A sureshot against cervical cancer?

Rema Nagarajan, TNN 2 August 2009, 04:21am IST

SEOUL: Despite a vaccine being available against cervical cancer, the most common cancer among women in India, it might be of little help at the prohibitively high current price of $360 (for three doses) or about Rs 16,000 per At a symposium held here by the International Vaccine Institute, an international research organisation devoted to vaccines supported by various governments, companies and foundations, several health experts and policy makers called for the introduction of routine HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccines into national immunisation programmes, even as they expressed concern about its affordability. “Cervical cancer caused by HPV comprises over 34% of cancers among women in India, making it the most common. Of this, 70% of the cancers are said to be caused by two strains of the virus — HPV 16 and HPV 18 — against which a vaccine has been developed,” explained Dr Neerja Bhatla, additional professor of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the AIIMS. The vaccine is of no use once a person is already infected with the virus. Hence, being a sexually transmitted virus, for the vaccine to be effective it has to be administered before a girl becomes sexually active. In India, this would have to be between 12-18 years as early marriage among girls is prevalent. This would mean vaccinating a population of over 100 million girls at the cost of Rs 16,000 per child. That would amount to thousands of crores of rupees, several times the size of the entire national immunisation programme. Yet another concern is that being a newer vaccine, it is not known how long the vaccine will remain effective. So far, it has been found to be effective for six to seven years. If a booster shot is required to maintain protection, the cost could be even higher. Moreover, the vaccination is to be given as an intramuscular injection in three doses, each dose costing about $120. If the costs of trained manpower required for such an immunization programme and that of safe disposable needles are taken into account, the cost would be even higher. However, Linda Eckert of the World Health Organisation (WHO) explained that WHO had recommended the use of HPV vaccines in immunization programmes as it was programmatically feasible and since sustainable financing could be secured. She claimed it could be made cost effective as the Global Alliance on Vacines and Immunisation (GAVI) could help subsidise the vaccine for the poorest countries and the Unicef could procure it for poor countries by negotiating for lower prices with the vaccine companies. However, she didn’t elaborate by what percentage such efforts could bring down the price of a vaccine costing over Rs 16,000 per child.

Wronged, techie gets justice 2 yrs after being jailed

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=2&contentid=200906252009062503144578681037483

Lakshmana Kailash K was jailed after ISP wrongly gave his name to cops looking for man who put up defamatory articles of a historical figure on a social networking site; police detained him for 50 days despite realising mistake

Anand Holla

Posted On Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 03:14:45 AM

Lakshmana Kailash K has now been awarded a Rs 2 lakh compensation by the State Human Rights Commission Almost two years after he was wrongly jailed for 50 days, Lakshmana Kailash K, a Bangalore-based software engineer, has finally seen justice. Criticising the police investigation and the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) ‘misleading information’ that led to his imprisonment, the State Human Rights Commission has ordered the company to pay Rs 2 lakh to Lakshmana as damages. Lakshmana was arrested from his Bangalore home – in the wee hours of August 31, 2007 – by the Pune police for uploading insulting pictures and text pertaining to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on Orkut, a social networking site. The 28-year-old spent the next 50 days in Pune’s Yerawada jail, for no fault of his. The goof up It all began when investigating officer, ACP Netaji Shinde of the Pune Cyber Crime Branch (now retired), sought help from the ISP, Bharti Airtel, Bangalore, seeking information on the vital IP address. The IP address is a number by which a machine can be identified on the network. The ISP, however, due to a mix-up in the time, handed over the wrong address to the police, thus leading to the arrest of Lakshmana. A bench of Justice Kshitij Vyas and Retired IAS officer Subhash Lalla, took suo-motu cognisance of the case from The Times of India story, and Ketan Tanna, who reported the incident, filed an affidavit ascertaining his story to be authentic. Bharti Airtel, in its defence, pleaded that it provided an incorrect IP address, due to an ‘AM-PM’ goof-up. It said that Shinde – in his communication to the cyber crime unit – didn’t indicate the logging time as “1:11:57 am or pm”, but only “01:11:57 GMT”. “A small change in AM or PM, that is, the time component in the IP address, changed the entire complexion of the information,” the company argued. Claiming that they had no role to play in the violation of Lakshmana’s human rights, Bharti Airtel said that the police acted with negligence. However, the commission held that both Shinde and Airtel ‘tried to prove their innocence and blamed each other’. The ruling The bench noted that if Airtel was confused over the AM and PM, it could have sought particulars instead of providing wrong information. “Airtel officials misled the police by providing wrong information. They did not care to check whether the requested time was AM or PM, and gave details of the victim who had used the same IP address at 01:11:57 am, whereas the derogatory remarks were posted at 01:11:57 pm. The AM, PM discrepancies cannot be a ground to absolve the company. It was expected from the company to take a little care to verify whether it has provided the correct information… We hold that Airtel is responsible for providing false information to the police, which led to Lakshmana’s arrest,” the bench stated. Remarking on Shinde’s investigation as being riddled with ‘serious errors’, the commission said that the ACP should have sought further proof before arresting Lakshmana. The bench, however, did not order any action against the now retired Shinde, but left it to the state government to hold an enquiry against him. Shinde has practically little knowledge and experience of cyber crimes, the commission ruled, recommending that the government “review existing policies and allow only those officers with expertise and knowledge about cyber crimes, to investigate such crimes”. The commission concluded that Lakshmana had to endure a lot of pain and suffering due to the acts of both the company and police authorities. In jail, Lakshmana was given a bowl in which he had to eat and drink, and even take to the loo. As a result of the stress, he lost 12 kilos; his kidney stone problem was aggravated; and his liver got enlarged. However, the commission turned down Lakshmana’s compensation claim of Rs 20 crores, ordering a ‘reasonable token amount’ of Rs 2 lakh to be paid as damages by Airtel. When contacted, Shinde said, “I don’t know anything about the order, and what the commission has observed on me.” An Airtel spokesperson, however, refused to comment on the ruling.

Wronged, techie gets justice 2 yrs after being jailed Lakshmana Kailash K was jailed after ISP wrongly gave his name to cops looking for man who put up defamatory articles of a historical figure on a social networking site; police detained him for 50 days despite realising mistake By Anand Holla Posted On Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 03:14:45 AM Lakshmana Kailash K has now been awarded a Rs 2 lakh compensation by the State Human Rights Commission Almost two years after he was wrongly jailed for 50 days, Lakshmana Kailash K, a Bangalore-based software engineer, has finally seen justice. Criticising the police investigation and the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) ‘misleading information’ that led to his imprisonment, the State Human Rights Commission has ordered the company to pay Rs 2 lakh to Lakshmana as damages. Lakshmana was arrested from his Bangalore home – in the wee hours of August 31, 2007 – by the Pune police for uploading insulting pictures and text pertaining to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on Orkut, a social networking site. The 28-year-old spent the next 50 days in Pune’s Yerawada jail, for no fault of his. The goof up It all began when investigating officer, ACP Netaji Shinde of the Pune Cyber Crime Branch (now retired), sought help from the ISP, Bharti Airtel, Bangalore, seeking information on the vital IP address. The IP address is a number by which a machine can be identified on the network. The ISP, however, due to a mix-up in the time, handed over the wrong address to the police, thus leading to the arrest of Lakshmana. A bench of Justice Kshitij Vyas and Retired IAS officer Subhash Lalla, took suo-motu cognisance of the case from The Times of India story, and Ketan Tanna, who reported the incident, filed an affidavit ascertaining his story to be authentic. Bharti Airtel, in its defence, pleaded that it provided an incorrect IP address, due to an ‘AM-PM’ goof-up. It said that Shinde – in his communication to the cyber crime unit – didn’t indicate the logging time as “1:11:57 am or pm”, but only “01:11:57 GMT”. “A small change in AM or PM, that is, the time component in the IP address, changed the entire complexion of the information,” the company argued. Claiming that they had no role to play in the violation of Lakshmana’s human rights, Bharti Airtel said that the police acted with negligence. However, the commission held that both Shinde and Airtel ‘tried to prove their innocence and blamed each other’. The ruling The bench noted that if Airtel was confused over the AM and PM, it could have sought particulars instead of providing wrong information. “Airtel officials misled the police by providing wrong information. They did not care to check whether the requested time was AM or PM, and gave details of the victim who had used the same IP address at 01:11:57 am, whereas the derogatory remarks were posted at 01:11:57 pm. The AM, PM discrepancies cannot be a ground to absolve the company. It was expected from the company to take a little care to verify whether it has provided the correct information… We hold that Airtel is responsible for providing false information to the police, which led to Lakshmana’s arrest,” the bench stated. Remarking on Shinde’s investigation as being riddled with ‘serious errors’, the commission said that the ACP should have sought further proof before arresting Lakshmana. The bench, however, did not order any action against the now retired Shinde, but left it to the state government to hold an enquiry against him. Shinde has practically little knowledge and experience of cyber crimes, the commission ruled, recommending that the government “review existing policies and allow only those officers with expertise and knowledge about cyber crimes, to investigate such crimes”. The commission concluded that Lakshmana had to endure a lot of pain and suffering due to the acts of both the company and police authorities. In jail, Lakshmana was given a bowl in which he had to eat and drink, and even take to the loo. As a result of the stress, he lost 12 kilos; his kidney stone problem was aggravated; and his liver got enlarged. However, the commission turned down Lakshmana’s compensation claim of Rs 20 crores, ordering a ‘reasonable token amount’ of Rs 2 lakh to be paid as damages by Airtel. When contacted, Shinde said, “I don’t know anything about the order, and what the commission has observed on me.” An Airtel spokesperson, however, refused to comment on the ruling.

Lakshmana Kailash K has now been awarded a Rs 2 lakh compensation by the State Human Rights Commission

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this is a sms news channel for cancer related news that i have created. there is no charges and it is free. please go to the address http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/subscribe/cancerhelp and add yourself/number. every day any news related to cancer shall be smsed to you once or twice a day. please pass it on to those who are interested. regards ketan

‘India should take up Baha’is’ concerns with Iran’

‘India should take up Baha’is’ concerns with Iran’
9 Jun 2008, 0057 hrs ISTThe five and half million-strong Baha’i community across the world is extremely disturbed over the arrest of their top leadership in Iran. Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations, spoke to Ketan Tanna:

Q: Why is the Baha’i community rattled over the arrest of six Baha’i leaders in Iran?

We have not received any information about where they are being held, nor have they been given access to legal counsel. Their only crime is their practice of the Baha’i faith. These arrests are reminiscent of the previous occasions when the national leadership of the Iranian Baha’i community was arrested in 1980-81 which led to the execution of 17 individuals at that time.

Q: Iranian government says the arrested persons were spies.

Accusations that Baha’is are spies are not new. Such accusations are an effort by the government to stir up suspicion and ill will against the Baha’is within the larger Iranian population. Since the Baha’i faith, through an accident of history, has its headquarters in Israel, the Iranian government often charges Iranian Baha’is with being Zionists and spies.

Baha’is are told they will be released if they agree to recant their faith demonstrating clearly that the real issue is their religious beliefs and practice, the right which is theirs under Article 18 of the International Covenant Civil and Political Rights, to which the govern-ment of Iran is itself a signatory.

Q: What kind of persecution does Baha’i community face in Iran and why?

The 3,00,000-member Iranian Baha’i community is the largest religious minority, and the govern-ment has since 1979 undertaken a systematic persecution against them, solely because of their religious belief. Iranian Baha’is face daily the threat of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Their young people are denied the right to higher education and the right to make a living. Baha’i homes and properties have been unlawfully seized. And, above all else, they are not free to practise their religion. And the fact that more than 200 Baha’is were killed or executed by the government between 1979 and 1998 keeps Baha’is under a state of constant threat.

Q: India has good relations with Iran. On the other hand, it also has 1.6 million-strong Baha’i community. What can India do in such a situation?

The very fact that India has good relations with Iran and has the largest number of Baha’is gives her a special responsibility to intercede. Given India’s record of upholding the rule of law, religious freedom and affording constitutional protections for all minority religions she is an example that Iran could emulate. The Indian government could take this matter up bilaterally with Iran.

She equips these special ‘kids’ with vocational skills

She equips these special ‘kids’ with vocational skills
22 Jun 2008, 0533 hrs IST, Ketan Tanna,TNNMUMBAI: The incident happened last week. Fifty-one-year-old Bhandup housewife Lata Das was travelling with 27-year-old Chetna and her mother in an autorickshaw on a pothole-riddled suburban road. It was raining and the insides of the vehicle were a little cramped. Suddenly the rickshaw lurched, and Lata, who was near the exit, almost lost her balance.

Then, to everyone’s amazement, Chetna put her hand on Lata’s shoulder and held her tight so that she would not fall out.

To those who wonder at the use of the word ‘amazement’, Chetna is mentally- challenged and incapable of carrying out even normal daily functions like taking a bath and using the toilet. It is rare for such people to exhibit emotions. But that day Lata realised that deep within even the mentally- challenged there are latent sentiments that can surface any time. “I was touched that she cared so much for me. I still can’t get over it,” she says.

