davis Cup in 1950 and on 14 more occasions till 1969 under Harry.
In every country in the world there is at least one player who was coached by the ‘Great Kangaroo’ from Down Under. Mrs Hopman herself came from a tennis family. Her aunt Hazel Wightman became the US national champion in 1920, the year in which she was born. She shyly says “I was born in and fed tennis, but I could not be more than a social player.”

Talking about the Harry’s dream – the tennis camp at Florida, she said that of the 40 courts at the camp two were grass to help players prepare for Wimbleton, two red clay for French Open, and the rest clay courts. This camp is used by the present World No 1 and 2 Pete Sampras and Jim Courier for training. “I will continue the work as long as me knees mal me stand upright, though I cannot play tennis.” Yet she was seen wielding the racquet on the synthetic surface with Ramanathan Krishanan two days before the start of the Davis Cup tie.
In 1996 she was in Australia to witness the tie against India and got an enormous look of how Indian lady's dressed, when Ramesh Krishnan’s mother and another lady came in sarees and wore jewels to steal the center stage from the players. “Well I am taking back home a lot of these sarees and jewels,” she says as she displays a few of them with her eyes twinkling.
She adds that she as is old as the Pope and has been to Perth on occasions especially to watch the Hopman Cup in which 12 countries participate. “I do this only because I love tennis and Harry. Talking about the kind of tennis played during the three days she said that it was not bad but both the Indians were not at their best and ends “that’s all I can say”.

Chalk Sculptor

Cariappa a good friend of mine who is a central government employee had a few things inside him which even I did not know until I visited him for a drinking session 1n 1994 when he had just moved from Bangalore to New Delhi. He had these miniature chalk carvings displayed in his showcase which was his passion part from Phrenology, which is the study of human behavior.

To most of us, chalk is a breakable piece of stationary used in classrooms. But to Kaleyangada Cariappa, a central government employee in Delhi who hails from Karnataka, chalk is what his are is all about. With some imagination and ingenuity, he turns chalk into miniature carvings which, can stay for life.
Cariappa’s latest work, now under scrutiny by editors of the Guinness Book of Records, is a three mm-high elephant flanked by smaller versions of 2mm and 1 mm each. Cariappa is happy about his achievement. “it cost two weeks and a lot of chalk, but it is now ready at last.”
Cariappa started chiseling chalk when he was six years old. “When I began, it used to help me control my anger over criticism about my failure. It could be that I had failed in some exam, or hat somebody teased about it and I couldn’t take it. It is as though so I needed to prove to myself that I could achieve something …. Something unique,” he says.

Most of his works have motifs. One of them is a carving of an angry man with an uplifted hat. This was to show that “when people get angry, they talk through their hats.” Another impressive carving is of a running dog.
The tools Cariappa uses are simple: a blade and a needle.
He says all arts involving carving need a lot of practice and chalk carving more than most arts. But it has one big advantage: it is inexpensive, no matter what the wastage.
Most of his works are made from a single piece of chalk, though some are two or more pieces glued together. One of his most impressive works is a pregnant woman surrounded by five children. Another carving of a couple with their son and daughter is almost as good.
Besides chalk carvings, Cariappa also pursues another passion called phrenology, which is the study of human behavior from the size, shape, form and contour of the human head. Cariappa makes fantastic claims about phrenology. For instance, he says it could help check crime by 50 per cent. He even claims that it could help nab Veerappan, (the mosted wanted man by the law in 1994), along with suggestions on how to go about arresting him.
In addition to chalk carving and phrenology, Cariappa has other hobbies like designing greeting cards with thumb impression, zari threads and beads.

NSD readies its Stage for South

This story was written when I had visited a friend of mine during my stint at the Deccan Herald Bureau office at New Delhi some time in 1993. Since it had a south connect and more so with Bangalore I went back to the office and discussed it with my seniors who asked me to write it and send it for the Sunday pages.

Theatre: National School of Drama’s decision to open its first regional center in Bangalore augurs well for theatre in Karnataka, Writes S Shiv Kumar

After several years of debate on strengthening theater traditions in various regions of the country, and a recommendation of the Haskar Committee, the Delhi-based National School of Drama (NSD) has decided to open schools at Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Guwahati, Varanasi/Patna and Chandigarh.
The first of these zonal centers is expected to begin functioning in Bangalore in March. It will be a resource-cum research center (RRC) which will conduct its activities in the local languages.
NSD Director Kirthi Jain told Deccan Herald that these regional centers were meant to rejuvenate local theater traditions. Bangalore has been chosen as the first center because “it has people from virtually all parts of the country. All languages of the south have a presence in the city, which will enable the center to turn mobile and access villages and tap the right potential”.
The Bangalore center- which will work in co-ordination with State level cultural bodies-will begin short-term courses of 15 days to two months, for serious students from all over south India to be chosen on the basis of entrance tests and interviews. Experts like G V Shivananda, B V Karanth, Prasanna, Raghunandan and Walter D’Souza are expected to guide the students and monitor their progress. Prominent NSD alumni in the State like C Basavalingaiah, Srivivas Prabhu, Jayatheertha Joshi and Chidambara Rao Jambe will be on the faculty.
The State Government has assured the NSD that it will provide the premises to house the regional center. “Otherwise, we will hire an apartment to start with,” says Keerthi Jain, which hopes funding agencies like the UNESCO will lend a helping hand later. Depending on the response in Bangalore, “we will start in Calcutta followed by Bombay. That would mean a center in each of the four zones.”
All these days, as she points out, people from various parts of the country came to Delhi only to realize that they were taught in Hindi. This will change now. The regional center will conduct training programmes, promote research, encourage children’s theater through workshops and activities in schools, undertake field work, mount exhibitions, take up documentation and data collection. It will also coordinate the activities of university drama departments assist them in their activities.
An advisory committee with representatives from all the States, the NSD, the regional centers and the repertory companies, and headed by the NSD chief, will be formed to achieve these objectives. A decision is yet to be taken on who will head the regional center.