Chetna may not be able to articulate it, but evidently stores a deep recess of love and gratitude for Lata, a volunteer at the MBA Foundation School in Powai. For over three years, Lata has been volunteering here; she teaches vocational skills to the mentally-challenged, spastics, autistic and even the physically-challenged.

She teaches thrice a week for three hours and has almost become a family member at the school—so much so that on the day she does not go, the inmates of the school feel incomplete, says Robert Aranha, assistant administrator of the school.

The ‘children’ that Lata cares for are not children in the strict sense. Most of them are grown up and anywhere between 18 and 45 years of age. But most appear much younger. “When I first entered the school I could not believe that some of them were my children’s age,” says Lata who has two grown-up sons.

Lata entered the field of voluntary work after her children grew up and she found herself with a lot of time on her hands. She wanted to teach children but with age not on her side, finding a volunteer slot for this was difficult. She then approached SOSVA, an NGO that places various volunteers across different organisations depending on their skill-sets and the requirements of the job. SOSVA asked her if she was willing to teach the special ‘children’ of the MBA Foundation School at Powai.

Lata said yes. But on her first day, she found herself depressed. “When I saw the children, I was saddened. I wondered why God is so unfair. But then I shrugged off the feeling and got to work,” she says. Since then, she has been teaching the kids vocational skills like candle-making; at times she also teaches them meditation, painting and even English-language skills.

The MBA Foundation is an NGO working for integrated care services for persons with disabilities, with two care centres in Chembur and Powai. It was started by the parents and relatives of special children, and currently has 45 children, some of whom are boarders. The idea behind setting up the school was to train the mentally and physically challenged in various vocations and help them earn a living. Fourteen-year-old Krishna is one such child who has a muscular degenerative disease but a razor-sharp mind. “He is the boss of the other children and I have seen him guiding them,” says Lata.

Lata’s family has been very supportive of her voluntary work—she regularly chronicles her experiences at the school and emails them to her elder son who is working abroad. As for the future, Lata says she will continue teaching and taking care of the kids till they need her.

ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

Help for Parsi women to fight infertility

Help for Parsi women to fight infertility 13 Jul 2008, 0623 hrs IST, Ketan Tanna,TNNMUMBAI: It was a casual request from Bombay Parsi Punchayet chief Minoo Shroff that resulted in gynaecologist Dr Anahita Pandole taking on the assignment of helping Parsi couples battling infertility problems. Three years down the line, she has handled 200 cases of whom 80 women have conceived. One woman had triplets while 10 others bore twins. Anahita Hakim, 34, is one such woman; she is the mother of twin girls named Katrina and Karina. “I wanted children for the last five years I even thought of adopting children before I came to Dr Pandole, who helped me have Katrina and Karina,” she said. The fertility treatment did not come cheap and Hakim had to spend between Rs 6 and 7 lakh. The initial consultation was free and the treatment tab was picked by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet. For those who could not pay, large-hearted donors within the community offer ed financial help. Pandole’s project is part of a larger United Nations-backed programme called Parzor, headquartered in Delhi. Since 1999, the Parzor project has undertaken research in various fields, working towards the promotion and preservation of the Parsi heritage. The demography project, under the umbrella of Parzor, has thrown up interesting facts about the declining Parsi population. According to the 2001 census, India’s Parsi population had fallen to 69,601 from 76,382 a decade earlier. According to the 2001 census, the child-woman ratio, a key indicator of fertility, is 578 per 1,000 in India. Among the Parsis, it is 85 per 1,000. Meanwhile,a study on Delhi Parsis concentrated on community members married to Parsis, inter-marriages, unmarried and the youth. The demographic profile of the Parsis in Delhi tends to appear more in favour of the 30-50 working group rather than the ageing picture seen elsewhere. In view of the fairly unique position held by the Delhi Parsis, a study was proposed to inquire into their migratory history, their current situation and record their views and attitudes pertaining to various issues and problems facing the community. According to Shernaz Cama, honourary director at Parzor, it was a qualitative study based on interviews. All those interviewed realised that the community was in flux and that “someone had to do something”. However, few were willing to be that someone, the study rued. (ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com)

Life after near-death

Life after near-death
29 Jun 2008, 0024 hrs IST,TNNTimes Review profiles extraordinary people who refused to let life-altering mishaps get them down

MUMBAI

Earlier this month, a 20-year-old girl showed Mumbai an act of incredible courage. Sneha Kale, on her way home after giving an exam, fell off an overcrowded local train; her right leg, which was crushed under the wheels, had to be amputated immediately. The very next day, the spunky girl went to write her next paper. “And why not?” she asks, “I had prepared, and I was confident of doing well.”

Sneha is casual about her decision to not wallow in self-pity. “My parents are the emotional kind,” she says. “If I am not brave, they’ll break down. In any case, I need to live and to work. And in order to work, I need to get on with life. It is as simple as that.”

—Ketan Tanna

NEW DELHI

Joginder Singh Saluja, aka Bittoo, has won the Mr India national title in body-building and power-lifting pageants for three consecutive years. The fact that his powerful biceps completely obscure his lifeless lower limbs comes as a reassurance to many that nothing is impossible.

When he was barely ten months old, Bittoo contracted polio which left both his legs damaged. “I underwent 10 operations till the age of 14, after which I hit the gym,” he says. “People made fun of me when I held the dumbbells for the first time. The more they laughed, the more motivated I felt. I can now lift about 150 kg bench-press. Assi ta cheetein haan, kise toh nahi darde (I am as tough as a cheetah. I fear nothing). Just try really hard, and you can get what you want in life,” says Bittoo who now wants to set up a gym for the physically handicapped.

—Neha Pushkarna

BANGALORE

On September 3, 1996, 22-year-old Rathi Menon was thrown off a long-distance train when she was washing her face at the basin near the door. “I tried to grab the iron railings but my hands slipped. I fell right under the wheels,” she recounts.

Rathi’s spinal cord was ruptured when the wheels of the train ran over her right arm, severing it from her shoulder. And as she lay there unable to move, she saw another train approaching on the same track. “Unable to move, I couldn’t do a thing even as I saw it running over my leg,” she says. After the train passed, another train driver shunting an engine spotted her and shifted her to hospital.

“I had just finished writing my income-tax exams then. The doctors had given up hope, and said I would remain bedridden all my life. I don’t know if you can call it a miracle, but a few months after the surgery I actually recovered and began to live like everybody else.”

Menon acquired an artificial leg, and switched to using her left hand. Initially it was difficult, but she overcame every difficulty with her sheer grit—she wrote three exams after the accident, topped in all and went on to become inspector of income-tax.
—Prashant G N

BANGALORE

Shruti has had to undergo 39 operations in the last six years. All because she rejected the advances of a ‘suitor’ called Rajesh.

The day is still etched vividly in the 22-year-old’s memory. “It happened on August 12, 2002,” she says. “Rajesh was my neighbour and I had rejected his advances. I was on my way to school when he threw acid on me. It burnt my face, head and chest. I lost my eye and ear in the attack.” The expense of Shruti’s surgeries almost crippled her father, a tailor, but they got by with funds from NGOs. She then worked with a bank as a telemarketer for a while but is now looking for a job.

Shruthi discontinued her studies because of her medical problems but managed to pass her tenth-standard exam with the help of her parents. “Initially I found it tough and used to be very upset but thanks to my family I have managed to deal with whatever came my way. Now I feel I am normal. All I can say is one should live in the present,” she says.

—Ketan Tanna

MUMBAI

Forty-year-old Iva Athavia lost both her arms in an accident while attempting to cross a railway track on her way to college in Jharkand. She moped for a while, but her brother’s threat to deposit her in an ashram worked. With the help of prosthetic arms, Eva went on to do her post-graduation and a Masters in Social Work from TISS when she moved to Mumbai. Despite her physical limitations, Eva joined the Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) in 1995, opened CPAA counselling centres and a network with eight city hospitals. She trains volunteers and coordinates all counselling-related work for cancer-afflicted patients.

“I remember when I was wheeled into the operation theatre I was hoping I wouldn’t come out alive,” she says. “I just didn’t want to live. But God had other plans for me.”

Dance of the Melancholy Ladies

Dance of the Melancholy Ladies

In this series, we cover unusual groups. This week,
Ketan Tanna
discovers a fellowship that knows how to cheer up women

   The women meet every Monday afternoon near a psychiatrist’s clinic. They have been doing this for the last five years. Asha Anjali, they call themselves. They are survivors of depression, illness and suicide attempts. The goal of the Monday meetings is simple—pursuit of happiness. “This group has given me hope. But more than than, it has given me my life back,” says 43-year-old Susan.
   She is dressed in jeans and a cotton top. And she looks stern. She has been suffering from depression for nearly 10 years. After losing her mother at a young age she had to take care of her father and three sisters. She often sought refuge in sleep. Sometimes she would walk out of her house, and keep walking for kilometres. Once she walked from Andheri to Mahim, lost in her depression. “The walks were my last refuge. I was alone with my thoughts. I would compose poems. I composed a poem for Jesus too which was shortlisted by an internet site for an award. Since I did not have $50 to pay the entrance fee, I did not enter the contest even though I was shortlisted,” says Susan. “Susan, let’s hear your poem,” says Madhu, the coordinator of the group. Susan converts her poem into a song—“You are a star when Jesus is not far/ He loves and cares for you/ He knows you by your name, years before you came/ You think that he is not there and that gives you a scare/ But he is always there.”
   As Susan wipes her tears and bows her head after reciting the poem, the other women in the group nod. Some clap. They wait for the sadness to pass. In one corner of the room, 56-yearold Madhuri sits with a benign smile on her pretty face. Madhuri’s husband expired two years ago. “I don’t think I fell ill after that but my daughters felt so. I am alright now,” says Madhuri. “My husband used to pamper me a lot. Without him, I was lost.”
   The women are sitting on thick mattresses. In the breeze that animates the wind chimes, the women, about a dozen of them, chat about their lives and times.
   They meditate, and celebrate too. Last week, they danced to Mauja Hi Mauja from Jab We Met. Sometimes the group has cooking competitions.
   Presently, they are absorbed in a contest that challenges them to prepare low calorie and nutritious food. Some days, they have fancy dress competitions too.
   “I was dressed as Saira Banu in one of the fancy dress competitions,” says Meena, a 46-year-old woman who belongs to an upper middle class Gujarati family.
   Meena is not comfortable discussing her depression or her personal problems. It has been over two years since she became a member of the group. She has been under medication for “a few years,” and says that the lesson she learnt from the group is that when a problem arises, one should not run away.
   “I was a coward. I would flee when a problem arose. But I realised that the problem is in me and I need to address it,” she says.
   The door opens, and a pretty woman enters. Dressed in a black Punjabi suit, 37-year-old Neetu Ghosh stands out here. Her life could have been part of an Ekta Kapoor tear jerker—two children and an abusive husband before she turned 22.
   A divorce followed but that did not hurt her as much as the attitude of an enamoured distant relative who declared that he loved her, wanted to marry her and then kept her hanging for three years before he finally said that his mother would not accept a divorcee.
   That is when Neetu had a breakdown. But she soon found joy when an acquaintance fell in love with her, and married her. Her four and a half years with Sujoy Ghosh, who accepted her and her two children with open arms, were the best period of her life. Then Sujoy passed away due to food poisoning. As her life crumbled again, this group resurrected her. “Now I live for others because I realised when you help others, some of the happiness comes back to you. I truly believe this and am not mouthing any platitude,” she says.
   The group has both the young and the aging. Tina, a shy 20-yearold says, “I get depressed if I don’t attend this meeting. I attempted suicide when a relationship went wrong.” Another woman says, “I am Reema and I am 46-years-old. I suffer from anxiety attacks. Earlier, I could not bear the shrill noise made by my pressure cooker and I would feel that it would burst. I am fine now though I still have panic attacks when I wash my hair. I have all sorts of negative thoughts. My family has been supportive and this group is my lifeline. I telephone them when I have such attacks,” she says, smiling for the first time during the meeting. TNN

When thoughts become your enemy

When thoughts become your enemy

In this column we profile unusual groups. This week, Ketan Tanna meets a group of people who meet to collectively combat a sapping mental disorder

   All the time I wanted to be clean. My obsession with cleanliness went to such an extreme that not only did I bathe innumerable times a day, I began using washing powder to do it. I’d brush my teeth with it as well. I refused to touch anyone in my house, including my mother,’’ says Nagma. Ten others in the room look on agape as the 20-year-old candidly recounts how her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) almost cost her her sanity.
   In a room on the first floor of a building near Lalbaug police chowki, Mumbai’s first OCD support group is in session. Victims of the disorder meet on the first Saturday of every month and share their experiences and progress reports.
   Nagma was labelled mad by her family who could not understand her obsessive need to be clean. Her illness brought the Khajuraho denizen to Mumbai in search of a solution. Doing the rounds of the psychiatry units of public hospitals did not really help, but a chance meeting with someone who knew of the OCD support group has brought a semblance of hope into her life. Though she acknowledges that she still has a problem, it is under control. “Now I wash myself only three to four times a day,” she says cheerfully.
As Nagma talks, the others nod in agreement, and then embark on their own OCD tales. Twenty-two-year-old Vishal, a serious-looking bespectacled youngster from a small town in Maharashtra, reveals unhesitantly that his OCD revolves around masturbation and sexual thoughts that almost ruined his life. “My OCD started acting up when I enrolled in engineering college,’’ he says. “My parents could not comprehend what was happening to me. Both, my studies and my health suffered.’’ It was only after Vishal came to Mumbai, consulted doctors and enrolled in the OCD support group that things began to change. It’s been a few months since he has begun dealing with his OCD, and there has been a decline in the potency of the medicines he takes.
   Vishal’s problem evokes much sympathy from the parents of 15-year-old Justin D’souza. For over two years, this Borivili resident was a bundle of nerves, prone to vomiting and crying at the drop of the hat. Justin hated travelling by bus and train because he believed that touching something or someone would give him germs. His thought process was tortured. “I’d imagine that I would not be able to give exams or flunk because I could not concentrate. I would then envision myself being thrown out of school and not being able to fulfil my dream of becoming a software engineer,’’ says Justin, explaining how his mind played tricks on him, impairing his judgment. His parents initially thought it was just stress but a friend of Justin, who also had OCD, realised that there was more to Justin’s emotional problems.
   Justin’s parents say they were fortunate enough to realise that their son suffered from an illness. “There’s a very thin line between being obsessed with something and suffering from OCD. In Justin’s case, his tension and obsession overwhelmed his personality. He would suddenly burst into tears and it was difficult for him to even finish his exams,’’ says his father. Things have improved, however, and despite not completing a portion of his board exam papers, Justin scored 70 per cent.
   While doctors are the ones who can diagnose and treat OCD, a support group is invaluable. As ‘Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders’, a book edited by Eric Hollander and Dan J Stein explains, those suffering from OCD often have a fear that others will discover their secret obsessions or observe their rituals and label them mad. As a result of this, they have poor social networks, and OCD support groups are a good vehicle for decreasing the social isolation they feel.
   Often, as evidenced by this particular group in Mumbai, a support group serves as the doorway to treatment and the starting point on the path to recovery. Hollander and Stein explain that the dooropening function is extremely important because it is estimated that less than 20 per cent of those suffering from neurobiological disorders such as OCD are in treatment. In India, that figure would be even less.
   The Mumbai group comprises people from a spectrum of backgrounds. Ali Akbar, a 20-year-old youngster from the powerloom town of Bhiwandi, who for years had imagined that he was mentally and physically weak, went through a series of tests, medicines and doctors before he finally realised that he suffered from OCD. Shekhar Kulkarni, a 33-year-old graphic artist sits quietly even though he is supposed to be the most vocal one in the group. But he lights up when the group talks of its experiences in combating the illness.
   Shekhar’s problem was that he simply could not travel alone in a bus or train, and often felt claustrophobic in enclosed spaces. Once when he was on his way from Pune to Mumbai in a bus, he started getting panic attacks midway. “My stomach started hurting and I felt it would burst and I would collapse. I just got off the bus.’’ His aging mother did travel with him for a while but that could not carry on. The OCD support group has helped him, says Shekhar, and his dependency on people has lessened.
   Shirin Mistry, who started suffering from a cleanliness OCD after her marriage, went through endless rounds of drugs and treatment. Her husband, Rohinton, who often accompanies her to the OCD meetings says that very often general physicians or family doctors are unable to diagnose the disorder and often give symptomatic medicines without realising the gravity of the problem.
   There are bizarre cases of OCD as well. A man attended some of the meetings wearing dark glasses which he wouldn’t remove for a second. He refused to remove them because he believed that those around him would be able to look into his eyes and read his mind.
   The OCD group is free for all those seeking help, and runs under the aegis of the Samaritans. Dr Fabian Almeida, who supervises the meetings, says the classic symptoms of OCD are that thoughts are intrusive, automatic and seem to be out of one’s control.
   “Diagnosing the disorder helps to outline specific treatment and involves a combination of behaviour therapy techniques as well as pharmacotherapy and a host of self-help methods,’’ he says. And then sums up the motto of the group in three succinct words: “Thinking without sinking.’’ TNN

FORCE OF HABIT: Members of the OCD support group look towards a more hopeful future

SILVER LINING

SILVER LINING

More sex please, we’re seniors

Older Indians are busy spicing up their sex lives, discovers
Ketan Tanna

   There’s a recent study on the sex life of older people in Sweden that surveyed over 1,500 septuagenarians. Its conclusion: the number of men and women continuing to have sexual intercourse into old age had increased from 52 per cent to 68 per cent among married men and 38 per cent to 56 per cent among married women.
   In the India of a couple of decades ago, this news would most likely have been received with arched eyebrows and distaste. No longer, however. Although statistics on the number
of senior citizens visiting sex therapists and counsellors in India have not been compiled, the phenomenon is most certainly on the rise, say professionals. “It’s a fallacy that sex after 60 is only a western obsession,’’ says consulting sex therapist Rajan Bhonsle. “In the last five years, my clientele in the 50-to-80 age group has more than doubled. And there’s no coyness—most seniors are upfront about their sexual problems.’’
   Last month, a leading 81-yearold Mumbai industrialist walked into Dr Bhonsle’s clinic and unhesitantly declared that he was having performance problems. “I get tired easily and I am not able to sustain the act. My partner is not satisfied,’’ he confided. The partner turned out to be his paramour. After psychological counselling and medicine, the industrialist was able to keep both his wife and paramour happy. In another case, the elderly wife of another industrialist contacted the doctor, saying she was under treatment for Parkinson’s. But that wasn’t the issue. She needed help, as her need for physical relations with her husband had suddenly increased. Apparently her Parkinson drugs were increasing her libido.
   According to 84-year-old Mahinder Watsa, who has been a consultant on sexual and reproductive health for the past 35 years, sex among older Indians is more visible now because people talk about it openly, at least in the media. “I would say that 65 per cent of my patients are in the 50-to-80 age bracket,’’ he says. “But even as far back as the 1980s, seniors weren’t exact celibate. I remember doing a study then with the geriatric community, and a large number of people had problems and queries on sex.’’
   With the passage of time, pensioners are no longer inhibited about admitting their continuing desire to get between the sheets. “I had this patient who was very depressed about his sex life after his wife’s death,’’ says Dr Watsa. “He casually told me that he needed a woman with special needs as his partner. It turned out that he was into sado-machoism. His late wife used to beat him with a broom and it was only then that he felt arousal.’’ The post-script: the senior later put an ad in the papers asking for a life partner with ‘special needs’.
   Cardiologist Dr Sandeep Rane affirms that a large number of senior citizens whom he operates on are worried about whether they can continue with their sex life post-cardiac surgery. “One of them was 81,’’ he says. Ahmedabad-based sexologist Paras Shah confirms that he has many elderly patients too, and relates the case of an 89-year old man who, worried about his flagging desire, sought an appointment. “And that’s perfectly valid,’’ says Dr Shah. “The perception that sexual desire abates with age is wrong. Indeed, the post-50 phase is the golden age for couples, since their kids have grown up and their social responsibilities are over. Viagra is reviving bedroom lives, and often it is the women who push their husbands to consult a sexologist.’’
   What part has the post-liberalisation media, with its near-obsession with sex, played in the Great Awakening? Psychologist Anjali Chhabria believes it is a definite influence. “The openness with which the print and electronic media discuss sexual issues has encouraged senior citizens to look after themselves and their personal life,’’ she says. “The healthy and happy old age concept has caught on, and senior citizens are increasingly seeking solutions to their sexual problems. I am not saying the earlier sense of shame has gone away totally. But it has certainly lessened, and sex is no longer taboo for senior citizens.’’
   Virumandi, 94, is a great example of this. This Chennai resident walked into the clinic of sexologist D Narayana Reddy a few years ago with an erectile dysfunction problem. The doctor wasn’t surprised, having seen many patients in the above-60 age group, but he couldn’t prescribe Viagra since Virumandi was a diabetic, hypertensive and a heart patient. He explained the situation to him, and Virumandi left. Two years later, he called the doctor to tell him that he had bought the pills on his own and had been leading a rocking life. “He was willing to die of a heart attack but said that he could not abstain from carnal pleasures in the last stage of his life,’’ chuckles Dr Reddy. Evidently, the sex life of the Indian senior has arrived. TNN
(With inputs from Ashish Vashi in Ahmedabad and Pushpa Narayan in Chennai)

Outsmarting Big Brother

Outsmarting Big Brother

Indians could take some lessons from US citizens who are fierce about their right to cyber privacy, says Ketan Tanna

   An annual event called Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) in the United States has had its share of drama in the past. In the early 1990s, one of the attendees was John Draper, a legendary hacker who was arrested in 1972 for popularising a system of making illegal telephone calls by dint of a whistle. (Draper had begun his endeavour with a free whistle found in a Captain Crunch cereal box, which accounted for his later hacker handle ‘Captain Crunch’.) In CFP 2002, there was the mock arrest of Edward Felten, a Princeton computer scientist, for presenting a paper that focussed on a way around a technology used to protect digital copyrights.
   Such theatrics were missing at the May 2008 CFP held at a hotel in Connecticut, adjacent to the charming Yale University campus. The crowd was eclectic: geeks, lawyers, Hollywood scriptwriters, forensic science auditors, and earnest Indian professors teaching at American universities. The central theme of the conference was the need to find a common thread on government data collection, network neutrality, intellectual property and patents.
   India did figure in the discussion, albeit in a not-so-positive light. When Rob Faris, research director at the Berkman Center at Harvard, invited questions from the audience after his presentation on the state of internet freedom, a man asked him what he felt about the Indian government’s move to pressurise BlackBerry makers to provide Indian security agencies with a way around encrypted data. Faris smiled and dodged the question: the Indian government’s demand was a policy matter, he demurred, and not related to the internet. But the question evoked many murmurs among the who’s who of the internet world. Did the Indian government really want to intercept the data of mobile users and monitor the internet, asked another member of the audience wonderingly.
   The concept of mobile and computer privacy is something the western world takes very seriously. In India, on the other hand, anything goes, and the government is known to have intruded into almost every sphere of the communication world.
   For the better part of May 2008, Indian home ministry officials continued to put pressure on Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian wireless device company that makes BlackBerry, to provide security agencies with a way around its encryption.
   The mandarins are demanding that RIM set up servers that can be monitored by Indian security agencies or give them a master key into data and e-mails sent from the company’s BlackBerry devices. The officials’ defence is that they are concerned that because these e-mails cannot be intercepted, militants could be using BlackBerry services to coordinate terrorist attacks. With BlackBerry categorically asserting that they are not the only one using the encrypted technology, matters are coming to a head.
   Unlike many countries in Europe and in Scandinavia, the Indian Constitution does not expressly recognise the right to privacy, although Article 21 does state that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by the law. According to the Privacy and Human Rights manual published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Section 69 of India’s Information Technology Act, 2000, allows for the interception of any information transmitted through computer resources and requires that users disclose encryption keys or face a jail sentence of up to seven years. Section 44 imposes stiff penalties on anyone who fails to provide information to authorities. Section 80 allows a deputy superintendent of police to conduct searches and seize suspects in public spaces without a warrant.
   There’s more. The Act provides for censoring information on the internet on grounds of public morality and also imposes strict penalties for involvement in electronic publishing of material deemed ‘obscene’ by the government. It’s another matter that the Bangalore-based techie, Lakshmana Kailash K, who spent 50 days behind bars last year for allegedly uploading obscene material on Shivaji had no clue what he was being held for and charged with.
   Contrast this with the American spirit. At CFP ‘08, there were sessions where representatives of Barack Obama and John McCain were grilled on their stands with regard to the internet, freedom and security (Hillary Clinton’s rep didn’t make it). Although both the Obama and McCain reps made pious statements about how McCain and Obama were committed to protecting internet privacy in the USA, a question on Yahoo and Google (both American companies) sharing information with the Chinese government had them stumped and quickly mouthing platitudes on how there was “a need for dialogue’’.
   India, though, can seek some comfort from the fact that China came in for harsh criticism for its sledgehammer tactics to curtail internet freedom. Indeed, India is miles behind China when it comes to containing internet freedom. “Even as China grappled with the massive earthquake that killed more than 55,000 people, the Chinese government’s internet censors were on the job,’’ said Robert Dietz, the Asia programme coordinator for the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “The central propaganda department never stopped handing down directives, never stopped telling people how much to report.’’
   Indeed, the number of nations monitoring their citizens is steadily growing. According to Faris, there were only two governments filtering the net in 2002—the number has gone up to two dozen in a matter of six years. His presentation had a map that showed how social filtering—for pornography, gambling—is far more widespread than political filtering. However, an overlapping diagram of who filters what showed a lot of ‘mission creep’, a term that refers to the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals. TNN

Fighting Ekta and the IPL

Fighting Ekta and the IPL

Ketan Tanna
finds out how two housing societies in Mumbai have been surviving without the idiot box for the last 13 years