Swan Song - Thanjavur Saraswati Veena's

Around 100 artisan families in the temple town of Thanjavur are dedicated to the art of making the Saraswati Veena

Earnest music enthusiasts will tell you that even today when you listen to the recording of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and S Balachander, you get goose bumps and are mesmerised. But even while we listen to a veena concert by a maestro, how many of us will actually wonder about the making of the magnificent instrument and the people who have toiled to get music out it? Not many, perhaps.
While several art forms die a slow death because of lack of patronage, more than 100 families in Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, have kept the veena making art alive and have passed it on through the generations.
For these families in this popular temple town, known more for its paintings that the South Indian style of veena made here, it is daily grind as they set about making the Tanjori Veena, more commonly known as the Sarawasti Veena.

“These musical instruments, made of wood from the jack fruit tree, go through rigorous testing before they are ready for use. The veenas are then sold to customers across the world, who have exclusively placed orders,” said R Venkatesan, Manager of the Thanjavur Musical Instruments Workers Cooperative Society.
MAKING A VEENA
The Saraswati Veena is one of the most ancient and revered of South Indian instruments. Its is attractive and the highest quality veenas have the entire body carved out of a single block of wood. The more ordinary ones, said Ganeshan, a veena maker, have a body which is made in three sections – resonator, neck and head. There are 24 frets made of brass bars set into wax. There in another resonator at the top of the neck of the veena. This is no longer a functioning resonator, but is mainly used as a stand to facilitate the positioning of th instrument when it is played. As it does not serve a musical purpose, it is not unusual to find that this upper resonator may be made of acoustically neutral materials such as paper mache, cane or other similar materials.

The Sarawasti Veena has four playing strings and three drone strings (thalam). The main bridge is a flat bar made of brass. This bar has a alight curve, and it is this curve that gives the veena its characteristic sound. The string instrument with two ground resonators is connected by a central shaft and held diagonally from lap to shoulder.
“The Thanjavur veena is considered the most sophisticated of all veenas. We can make any kind of veena, with any specification given by the customer, of course for a price,” says Ganeshan.
While shaping a veena out of blocks of wood is an arduous task, testing it for the right quality of music is no small work. “The veenas have to be tested for the right sound and notes and at least ten testers have to do the job before the Tanjori Veenas are shipped to their respective destinations.” says E Lakshman.
He added that the cost of a Sarawasti Veena varies from one piece to the other – the more th art work, the more the cost. While a non-decorative veena made out of three pieces of wood may cost around Rs 5,000, those which are intricately carved out of a single piece of wood cost upto Rs 50,000.

WAITING FOR THEIR DUE
“The invasion of western culture and with it, the popularity of western instruments, has brought down the demand for traditional instruments, such as the veena,” said Jayabalan, a veena maker. Though the artisans produce around 300 veenas on an average, in a year, their sale is not very high, he added.
Most of the veeena makers of Tanjore have been approaching the Tamil Nadu government for more than 10 years and also the Central government for subsidies, but they are yet to get them. They allege that the other artisans get both the state as well as the central subsidies, but the veena makers are nor getting what is due to them. “But whether the subsidies come or not, the 100 veena-making families of Thanjavur will continue their work and keep the art alive, even though it our only source of income,” said Jayabalan.
These families are determined to preserve their tradition, so that classical musicians across the country can make music.

PLAYING THE VEENA
The veena is played while sitting cross-legged with the instrument held tilted slightly away from the player. The small gourd on the left rests on the player’s left thigh, the left arm passing beneath the neck with the hand curving up and around so that the fingers rest upon the frets. The palm of the right hand rests on the edge of the top plank so that the fingers (usually index and middle) can pluck the strings. The drone strings are played with the little finger. The veena’s large resonator is placed on the floor beyond the right thigh.
DIFFERENT KIND OF VEENA
Venkatesan says that they are various types of veena across the country and have specific ways of playing them. He added that they are also made in different styles to suit the customer. To name a few there is the Rudra Veena which is mostly used by the Dhrupad performers which is considered as the oldest Indian music.
Then there is the Vichitra Veena which was popularized by Abdul Aziz Khan who was a court musician in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. And lastly the Saraswati Veena or the Tanjori Veena which is the most popular.
MYTHOLOGICAL TIES
The patron Hindu goddess of learning and the arts, Saraswati, is often depicted seated upon a swan or peacock playing a veena. According to Hindu mythology, the demon-king Ravana and the monkey-god Hanuman were great veena players, as was the sage Narada.