   Afew kilometres away from Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms stand two housing societies whose residents aren’t, like most of India, breathlessly following the convoluted tracks of her daft soaps. In fact, they don’t care about television at all.
   In 1995, the two large colonies—Gulshan Society in Versova and Gujarat Momin Society in Jogeshwari—threw away their television sets. Some of the 1,500 residents of Gulshan did it with the kind of flourish that would have done Balaji proud—they chucked their TVs from their balconies. The decision was triggered not by the poor quality of TV soaps but by a zealous speech delivered at the local masjid by Maulana Abdul Rehman Khorakiwala on the scourge of television.
   Thirteen years later, the two enclaves remain television-less, if one discounts the five or six families in Gulshan Society who have gone back to the habit, citing IPL as the reason. The Gujarat Momin society, however, has been steadfast in its resolve—there is not a single television set among the nearly 10,000 people living there.
   So how do the denizens while away the long hours without the vicarious pleasures of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Indian Idol or IPL? Usmanbhai Sunasara, an office-bearer of Gulshan Society, dismisses the notion that one needs television. “The children are busy with school; we men go out for work; the women are busy with household chores. We have evening classes on the Quran. So where’s the time to watch or miss TV?’’ he asks rhetorically.
   Illyasbhai Borania, secretary of the society when the decision to do away with TV was taken, is distressed about the dissident families who have succumbed again to the temptation.“It’s basically the youngsters who’ve bought the sets, saying they wanted to watch Twenty20 and the World Cup. But we all know that when one has television in the house, one does not stop at watching just cricket or news,’’ he sighs.
   Borania, who is a bit regretful that the managing committee cannot impose unilateral decisions, tries nevertheless to make the youngsters see sense by “explaining to them that TV is nothing short of evil’’. Why? “Have you watched the daily soaps?’’ he asks indignantly. “Have you watched the Hindi movies? Do you think that they are family viewing?’’ His family has not asked once for TV, he says, adding loftily, “It all depends on the values that parents inculcate in their children.’’
   The residents of Gulshan and Gujarat Momin Society are from the Chiliya Muslim community that traces its origins to Palanapur, Sidpur and nearby areas in Gujarat. Both societies have a lifestyle that’s different from other Muslim societies in Mumbai.
There are mosques within the society premises, and the atmosphere is distinctly religious—if one isn’t working, one is praying or just relaxing in small congregations in the evening.
   The societies’ denizens are particularly proud of leading what they claim is a wholesome life without the insidious intrusion of television. New entrants—the girls who marry into families here, for instance—get into the flow of a televisionless life without much ado.Rizwana Borania,daughter-in-law of Illyasbhai, says that when she got married,she was aware that there would be no TV at her husband’s home in Mumbai. “At my mother’s home in Mehsana we did watch TV. But thank god we don’t have it here. TV is evil,’’ she declares vehemently. A Christian girl who married a Gulshan Society resident six months ago also claims she is happy.
   Not that the womenfolk of Gulshan society are clueless about television—they know the alarmingly mutating plots of Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki or Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, for instance. “Yes, we are aware of serials because people talk about them and they are written about. But there never been any desire to see them,’’reiterates Rizwana.
   To cite the converse situation, there’s 22-year-old Khadija Kojar who grew up in Gulshan Society and moved out after marriage a year and half ago. Her marital home has a TV set, but for Khadija that is irrelevant. “I can watch TV all I want to now,’’ she says. “I did, out of curiosity. But I am not terribly impressed by what I saw.’’
   A lot of regular TV watchers would second that sentiment. TNN
   ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

PLEASE ADJUST -Longest Indian waits

PLEASE ADJUST

Longest Indian Waits

Ketan Tanna on how we are a nation that has got used to standing in eternal queues Apart from the dark blue passport, the endorsement of Indian citizenship comes from the inescapable anthem — You Are In Queue.

Indians are so many and human activities so few that most ventures in this country consign you to the dreaded waiting line. This is the story of some poignant Indian waits. School Admission In urban India, the birth of a child drives parents to the best schools to register their ward for admissions that are four to five years away. Meera Isaacs, Principal of Mumbai’s The Cathedral & John Connon School, says, “Yes, we are taking applications from the parents of a year-old child so that he or she can join the kindergarten when the child is five years old. We stop taking applications when the number of registrations reaches 500. Unlike other schools, we do not want parents to line up overnight outside schools or stand in a long queue.”

In Ahmedabad, Manish Mehta has been waiting for two years to get his son admitted into the Delhi Public School (DPS). The boy is now in the eighth standard in a local school and he has been looking forward to a better school since he passed the sixth. He has been taking the entrance tests and interviews for DPS but has been unlucky. The school turns away at least five students a day at the peak of the admissions season.

Club Membership

Even if one is willing to pay huge amounts for the membership of an elite club, the waiting period runs into several years. That is if there is a benevolent waiting period in the first place. Bombay Gymkhana, for instance, has stopped accepting applications for the life, permanent and ordinary memberships. Corporate memberships are open though. A manager at the Gymkhana, who did not want to be identified, said that life membership was last opened in 1998 and closed within a couple of months. According to him, ordinary memberships had opened in 1979-80 and every time memberships open, there are thousands who want to get in. The Delhi Gymkhana has a waiting list that runs into several years while getting a membership in the India Habitat Centre too can take more than a decade. The Karnavati Club in Ahmedabad started with a membership fee of Rs 5,000 for ordinary members which then went up to a lakh about five years ago. Now the figure is Rs 7 lakh but there are so many on the waiting list that the club has stopped taking in new members.

Justice, of course

 As of February 2006, 33,635 cases were pending in the Supreme Court, 3.34 lakh cases in high courts, and 2.5 crore cases in subordinate courts. The Bombay bomb blasts trial that went on for 14 years is among the faster cases. It is not uncommon for justice in this land to take decades. Thousands of farmers were forced to give up their land in Akola, Vidarbha, so that the government could establish the Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth in 1969-70. In return, the government had promised a government job to a member of every family whose land had been acquired. Some 38 years later, the farmers are still fighting for what was promised to them. Trademark People who have applied for the grant of trademarks over a decade ago are still in wait. A lawyer who did not want to named said that one of the trademarks he applied for took 18 years to come, and another took 11. In 2004, he says, there were around 2,50,000 pending trademark applications. On an average it takes anywhere between 18 to 36 months for a trademark to be granted. The average for some categories of trademark is close to four years.

Salvation

Even if one were to get fed up of the materialistic world and hope to seek salvation, there is a waiting period. At the Tirupathi temple, between mid-April and mid-May this year, the temple saw 22 lakh pilgrims, a 30% increase over the same period last year. On some days, over 80,000 have thronged the temple. As a consequence, the waiting period for an economical Rs 50 darshan of Lord Venkateswara stretches to close to three days. If you decide today to do the Rs 50,000 Udayastamana pooja at the Guruvayurappan temple in Kerala, you will be able to do it only after 2050. “We are not accepting any new applications. The new managing committee will take a decision about the next round of applications,” says a temple official. A few years ago, when the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, wanted to give a baby elephant as an offering to the temple following an election victory, she was told that she would have to wait for 38 years.

Art Galleries

If you apply today, the earliest you can hold an exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery is in 2012. The gallery’s secretary, Mrs K G Menon says that it can play host to only four artists in a week. “Every year, we get 1000 applications and I can accommodate only 250.” The gallery has acquired two new places on the first floor and the waiting list is expected to come down. The mushrooming of private galleries has helped ease the pressure on Jehangir but even private galleries these days are beginning to have a long waiting period. TNN (With inputs from Vasundhara Vyas in Ahmedabad and Abhinav Bindra from New Delhi)

Surviving Parents

Surviving Parents Singles who love their parents too much to abandon them suffer the quirks of the aged and sacrifice the freedom of adulthood, say Ketan Tanna and Meena Iyer  

A common perception is that singles enjoy considerable freedom. However, the truth is that many of them are forced by an Indian mindset to live with their parents, and as a consequence suffer the tantrums of the old. Caught between love for their parents and the madness of living with them, they go through a hellish domestic life. Every day, before the break of dawn, Meena Krishnan feels the gentle nudge of her mother’s elbow. “Wake up, it’s early morning,” her 76-year-old widowed mother Mangalam cheerfully announces. It’s another matter that Meena, an unmarried 47-year-old, had a late night and could do with some more sleep. But she gets up groggily and for the next few hours listens as her mother talks incessantly about this and that.

“All I want at that point is some peace and quiet. But I give in because she has nobody else to talk to,” says Meena. There are times when Meena snaps at her mother only to regret it for the full day. “She loves ice-cream and I assuage my guilt by taking home her favourite flavour.”

Sanjeev, a 35-year-old unmarried chartered accountant who does not want to reveal his full name, says that he moved in with his parents due to ill health. He is severely diabetic and has very high blood pressure. For some reason, his parents are very suspicious of him. They have locked all the cupboards except one and have refused to give him the keys. And, they do not believe that he is truthful about how much he earns. They accuse him of not giving them his full salary. They suspect that he is spending all his money on ayyashi (debauchery).

When they asked him for his passbook, he told them that the concept was outdated. “Wait for the quarterly bank statement,” he said, but that only deepened their suspicion. Obviously, not all parents exhibit abnormal behaviour.

An overwhelming majority are regular people, going through their twilight years watching their diet, recounting memories and basking in the gratitude of their wards whom they had given that invaluable gift called a normal childhood.

But even here, there is an inevitable clash of cultures. They do not tolerate the late nights of their adult children. They do not understand why their children need something called freedom. Single girls suffer the most.

A talented actress who lives with her mother often has to listen to uncomplimentary remarks about her late nights, even though she is just returning from a night shift. Thirty-one-year-old Sakshi, who is a director of a media-house, has an understanding mother, but there are rules at home. “I cannot stay out late without informing her, or bring home men in the middle of the night. Even those men who do come home to fetch me for an evening out aren’t allowed beyond the drawing room,” she says. Sakshi feels an acute lack of privacy in her own home. She cannot even walk around her home, mulling over her thoughts. “That’s not possible because my mom craves my indulgence. If I snap back, she reminds me that she is not a paying guest in the house. That’s how bad it gets.”

Single men who live with their parents have unique problems. A journalist who comes from an affluent business household says that unpleasant situations develop over finances. He is a salaried person in a creative field and his earnings do not measure up to the wealth of his siblings.

“There are times when one is made to feel bad about how your salary is less than the phone bill of the family.” But usually, single men face problems that are similar to what single women face. Thirty-year-old Mahesh (surname withheld on request) who is a media professional, says, “Earlier, when I had invited some girlfriends over and brought them to my room, I was told to leave the door open. It was so awkward. Also, my mom would come in on some pretext or another and try to make small talk. I have stopped calling friends over.”

Ashok Shah, in his late 30s, says that boy’s nights out are out of the question. And a conservative dress code has to be followed. Singles who live with their parents have to sacrifice the little joys of life for the grander purpose of being there for their elders.

Not all singles complain though. Film publicist Parull Gossain wouldn’t trade living with her mother for anything. “My friends tease me about it,” she says happily.

Techie trauma: Cops blame telecom co

Publication:Times Of India Mumbai; Date:Mar 25, 2008; Section:Times City; Page Number:2

Techie trauma: Cops blame telecom co

Ketan Tanna I TNN Mumbai:

The Pune cyber police have squarely blamed Bharti Airtel for the ordeal undergone by K Lakshmana Kailash, the Bangalore HCL employee who was arrested in September 2007 for allegedly defaming Shivaji on a website. Kailash, who spent 50 days in jail, was arrested on the basis of a wrong computer address provided by Bharti.

Replying to Kailash’s legal notice sent in January 2008, Netaji Shinde, assistant commissioner of police, economic & cyber, crime branch, Pune, not only asserted that Bharti Airtel was at fault but said the telecom operator had slipped up and provided a wrong computer address in another case as well. However, Bharti’s advocates Holla & Holla, in an interim reply to the same notice, stated that their clients “deny there has been any negligence or other tortious (sic) acts on their behalf resulting in any actionable claim’’.

They added that a detailed reply would follow. Shinde, in his five-page reply, says that on August 8, 2007, Bharti Airtel, Bangalore, furnished Lakshamana’s address through an email. “As per the information given by Bharti Airtel regarding the physical address of creation of Orkut profile (defaming Shivaji) on IP address 59.144.51.125, Laxman Kailas (sic) K was arrested on September 1, 2007, at 2 pm,’’ says the reply.

The police had first sought the information regarding the moderator of the Orkut group on August 3, 2007 from internet giant Google. The latter informed them that the group was created by IP address 59.144.51.125 on October 29, 2006, at 01.11.57 pm GMT. The email id used to create this Orkut group was kiranreddy-gv@yahoo.co.in, says Shinde (a valid email address is required to create an Orkut group). It was only on October 1, 2007, that the Pune cyber police were able to access the Yahoo email inbox and emails sent from kiranreddy-gv@yahoo.co.in. The trail lead to Kirankumar V Reddy who worked with Convergys Company, Bangalore.

Reddy allegedly confessed that he was the one who had created the Orkut community which called Shivaji various names. “Since there should not be two addresses of creation of Orkut profile of IP address 59.144.51.125, I personally visited Bharti Airtel in Pune and asked them information on the IP,’’ says Shinde.

“It was revealed during the investigation that the information on the physical address of this IP furnished by Bharti Airtel, Bangalore, was wrong and the information of the same IP address later furnished by Bharti on October 11, 2007 (41 days after Lakshmana had been jailed) is correct,’’ says Shinde in his reply.

Shinde also says that Bharti gave a wrong IP address in another case. On investigation of another offence being investigated by Hinjewadi Police Station, Pune), the Pune cyber cell found that Bharti had provided them with an incorrect physical address for IP 122.167.2.155. “Therefore, we once again asked them to give details of the IP address and Bharti Airtel gave the correct address,’’ says Shinde.

Reacting to the fairly serious charges levelled by the Pune cyber police, an Airtel spokesperson said, “As one of the leading telecom operators in the world, we deploy some of the state-of-art technologies, systems and processes that are benchmarked against the best global standards. We are looking into this matter and will take necessary steps. With regards to Lakshmana, we are in touch with him. Beyond this, we are unable to comment as the matter is sub-judice.’’

Lakshmana, on his part, is angry and disturbed, especially at the terse one-page Bharti reply, denying culpability. “Bharti’s reply does not justify how it is not responsible for the charges against it,’’ he says. “It contains no evidence or points to support its denial of charges. The police, on the other hand, have substantiated the denial of charges against them with clear evidence. But their reply holds strong and clear proof that Bharti Airtel is responsible for my damages.’’

ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

SHOWING THE WAY

SHOWING THE WAY The Most Useful Litigations This is how unknown people change your life for the better Ketan Tanna and Sharmila Ganesan look at some important PILs that are pending and a few ridiculous ones

It is not clear which was India’s first ever Pub lic Interest Litigation (PIL). Some say it was the Hussainara Khatoon vs State of Bihar case of 1979. It dealt with the miserable conditions of pris ons and undertrials. Others say that PILs were born in 1982 after the Supreme Court, while hear ing the S P Gupta vs Union of India case, announced that anyone acting in the interest of the public may petition the court on behalf of the disadvantaged .

The history of PILs might be ambiguous but it is irrelevant to the hundreds of social crusaders who throng the courts every now and then seeking so lutions to the various problems that affect the com mon man. It is natural that some people will waste the time of the courts with frivolous cases, like charging actresses and models with obscenity. Here we present some of the most thought pro voking and useful PILs that are pending in our courts. And, some of the most useless ones too.

A pre-marital ritual

It makes sense for grooms and brides, especially in the arranged marriage system, to undergo an HIV test. Thousands of people, women particularly have become victims of AIDS because their spous es chose not to confess that they had the disease But it is not practical in India for an HIV test to be part of the premarital ceremonies. There is a so cial embarrassment involved in asking the ‘other side’ to produce a certificate. So, Maharashtra Law Graduate Association, an NGO, had filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court seeking to make the pre marital HIV test mandatory. A committee set up in December 2007 by the state health ministry has unanimously decided to accept the proposal.

Are motorcycles safe?

Following the deaths of four motorcycle riders in separate accidents in Navi Mumbai, a PIL was filed in the Bombay High Court in 2007. It sought strict implementation of safety norms by two-wheel er manufacturers. The petitioner, Gyan Prakash from Jabalpur, has pointed out that two-wheeler accidents accounted for 15.1 per cent of all acci dents across India. As many as 2,439 riders died in accidents in 2005. The PIL has alleged that motor cycle manufacturers were cutting corners on safe ty norms. The matter is pending in court.

Cruel online lotteries

 An undated PIL before the Supreme Court has claimed that online lotteries were addictive and as a result they were severely affecting the lives of the poor and the youth. The litigation states that the young especially are not aware of the ill effects of lottery, and that the online version makes lottery an easily accessible habit. While considering the petition, the Supreme Court on January 11, 2008 sought a response from the union government and three state governments—West Bengal, Sikkim and Tripura on their online lot tery schemes 

Health of the nation

There have been numerous PILs in this regard In Delhi, at a shelter home, 11 children died last year. The Delhi High Court is hearing a PIL on the way shelter homes for abandoned children are run Also, with 24 municipal conservancy workers, on an average, dying every month due to abysmal working conditions, activist Keval Semlani wrote a letter to the Bombay High Court to make life bet ter for such workers. The letter was converted into a PIL by the court. The hearing continues. Mean while, children and men of small frame continue to get into manholes with no protective gear.

A PIL seeking the ban on the manufacture of Nimesulide (one of the most commonly used anti inflammatory drugs) was filed in the Madras High Court. Tamil Nadu Health Development Forum filed the PIL citing a number of side effects of the drug like liver and renal failure among children The PIL states that the drug has been banned in several countries. But the court has refused to di rect the central government to impose a ban. The matter might be taken up in the apex court.

Converts and Reservation

 Can Dalits who converted to Christianity get the benefit of reservations? Last month, the Cen tre assured the Supreme Court that it will study the report of a commission which examined the issue of granting Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians and extending the benefits of reser vation to them. An advocate appearing for Cen tre for Public Interest Litigation, an NGO, says the matter has been pending in the court for more than three years and should be heard urgently.

Are homosexuals criminals?

India is one of the most repressive nations for homosexuals. Since the law has clear views about homosexual conduct, gays in India face easy ex ploitation by police if caught in the act. In De cember 2002, the Naz Foundation filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court challenging the discretionary statutes on the grounds that it violated the con stitutional rights of sexual minorities in India and also interfered with the provision of HIV/AIDS prevention services. In 2005, the High Court dismissed the petition. Following a special leave petition, the Supreme Court in February 2006 set aside the order, and remanded the case back to the Delhi High Court for a decision on the merits of the case.

Why immerse Ganesha?

Activist Bhagvanji Raiyani has filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court asking for the ban on the annual immersion of Ganpati and Durga idols. The immersion of the idols in the sea by thousands of revellers causes large scale pollution. The litigation says that the sacred texts do not mention immersion at all. TNN (With Dhananjay Mahapatra and Bhanu Pratap Singh) …

And the most useless PILs

There are many who file PILs to attract publicity. Lawyers in small towns are known to slap frivolous cases against film stars in the hope that the actors would be forced to visit their modest courts. Here is a quick list.

The apex court recently dismissed a PIL filed by a man in Lucknow called Prince Lenin to recall the Indian cricket team from Australia to save the players from racial insults.

In February last year, lawyer Shruti Singh filed a PIL in the Patna High Court against Aishwarya Rai marrying a tree. “If Aishwarya was declared a maanglik, she was insulted by her mother in-law, an MP who vowed to safeguard the Constitution,” Singh said. The case was thrown out. Shruti Singh had also filed a PIL against former union minister Sanjay Paswan for encouraging witchcraft.

  Last year, the Patna High Court slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 on an advocate for wasting its time. He filed a PIL against Manmohan Singh challenging his continuance as Prime Minister despite not being a member of the Lok Sabha.

The Delhi High Court recently imposed a fine of Rs 5000 on a petitioner who filed a PIL seeking direction to the organisers of a village Ramleela to desist from staging item songs.

Outstation cancer patients can put up here for free

Ketan Tanna meets the man who has put his spare flat to good use
Mumbai: Cancer is a cruel and expensive disease. It drains you physically and exhausts you financially. And for the thousands of families who travel to Mumbai for treatment, one of the most challenging hurdles is to find a cheap and safe place to stay while the patient is being treated. Which is why a threebedroom flat in Kandivli is like an answer to a prayer.
    A few years ago, businessman Suresh Agarwal, 47, realised that accommodation for outstation families was a crying need. For the last two years, his spare flat in Kandivli’s Lokhandwala area has been hosting cancer patients and their relatives who have not been able to get accommodation at Tata Memorial Hospital or Hinduja Hospital.
    On an average, four patients are allowed to stay in the flat for up to three months. The flat is furnished and has a proper kitchen where the patients or their family members can cook as well.The lodging is free, and all that is needed is a letter from the doctor treating the patient. So far, 45 patients have used this generous facility.
    It’s not just free boarding that Agarwal provides. Last week, he organised a musical show called Amit Kumar Night that raised Rs 35 lakh for Hinduja Hospital. Around two years ago, another musical event called the Vinod Rathod Night had raised Rs 15 lakh for the hospital.
    Agarwal, who runs a plastic factory in Daman, knows too well the havoc cancer can cause to family life. His younger brother Sushil, now 45, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1987.
    His brother-in-law, too, developed lung cancer in 1992 and later the wife of his brother-in-law was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
    What followed were almost daily visits to Hinduja where he became friends with the doctors and the management of the hospital. Even after his brother and relatives recovered, Agarwal continued to visit the hospital. On one such round, he noticed a frail person sobbing in the waiting area. He found out that the man’s treatment had been stopped midway as he was unable to pay.
    It was then that Agarwal decided that he had to do something. After consulting the management, Agarwal decided to create a corpus so that each time there was a needy patient, the corpus could be used. It has helped many patients.
    The Agarwal family has its roots in Assam. Soon after Sushil was treated successfully, they started getting requests for help from cancer patients from that state. “An empty flat near my home spurred me into offering it free to needy cancer patients,’’ says Agarwal.
    Dr Asha Kapadia, head of the oncology department at Hinduja Hospital, says, “I wish we had more people like him.’’ Suresh Agarwal can be contacted on 98200 65184

FOR THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Ketan Tanna 
profiles doctors who battle noise Once, on the eve of Ganesh Visarjan, a retired scientist put up a banner asking, “Is god deaf?”

    One Diwali night, gynecologist Prabhakar Rao called the Juhu police station to complain about the deafening noise in his area. But nobody was willing to take him seriously. It was Diwali after all. A few hours later, a bored constable arrived. “What do you mean there is so much noise?” the constable said, “I can’t hear any noise. In any case, there will be noise when crackers burst. And do you have any proof that the crackers were really loud?”
    Rao had no choice but to chuckle. By then, he was used to this attitude. He is one of the busybodies disliked by law enforcement in Mumbai. Along with pediatrician Yeshwant Oke and late businessman Saad Ali, he founded the Anti Noise Pollution Committee in 1984. The group took on the government and paved the way for the first of the many anti-noise court battles. They tried some desperate measures too. Once, on the eve of Ganesh Visarjan, retired scientist T N Mahadevan and friends put up a banner in the heart of Maratha pride, Lalbaug. The banner pointedly asked in Marathi, “Dev Behra Aahe Ka?” (Is god deaf ?). The banner, of course, created more noise.
    After a study of Society for Clean Environment in 1985 found that decibel levels in residential areas during festivals like Diwali were over 115 decibels (busy city traffic is generally at 85
decibels) Oke and other concerned citizens filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court against the state government, BMC and the Mumbai police. The court then appointed an eight member committee to study noise pollution in Mumbai and suggest remedial measures. The Desai committee, as it was called, came up with an in-depth report on the harmful effects of noise.
    Some people say that noise is a natural part of Indian way of life but the truth is that it routinely has tragic consequences. Recently, an old woman died of cardiac arrest after a cracker went off suddenly at two in the morning. The drum beating and noise during Ganesh Visarjan procession greatly agonise old people and children.
    Oke was inspired to campaign against noise sometime in 1984 when he got a letter from Pachore village, near Jalgaon. The letter said that the desperate villagers were caught in the unbearable noise of secularism. In the morning, bhajans rented the air and in the evenings namaz and discourses tore the eardrums. Despite complaints, the police did not want to interfere.
    Twenty years after receiving the letter, 72-year-old Oke is still going strong. Some of the old guards have died but the group is constantly replenished by new dedicated members. As the photographer makes them pose, host of the afternoon congregation, Prabhakar Rao jokes, “We did not know that we are such good actors in addition to being doctors.” Seventy-twoyear-old Rao had a major surgery last year but he says that will not limit his fight against noise polluters.
    They enjoy these meetings and that is evident when, one by one, the members troop in. Since all of them are doctors, the talk inevitably veers towards the medical problems induced by loud noise. One of the cruelest ironies of life is that noise eventually causes deafness and these doctors only know that too well. “It is now established that noise pollution may rupture the eardrum, and even induce cardiac and cardiovascular changes, fatigue and also cause sleep disturbances, headache and insomnia,” Oke says.
    After the first writ petition filed by Dr Oke and friends, came the landmark Environment Protection Act of 1986, which notified ‘noise’ as a pollutant. It laid down a fine of up to Rs 1,00,000 or imprisonment up to five years or both
    The Maharashtra government, on its part, extended the time limit for loudspeaker use from 11 pm to 11 30 pm, and gave discretionary powers to the Commissioner of Police to extend this even further. Oke and other concerned citizens filed a second writ petition against the state government. Eventually they issued a legal notice to the police commissioners of Mumbai and Pune. A direct fall out was prohibition of loudspeakers from 10 pm to 6 am. Dandiya and other such blaring festivals took a direct hit. But in 2002, the environment ministry hurriedly amended the law permitting loudspeaker use from 10 pm to midnight for 15 designated days in a calendar year for religious and cultural events.
    It is official. In India, God is indeed deaf. But some old people will continue the battle.
ADMISSIONS OPEN
Membership of the Anti Noise Pollution Committee is free.
Dr Oke can be contacted on yeshwantoke@yahoo.com 
    VOICE OF INDIA
Permissible noise level in residential areas: 55 decibels Loud Speaker: 75-115 db Drilling Machine: 90-100 db Vehicles-Horns: 80-84 db Typewriter: 50-60 db

CANNOT FORGET BIMAL ROY

O N LY B I M A L

CANNOT FORGET BIMAL ROY

In this series, we cover unusual groups. Ketan Tanna, this week, profiles a unique club called Bimal Roy Memorial

    Needless to say, all Bimal Roy fans will not fit into a flat, especially a flat in Mumbai. Bengalis would insist that Bimal Roy fans will not fit into Bengal even. But then a house full of extreme fans of the departed film director is a good place to begin.
    In this upscale Bandra flat of his eldest daughter Rinki Bhattacharya, the walls are, inevitably, adorned with posters of classics like Do Bigha Zamin, Parineeta, Devdas, Sujata, Bandini and Madhumati. In the main living room, nine of the over 150 members of the Bimal Roy Memorial (BRM) sit for one of their frequent meets.
    BRM was founded in 1997. “Our mission is preservation, restoration and acquisition of Bimal Roy’s film prints with other memorabilia such as posters, publicity stills, old contracts, and film related documents,” says Bhattacharya. “The organisation conducts concerts, organises programmes, and felicitates journalists, technicians, performing artistes.” An activity that has truly become a rage is the musical series, Smriti Sandhya, which recreates the nostalgic mood of the black and white age. The response to the first Smriti Sandhya was so huge that police had to be called in.
    Fifty-three-year old Vidhyadhar Kamat points to a still of Do Bigha Zamin, and says with uncontrollable excitement, “Look at the expression of the face of the zamindar and that pleading look on the labourer’s face sitting on the floor. See the composition and the arrogance in the eyes of the zamindar who is smoking a hookah.”
    One of the fans in the room is 60-yearold yoga teacher Danny Pereira, the only member of the BRM, besides Bhattacharya, to have met Bimal Roy. Pereira was in school then and one day he and his friends wandered into the sets of Do Bigha Zamin in Mohan Studio. Roy noticed the school kids and was worried that they had bunked class. He quizzed them. When they assured the director that they had come after finishing school, Roy gave each of them an ice cream and made them feel more comfortable than they already were.
    As the conversations of this chatty group ebbs and flows, a strange character of the Nehruvian age accidentally comes through. Advertising professional Supriya Naiksatam, who is the secretary of BRM, says that her parents did not let her watch films when she was growing up. Another member, 53-yearold Vaijayanti Gupte, a social worker, nods to indicate a common plight. Gupte stayed in a hostel during her student days, but the freedom from parents was not enough to secure the right to watch movies. The only films she was allowed were educational or mythological. After Gupte’s confession arrives the bombshell. Rinki Bhattacharya says that her father, Bimal Roy, too, never allowed her to watch films when she was young.
    Though the members of the BRM do not want to come across as a snobbish clique that criticises the way modern films are made, they cannot resist commenting on the jarring overacting and the enactment of some scenes in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas. Vidhyadhar Kamath says that actor Motilal, who played Chunnilal, Devdas’ friend in the Bimal Roy classic, was subdued and refined compared to Jackie Shroff in Bhansali’s version who, she says, was over the top.
    But they do speak fondly of Bhansali’s gesture of inviting Rinki Bhattacharya to the sets of Devdas. Also, the premier of his version was dedicated to Bimal Roy. They like it when the new generation acknowledges the greatness of the old. Like when Vidya Balan admitted, after a special screening of Roy’s Parineeta, that she was no match for Meena Kumari.
    Bimal Roy’s fans say that his contribution to Hindi Cinema was overshadowed by the showmanship of Raj Kapoor and the newsworthy traumas of Guru Dutt. “Yes, my father never got his due. Maybe because he was not the chatty type nor was he a showman,” says Rinki.
    Bimal Roy might not have got his due but BRM members are determined to preserve his legacy. Funds are always a problem as the annual membership fee of BRM, at Rs 750 to Rs 1100, is nominal. Finding sponsors is a hard task and the government often says it is broke. But Bimal Roy’s fans cannot forsake their dreams. In the future, they see a film appreciation school and a museum dedicated to his
unceasing memory.

CLASSIC MOMENTS BRM members are planning a film appreciation school and a museum in the director’s memory

Pretty eunuchs and a secret trade

Pretty eunuchs and a secret trade

Scores of eunuchs will meet in a school. And behind closed doors, they will sell their lovely wards to the best bidders. Ketan Tanna finds a keyhole

PHOTOGRAPH BY Prashant Nakwe

Vikhroli, a quaint lushgreen suburb of northeast Mumbai, is respectably boring. But on May 10, scores of eunuchs will descend with artificial braids or menacing bald heads, all their faces lit with low-end makeup. They will come to attend the eunuch’s conference or Akhil Bharatiya Hijda Sammelan to be held in a municipal school near Vikhroli Park Site. It is a meet that has been going on for several years, though its periodicity is erratic.
   By itself, it would be just another conference of a marginalised community. But behind the closed doors of the meeting, a whole underground culture will ebb and flow.
   “For nine days, there will be a lot of song and dance between long spells of gambling sessions where the stakes will range from a few hundreds to a few thousands. On the last day, there will be the real surprise element. For that is when there will be buying and selling of chelas (disciples) by various gurus of the community,” says Salma Khan, a eunuchturned-social worker with Dai organisation, who has done an unthinkable thing. She has filed a non-cognisable complaint with the Surya Nagar Police station, Vikhroli Park Site, with a copy to most of the influential people in the country. The non-cognisable complaint number 925106, dated April 17, 2006, says, among other things, that “nothing will be done for the betterment of the community, but almost all Hijdas will be playing cards, disturbing the peaceful life of persons in the nearby areas.” The complainant is asking the police to withdraw the permission given to the organisers.
   In the complaint, she has not recorded what will happen on the tenth day of the meet. The high drama of trade during which pretty eunuchs will be exchanged between various groups. Meeting coordinator Kokila denies the charges. “We assemble to pay homage to our departed elders and distribute food in their memory. There is nothing more to it,” she says.
   On that day, all the leading community gurus will assemble in the hall and a thali will be kept in front. Then the gurus and their assistants will call the ones that they think can earn them a good amount. When the deal is struck, the agreed amount is kept in a thali with a red cloth draped over it. The thali is passed to the eunuch chieftain who agrees to let go of her chela. The chela then joins the bidder’s community to endure a whole life as a prostitute, extorter or in any other role that will make her earn a good return on the investment for the head eunuch who bought her.
   The eunuch community follows the guru-chela tradition and has mainly three sources of income. Those who dance and sing at the birth of a child or at weddings are called badhai, those who are into prostitution are called dhandawali and those who beg are called mangti. Depending on her abilities, the chela could earn anywhere between couple of hundreds to thousands of rupees per day. Usually, the guru eunuch who owns her takes around 50% of the chela’s earnings, or even more. The guru and her bunch of chelas stay together and the guru takes care of the food and household expenses, just like a family. Often when the guru dies, the favourite chela gets the head’s assets.
   But the tradition of human sale is a common truth among the comity of eunuchs. “What the chela does not know is that a long and horrible life lies ahead of her. Blinded by glamour and wealth, the chela is only too glad to be sold. She does not know that if she does not bring adequate returns or falls ill, then she will be discarded quickly,” says Salma.
   Forty-year-old Maharani served her master for well over 20 years giving away more than half her daily earnings. But last year, she was diagnosed HIV+ and since then, has been discarded. When a person is discarded in the eunuch community, it essentially means that she is on her own and is often stopped from earning in the Mumbai territory.
   Maharani is not the only HIV+ eunuch who is on the streets. According to surveys, about half of Mumbai’s eunuch population is HIV+. Within the clan, they are simply called “pojeetive”. The pojeetives often survive by begging because they are not allowed to operate in the other two trades. Once a eunuch has been discarded, she cannot carry on trade anywhere. If she does, swift retribution follows, say the HIV+ eunuchs, with resignation.
   “When they die, nobody claims their body. They are burnt in anonymity. They die a talcum-powder death,” says Salma, alluding to the white ashes as she rattles off the names of those found dead and whose bodies were unclaimed. Pooja was found dead at Sion station, Santoshi near Dombivali station and Nazrana near Andheri station. All the three were labelled as unclaimed bodies by the police and burnt.
   “They are used just like green trees. When the tree is green, everyone enjoys the shade and the fruits it offers. Once the tree becomes barren, it is just discarded or cut down,” says Salma.
   Territories are marked within the city and the whole of Mumbai has seven eunuch clans — Lalanwala, Lashkarwala, Dongriwala, Punawala, Blockwala, Chaklewala and Bhendibazarwala. They are tightly knit and are each clan is headed by a Nayak. Five of the seven Nayaks stay at building number six in Lucky Chawl area near Khatau Mill Compound in Byculla. The building is guarded by undoubtedly male toughies.
   Below the Nayaks are the gurus who in turn have hundreds of chelas or disciples.
   Often the gurus or leaders live in comfort. While they do not have cars or an evidently affluent lifestyle, many have kilos of gold, silver and cash.
   Though they live in a parallel world, they are a formidable economic block. In fact, one of the issues that may be discussed during the impending May 10 meet is a new threat to their survival. Apparently, opportunistic males are masquerading as eunuchs to scavenge on the formidable wealth on Mumbai’s streets. TNN

WAR ROOM: Salma (centre, in the white dupatta) is gathering the support of eunuchs to fight human transaction during the shady meet

Remains of a beautiful mind

Remains of a beautiful mind 16 Dec 2007, 0000 hrs IST,Ketan Tanna,TNN

doweshowbellyad=0; Three years after she died, Parveen Wali Mohammad Khan Babi’s sunlit Juhu penthouse finally got a tenant. Despite Mumbai’s housing crisis and the cheap rent, there were few takers for the flat because the actress had died here in unhappy circumstances and her once-beautiful body was found only three days later. In deeply superstitious India, no one wanted to take on the ghosts of the past until television producer Sheel Kumar broke the taboo and defiantly told the media, “The vibes are positive.” When Babi, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, died in January 2005 at the age of 56 without a named heir, the government of Maharashtra became her custodian. One room of the Juhu house has her valuable possessions locked away. Assorted jewellery, a Husain painting titled Short Story, artefacts, costumes, all neatly inventoried. What was moved out of the flat was what the government thought unimportant – her thoughts. In a typical government office supported by crumbling grey files sits a forlorn cardboard box on a dusty table. In it are at least 20 foolscap notepads engorged with writing, and in ironic contrast, a lobotomised computer without its hard disk. That brain has been separately sealed by the government – technology must be treated with respect. Not in the box but somewhere in that office are stashes of microtape. In the last four years of her life, Babi recorded every phone call, always punctiliously informing the caller about surveillance. There are old VCR tapes of her films, like Khuddar and Suhag western classical music CDs and pop songs, and other CDs carefully labelled with dates. It is clear from the notepads that Babi was an obsessive documenter of her daily activities and thoughts. One CD is chockful of the cases she filed against Sanjay Dutt, the US government, Tony Blair, the then BJP government, and Amitabh Bachchan who, she said, had tried to kill her. A neighbour said that when a Bachchan film was shown on cable television, the actress reacted violently and had to be calmed. She wrote that she feared her death at the hands of “well known personalities” and had therefore prepared a will and made her spiritual guru and friend U G Krishnamurthy the beneficiary. Every material object in the house is entered: three television sets, two refrigerators, two videos, two tape deck stereos, six large speakers, nine Kashmiri carpets, diamond and pearl jewellery, one 3X 21/2 foot painting by B Prabha from Pundole Art Gallery with a woman and her two children, two M F Husain Varanasi prints, two term deposits of Rs 17,25,848 at HDFC Bank, Khar branch. All this in a file titled: “Most important documents of Ms Parveen Babi”. Her English is fluid, her thoughts get snagged on hooks of suspicion and doubt and go into repeat. Her writing is cursive, rounded and crowded. What shines through is the meticulousness, say, in the planning of an event. A few months before she died, Babi hosted a small party at her Juhu flat. The names of the seven guests are listed, one of them is Rev Avinash (Babi was reportedly baptised in 1997 and worshipped at the All Saints Church on Malabar Hill). The French dishes on the menu are listed and next to them is a series of reminders: “Call caterer for knives, forks, glasses, spoons.” “Get four bakery cakes.” “Clean plates, table cloths.” “Call florist. Clean and prepare salad ingredients.” And finally: “Asparagus”. On another page she grumbles about the gender discrimination in Bollywood. “Acting for an Indian actress often meant doing a few romantic scenes with the leading man, a few dances, and one or two scenes where the actress had to shed very visible large tears.” Parveen Babi was the first Indian actress to make it to the cover of Time . The arclights caressed her then the way they do the young actresses of today. At a New York airport in 1984, she had a breakdown when asked to show her papers, had to be ankle-cuffed and taken to a hospital. She came back to Juhu with Krishnamurthy’s help. She filed court cases, and fought them herself, appearing in dark glasses. She wrote and died on her own terms. So what if there was no one to shed very visible large tears? var RN = new String (Math.random()); var RNS = RN.substring (2,11); var b2 = ‘ ‘; if (doweshowbellyad==1) bellyad.innerHTML = b2;

Wrong man in jail for 50 days on cyber charge-India-The Times of India

Wrong man in jail for 50 days on cyber charge
3 Nov 2007, 0227 hrs IST,Ketan Tanna,TNN

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2513737.cms
MUMBAI: In the early hours of August 31, Lakshmana Kailash K was asleep at his home in Bangalore. He was woken up by eight policemen from Pune who came knocking on his door and waved the Information Technology Act, 2000, in his sleepy, terrified face. Get dressed, he was told, we are taking you to Pune for having defamed Shivaji. Lakshmana protested that he didn’t know anyone called Shivaji. The policemen said that they were talking about Chhatrapati Shivaji and that an insulting picture of him had been uploaded on the Internet networking site, Orkut. The trail had led them to his computer in Bangalore. Turning a deaf ear to his protests, the cops took him to Pune and put him behind bars. Along the way, the 26-year-old Lakshmana, who works with HCL, learned that what he was being arrested for was a case that had triggered riots in Pune in November 2006. Political parties had forcibly closed cybercafes and gone on a rampage over the posting of the illustration which had poked fun at Shivaji. Lakshmana was released after spending 50 days in jail, three weeks after the cops claimed to have nabbed the “real culprits”.

==============================

We made a mistake, so what, says Police
3 Nov 2007, 0438 hrs IST,Ketan Tanna,TNN

MUMBAI: In a case of misplaced justice, 26-year-old Lakshmana was released 50 days after authorities arrested him for ‘defaming’ Shivaji. Google, which owns Orkut , had cooperated with Mumbai police but the vital IP address — the unique number for an internet connection — was provided by service provider Bharti Airtel. Bharti said the IP address belonged to a Lakshmana K who lived in Bangalore.

His first bail plea was rejected. Finally, on October 20, after spending 50 days with 200 undertrials at Yerawada Jail, Lakshmana was released. Sorry, said the police, the IP address given to us was wrong. We are sorry, said Airtel, and “deeply distressed by the severe inconvenience”.

To add insult to injury, the police released Lakshmana nearly three weeks after they claimed to have picked up the “real culprits” on October 3 — three Bangalore boys, all now in judicial custody. Asked about the earlier arrest, assistant commissioner Netaji Shinde says, “Yes, we made a mistake. So what?”

Bharti was a little more contrite but made no mention of compensation. “We are in touch with the customer. We have robust internal processes which we review frequently to make them more stringent,” the company said in a response to TOI. “We have conducted a thorough investigation and will take appropriate action.”

Lakshmana’s ordeal has uncanny resonances of Kafka’s The Trial , the more so because his name has the same initial K as Kafka’s hapless protagonist. K is arrested one morning before breakfast on a non-charge and is left to battle the state’s mindless might.

Lakshmana was charged under Section 295A of the IPC for a deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings, and Section 67 of the IT Act for publishing “lascivious” material. The latter charge carries a punishment of five years.

Like Kafka’s K, Lakshmana tried initially to be brave. But he cracked when he was made to pose for a photograph with a black slate carrying his father’s name and his alleged crime. “It hurt me a lot that my father, a retired banker, was being associated with a crime. I just broke down,” he says.

“We were given a vati (bowl) which we had to eat and drink from and even take to the toilet. The long queues for filling water in the vati was our survival routine,” says Lakshmana. His kidney stones started acting up and his health deteriorated. “Because of depression and the bad food, I lost 12 kilos,” he says.

He’s back home now trying to put it all behind. HCL has been supportive but Lakshmana is not sure whether his job still exists.

“I have forgotten coding. I need to start all over,” he says. Asked if he planned to sue for compensation, Lakshmana is philosophical. “My family is considering it. Right now, I’m just beginning to appreciate the small things in life. It’s good to have a toilet to oneself. It’s good to have clean drinking water. It’s good to have family to quarrel with.”

Two days after his return, Airtel got in touch. But it wasn’t about the arrest. They sent him a SMS reminding him to pay his bill. This was followed up by a visit from a collection agent.

“I told them it’s all because of you that I haven’t paid,” says Lakshmana. “We can’t pay bills from jail.”

WORLD REACTS

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Here an India, There an Indian

Ketan Tanna on the embarrassing way in which India likes to appropriate achievers. We love to laugh at the nouveau riche and the silly way in which they flaunt their baubles: driving up in a flashy red sports car, wiping themselves with branded toilet paper, wearing ice-cubes on their chunky fingers, and most depressing of all, dropping names like so much dandruff. Sure they may have arrived but they can’t stop jingling their moneybags and getting the world to take notice.India, on the road to being a global power, seems to be suffering from this disease. The most tiresome symptom being the unthinking way in which we appropriate any achiever with even the most tenuous connection to the motherland as Indian. It makes us feel better, bigger, first-world and truly global. There is not so much as a prickle of shamefacedness at the fact that India has done little to further their careers or their talents. In the last couple of years, at regular intervals, the media has been choking with reports about “Indians” such as Bobby Jindal, Norah Jones, Sanjaya Malakar, Sunita Williams, etc who have all done the country proud in the USA or in space. Indian schoolchildren light diyas (lamps) or fast, villages and towns in remote corners of India distribute sweets, dance in joy, and the cameras chase the drivers, aunties, uncles and village postmen for sound bytes—all because the son or a daughter of a former resident who quit the country fifty years ago has achieved a modicum of success thousands of kilometers away.

But, at some point, reality bites. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s father, Amar Jindal, left Maler Kotla in Punjab for the United States almost 40 years ago and settled in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Bobby Jindal, 36, has never visited his ancestral home and has no plans to. Nora Jones who “grew up in Texas with a white mother” said after winning the Grammy that if anything, she felt more Texan than New Yorker (India did not figure). In fact, Geethali Norah Jones Shankar dropped the first and last extensions of her name when she turned 16. Sanjaya Malakar, the American Idol contestant whose father was an Indian, thanked his maternal Italian grandfather in his interviews. Sunita Williams was born in the USA to an Indian father (who became an American) and a mother of Slovenian heritage (the Slovenian press reproduced articles about how India was trying to appropriate their daughter of the soil).

Historian Ramachandra Guha says he is revolted by this “craven desire of Indians” to shine in reflected glory. “There is something lopsided and imbalanced in all of this,” he says. “It is nothing but pathetic insecurity and an inferiority complex. I blame the rudderless trans-national middle class for such hype.” In Delhi, Professor Mushirul Hassan, the vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia endorses Guha’s view that this is nothing but the urge of a middle-class keen to join the rat race to prove itself. “It is a way of saying we have arrived. An expression of new-found confidence. And when there not enough persons in India, you look outside,” he says.

Equus’ CEO and advertising professional Suhel Seth calls it a “reverse globalisation”. “India is very territorial in its emotions. We want to capture territories overseas. For us Indians, the grass is not only greener but sweeter outside India. We have shifting sands of respect and shifting sands of recognition. We seek role models from outside India and appropriate them even when they are not comfortable. Take Amarnath Bose (of Bose Electronics). I don’t think he wants to be called an Indian.”

There is certainly something surreal about the whole hysteria, agrees Sunil Khilnani, professor and director of South Asian Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and the author of the acclaimed The Idea of India. “This is not a healthy sign—our admiration and adulation for the overseas success of whomever we can claim (however tenuously) our ‘own’: it’s perhaps quaint, but also self-delusional,” he says. “We should perhaps think harder, focus more closely, on the many millions of those whom we condemn to failure, who really are our ‘own’ fellow, though far from equal, citizens.”

What really grates is that much greater achievement within the country goes unnoticed or is downplayed. But once the West gives its seal of approval, the drum roll just won’t stop. “Indian scientists who were ignored in India suddenly get talked about if they get recognised abroad. Even Mother Teresa became Indian only after she got the Nobel. We are a land of hypocrites. R K Pachauri suddenly shot to fame only after he got the Nobel Peace Prize. Till then very few would even give him appointment. And now suddenly he has become an Indian scientist,” says Seth.

Prof Hassan adds that success is always seen as suspect: “We don’t recognise the worth of person who has achieved something or done something worthwhile. We attribute it to tikdam (machinations). We don’t think that it could be an intrinsic part of the person or hard work that has contributed to his/her success. When I go abroad, people talk about how Indian scholars, historians are making great advances. But here we don’t talk about them. We are in awe of someone who has studied in Cambridge but the moment you say you have studied in India, the interest wanes. This is an inferiority complex.”

Guha blames the media for feeding this kind of false pride. “The media should not be so obsequious about the West,” he says. “A few years ago, a magazine said that they did not put Vishwanathan Anand on the cover because he came second in the world championship. Bismillah Khan’s death and even M S Subbulakshmi’s death were covered sparsely. Sunita Williams got ten times that coverage in the media. If great artistes like Bismillah Khan or M S had died in France, there would be half-hour programmes every day for a week if not more. Look at the way they covered Pavarotti’s death. And here in India we cover our national heroes’ death while reading out what the President of India has said about him or her. But Bobby Jindal wins the governorship of a small state in the US and he gets excessive coverage.”

Congress MP Milind Deora says that before celebrating the success of Indians abroad their Indianness needs to be verified. “Take the example of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Austria celebrates his success and that is genuine because he was born there and grew up in Austria before migrating to the USA,” says Deora. “We celebrate these achievements because we have a certain affinity for them. The affinity is not derived from citizenship or from accent. America is full of immigrants but one does not find Europe celebrating each and every success of an American who is of European descent.”

Another ‘Indian’ who only has nasty things to say about India is V S Naipaul, who was born in Trinidad and lives in England. India counts Naipaul amongst its Nobel winners. Naipaul, who hates to be asked what he considers ‘home’—“I refuse to answer that question one more time,” he snapped at Crosswords in Mumbai—has this to say about the three countries he is associated with. “India is unwashed, Trinidad is unlearned and England is morally bankrupt.” The criticism is evenly handed out but perhaps we should reflect on what the ‘Indian’ achievers across the pond think of the country before we roll out the red carpet and smother them in it.  

As prices fall, is it still wise to buy the yellow metal?

As prices fall, is it still wise to buy the yellow metal?

Ketan Tanna | TNN

   Gold in New York fell to the lowest in eight weeks on Friday as the dollar gained. Gold prices generally move up when the dollar goes down and vice versa. But with the dollar now firming up, the appeal of gold as a hedge against the US currency has reduced.
   What does all of this mean for the average Indian buyer? Is it time to invest or stay away? Demand for gold may slow down with the end of the wedding season this month, but “buy” seems to be the recommendation of the bullion experts. Harish Kewalramani, director, Bombay Bullion Association, says if someone has plans to buy gold, this is the right time. “Gold prices are at an all-time low and is hovering around Rs 8,850 per 10 gram. But I anticipate a correction and that means the price of gold is likely to move upwards. Also keep in mind that the US government will soon be in an election mode and therefore the dollar’s value is not likely to go down any further as a strong dollar will make a good appeal to the voter”, says Kewalramani.
   The average price of gold in India in 2006 was around Rs 8,960 per 10 gram. The average price per 10 gram of gold between January-March this year was Rs 9,200 and in April 2007 it dropped below Rs 9,000. On Friday, gold was available at Rs 8,850 per 10 gram. In the next few days if the price of gold internationally dips below $650, the price in India will also drop further. However, experts estimate that there is a possibility of gold prices going up to about $700 per ounce of gold. Gold hit a 26-year high of $730 just over a year ago. “Remember that gold has never been this cheap in the last year or so. In terms of risk, liquidity and, to an extent, even returns, gold is a safe investment”, says Keyur Shah, associate director, World Gold Council.
   So should one invest in gold jewellery, gold coins or buy exchange traded mutual funds? According to Shah, exchange-traded mutual funds are the best bet. There are local jewelers, who also sell gold coins and do not have an added margin of more than 3-4 %, unlike some banks that import gold bars from abroad and where the added margin could be as high as 10 % or more.

Revenge of the accountant: He makes the taxman pay you

Revenge of the accountant: He makes the taxman pay you

Ketan Tanna I TNN

Mumbai: For someone who has been a leading chartered accountant for well over 50 years and has also presided over the Bombay Chartered Accountants Society as its president, picking a fight with the Income Tax department may sound a bit odd and even self-defeating. But at 76, a man thinks very differently. Especially Narayan Varma who has decided to put the interests of common citizens above the benefits of being friendly with the taxman.
   For the last 18 months, Varma has been devoting his time to helping people get their tax refunds, especially when the amounts are long overdue. Though this is done under the aegis of a Right To Information (RTI) clinic being held by the Bombay Chartered Accountants Society (BCAS) Foundation (of which he is the founding trustee), it has become a personal battle for Varma. After his retirement next year he intends to turn this into a full-time job along with other social work activities.
   The RTI clinic, which is supervised by Varma along with two assistants, has handled 300 cases so far at the average rate of 20 cases a month. Those who have benefited from it are chiefly from the middle and lower middle-class, who are clueless about how to get income tax refunds. For example, Geeta P, a middle-class housewife, had been waiting for years for an income tax refund of just over Rs 40,000. Unable to wait any longer, she approached Varma and, through him, used the RTI specifically asking why her refund was stuck. It was then the Income Tax department stirred into life and sent a cheque of Rs 40,077 along with Rs 16,756 as interest for the delayed refund. PB Pathak, who got Rs 2,198 in refund for assessment year 2002-03, and Benny Cardozo, who got the refund of Rs 8,625 along with interest for the assessment year 2001-02, are among the scores of middle-class people whom Varma has helped. He does not charge anything for this service.
   One of the first refund cases that Varma handled was that of a former Mumbai sheriff. The former sheriff had been patiently waiting for his refund for years until May last year when he told Varma about it. Initially, Varma was hesitant. To challenge the Income Tax department would mean crossing the sword with the same officers with whom he had been working for years.
   “I was a bit apprehensive. I tested myself by making the first appeal for refund under the RTI. In no time, a refund of Rs 40,000 was sent by cheque,’’ says Varma. That the RTI appeal worked gave him hope. RTI is a simple but effective mechanism to make government servants respond, and to punish bureaucrats when their replies are incomplete or wrong.
   After the success with the sheriff ’s case, Varma got the BCAS Foundation to formally hold RTI clinics on the last three Saturdays of every month. In these clinics, eight people can get their claims addressed without being charged anything though prior appointment is necessary. As the word of the clinic spread, scores of people started calling on Varma with cases pertaining to not just tax refunds but also other financial cases concerning the BMC, Mumbai police, MHADA and other powerful bodies.
   With his two sons settled abroad and earning well, Varma, who is married to a German lady, says that life has been kind to him. “I have made good investments and I am financially well off. We visit our children twice a year and that is the only major expense I have,’’ he says.
   In 2008, Varma will formally retire and devote his life to many social activities for which he has already started planning. Income tax refunds and tax problems of the common man will be given more time.
   “I have also plans to work in the field of education for the lesser privileged.’’
   Varma’s dedication has earned him admiration from other social activists. Kewal Semlani, who, too, uses RTI for the betterment of society, says that Varma is someone who has systematically used RTI to help the common man. Varma’s forte is that he knows the system in and out and, therefore, he is able to fight for tax refunds and associated tax matters more effectively. “We need more persons like him,’’ says Semlani.
   ketan.tanna@hotmail.com

PAISA VASOOL: Narayan Varma conducts an RTI clinic to help middle and lower middle-class people get long-overdue tax refu

Footfall still a far cry for city’s niche museums

Footfall still a far cry for city’s niche museums

Ketan Tanna I TNN

Mumbai: Sex, money, cops. Mumbai has museums dedicated to these niche subjects that are generally associated with the city and more. Unfortunately, due to poor marketing and publicity, the museums have found few takers and have consequently been relegated to the sidelines of the city.
   Just opposite Alexandra Cinema near Mumbai Central is India’s only sex museum called Antarang. There is talk of it now being shifted because the museum is located near the red-light area which apparently has discouraged Mumbaikars from visiting it.
   The museum was started in October 2002 and has attracted 16,000 plus visitors so far. The ground floor of the building has India’s oldest STD clinic while the first floor houses the museum which has an entrance designed in the shape of the Kamasutra book.
   The museum uses excerpts from Kamasutra to describe the sexual relationship between man and woman. Minimalist drawings, paintings and wooden blocks educate the visitor on the basics of human sexuality. There is even a section that debunks sexual myths. The exhibits focus on condom use and safe sex, and discuss the dangers of unprotected sex and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in India and its social stigma. The museum is a collaborative venture by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society.
   Initially, when it was started, there was a lot of media hype but over the years, the number of visitors has dwindled. “In 2006 we had 2,158 males and 2,752 female visitors. This year we have had 1,171 males and 912 female visitors. A family visiting the museum is rare though recently we did have a couple come in with their teenage children. I was pleasantly surprised because the father was educating his children during the entire tour of the museum,’’ says Dr M G Vallecha, chief medical officer in the BMC and currently in charge of the clinic and the museum. Entry is free and one can visit it on all working days till 4 pm.
   Another museum that seems to have few takers is the RBI Monetary Museum at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) headquarters that has an amazing coin collection besides having a representative collection of over 10,000 exhibits of Indian coinage, paper currency, financial instruments and monetary curiosities. The museum was inaugurated on November 18, 2004 and has been open to the public since January 1, 2005. The first of its kind in the country, the museum exhibits original coins and currency notes (around 1,500) and is divided into sections on the basis of various themes such as Curiosities & the Idea of Money, Indian
coinage, Coins to Bank Notes, Indian Paper Money, Know Your Currency and finally a section called the RBI and You.
   “It is an attempt to demystify and unravel the mysteries of money,’’ says Alpana Killawala, chief general manager, Reserve Bank of India. On an average, it gets about 30 visitors daily. So far the museum has had 20,000 visitors. “It naturally attracts only those who are interested in Indian Numismatics. Publicity is mostly through word of mouth. We have, however, made efforts to include a visit to the monetary museum in the itinerary of MTDC and ITDC,’’ says Killawala.
   A couple of kilometres away is yet another set of displays based on a theme of specific interest. The Mumbai Police Museum, located at the police headquarters near Crawford Market, attracts anywhere between 15 and 20 visitors daily, who are provided a fascinating insight into the history of the Mumbai police.
   Besides original firearms and uniforms that were used by the city police throughout its history, the museum focuses on the evolution of the force. But poor upkeep and little publicity means the museum hardly sees a flood of visitors, whether they be Mumbaikars or tourists.
   There is also the Framjee Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum, a community museum, which exhibits a collection put together by Alpaiwalla, a Parsi businessman. The museum is a storehouse of material related to Parsi history and archeological artefacts. An original firmaan given to Dadabhoy Naoroji’s ancestors by the Moghul Emperor Jehangir is one of its unique attractions.
   ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

TAKING A CLOSE LOOK

TOUCH OF LOVE

Kin of two 7/11 victims live on hope

Kin of two 7/11 victims live on hope

11 Months After The Blasts, Lives Of Two Families Have Been Intertwined Forever By Fate

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Mumbai: As the Arabian Sea ebbs and flows below the window of the 8th-floor Hinduja Hospital bed, 48-year-old Madhuri Sawant wipes her tears and tries to lift her son’s head which drops the minute it is unsupported.
   “Parag, enough is enough. Let’s go home. If you are not coming, I am going,’’ Madhuri says, ruffling Parag’s hair. Even as she play-acts, her 28-year-old son’s eyes are focussed on a corner of the room. He doesn’t seem to comprehend a word, but all the same clutches his mother’s fingers to prevent her from leaving.
   A few km away on the 12th floor of a bed in Jaslok Hospital, 44-yearold Dinesh Singh prepares to go home and gently kisses the forehead of his 22-year-old son, Amit Singh. “Chhotu, you are brave. You know you will recover. Don’t cry, beta. Mummy is here and your brother will arrive soon. I have to go home. Be brave, son,’’ he says, stifling his sobs. Amit’s eyes, like those of Parag, flicker for a split second as if in comprehension, but the very next moment turn listless again. Both Parag and Amit, victims of the July 2006 serial train bomb blasts, suffered head injuries, and after several surgeries, cannot comprehend and process information.
   Eleven months after the serial train bomb blasts killed 209 people, the lives of these two families have been intertwined forever by fate. Of the 700 who were injured, Parag and Amit are the only ones still in hospital and facing a bleak and uncertain future.
   Parag, who became a father last year, has no clue about his fatherhood and did not bat an eyelid when his infant daughter, Prachiti, was placed before him eight months ago. That his wife, Priti, passed her 12th-standard exam recently does not matter to him either. In an attempt to jolt him out of the state, the nurses and support staff at Hinduja have stopped cajoling and begun acting stern with Parag: earlier this week, a nurse shrilly told him at 6 in morning that it was time for him to go home. Parag was just about startled, says his mother, though seconds later he was his usual listless self.
   Amit, whose B Com results were out after the blasts, secured a first class, though he remains oblivious to the fact. But the family has not given up hope. His mother, Meena, massages her son’s leg gently with oil and pleads with him to keep his legs, which have curled up after months of disuse, straight. Tears run down her cheeks as she virtually begs her son for one small response. “He doesn’t listen to me,’’ she says, knowing fully well why Amit does not respond. Amit understands things, though. “The input is there but there is no output (in terms of movement or action),’’ says Uncle Umesh Singh.
   For the last 11 months, the Singh and Sawant families have made the hospital their home. Both the mothers, who were housewives who rarely left their home before their sons’ accident, have now become battleweary veterans, commuting from Virar and Bhayandar on overcrowded local trains. As mothers are wont to do, they survive on the hope that one day their sons will awake from their near-comatose conditions, recover and return home.
   Though the railway ministry is paying the hospital bills, more often than not the two families end up spending anywhere between Rs 500-1000 a day on incidental expenses like travelling and eating. The Sawant kitchen at Bhayandar and the Singh kitchen at Virar are all but defunct, with both mothers lacking the energy to cook after spending the better part of their time at the hospital tending to their sons.
   The other family members too pitch in. Amit’s elder brother, Dheeraj Singh, stays at night by his brother’s side and goes directly to his Churchgate office in the morning. It’s been ages since he saw his home. In the case of Parag, his father and brother as well as his aunt take turns to relieve the mother who spends her day by Parag’s bedside reading religious texts and playing the Gayatri Mantra tape throughout the day. Both families have heard about each other though they have been unable to meet. Doctors at both hospitals privately admit that only a miracle can change the situation. The Singh and Sawant families are living in the hope of that miracle.

TWIN TRAGEDY: While Parag Sawant (left) has ben admitted to the Hinduja Hospital, Amit Singh is undergoing treatment in Jaslok Hospital. (Below) The sketches of how they looked like before the serial blasts

Diamond hub chooses to skip the anniversary

Diamond hub chooses to skip the anniversary

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Mumbai: The Indian diamond industry is pegged at Rs 70,000 crore. It employs over one lakh persons, a majority of them from Mumbai. During the 2006 serial train bomb blasts, it lost 12 members. One would have expected tributes on the first anniversary of 7/11, especially since the attack was seen to be directed at the affluent Gujarati community. But Mumbai’s diamond industry seemed to have collective amnesia. Not a single prayer or condolence meeting was held in the Opera House area, which is the heart of the diamond trade.
   “Meeting? What meeting”? murmured brokers who were busy gulping elaichi chai and doing deals near Panchratna Building, which houses the who’s who of the industry. Bharatbhai, who identified himself as an office bearer of the Mumbai Diamond Merchant Association, said, “Please don’t waste our time. We have no function. And now please leave.”
   Outside The Jewel building, the street was chock-ablock with gem assorters, polishers and sundry traders, talking about the deals of the day, exchanging information over a plate of hot pakoras and gatiya. “Yeah, it’s sad there is no meeting. We should have had a meeting for those who died”, said Jignesh Patel.
   Sanjay Shah, a diamond polisher said he had heard of a meeting on the sixth floor of Panchratna. But on the 6th floor, the rooms were locked. “Oh, it was a yoga meeting, that is over,” said a guard. Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council chairman Sanjay Kothari too was not aware of any efforts to pay tribute to victims of the blasts but he agreed that it should have been organized.
   The indifference of the industry was apparent although there were some who did express concern. “This industry survives on today. For them yesterday does not matter and tomorrow is yet to come. Today is rokda (cash)”, said Vinay Parekh, a veteran trader.
   Chandubhai Kasodariya whose uncle Kalubhai died in the blast said some of the relatives of the dead had held their own individual prayer meetings. Manubhai Shah, for instance, held a prayer meeting for his brother’s son, Anil who died in the blast. Rajesh, brother of Nitin Shah who lost a couple of fingers in the blast, was sanguine. “I guess it is human nature to move on. I guess the diamond industry has moved on”, he said.

Weak security

The only place where the 7/11 incident appears to have left a mark is the security department of the diamond exchange. Entry points to the building are now controlled to regulate the traffic of visitors. Only one person can enter at a time can enter although ID cards have been given a go-by and no one is asked for proof of identity.

FELLOW TRAVELLERS: Commuters everywhere voiced their fears, and expressed hope for the future

Pak activist recalls trial by fire

Pak activist recalls trial by fire

Ketan Tanna I TNN

Mumbai: Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jahangir’s eyes looked fiery as she stared through her glasses.
   “I don’t know whether it changed me as a person or not but it is definitely one of the cases that has created the greatest impact on me. It was a case I handled in 1995, when a 14-year-old boy was given a death sentence for blasphemy. He had a little tin box that he wanted back and kept asking for it. I thought, ‘My god! This little chap is so brave in the face of people who can be cruel in the name of religion.’ In an appeal he was acquitted, but the judge who gave the order was murdered. Then some assassins came to kill me. It was all so messy, but I had resolved in my mind to get the little boy acquitted,’’ said “the small woman with a large job’’ as The Times magazine once described.
   Jahangir is in the city along with Nasir Aslam Zahid, the former Chief Justice of the Sind high court, who has resigned from the Supreme Court of Pakistan instead of taking the oath of office according to General Pervez Musharraf’s Provisional Constitutional Order. The two have come here to create network and gain support from Indian human rights organisations and the civil society.
   Dressed in a floral print Punjabi salwar kameez and always a smile on her face, the 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service winner can easily pass off for a kind grandmother. The only sign of affluence in the 55-year-old activist is the diamond ring that sparkled on her fingers.
   The next few years in Pakistan will be messy, but the country will come out of it, said Jahangir. Being the founding member of the human rights commission of Pakistan, Jahangir danced on the streets of Pakistan along with other men, women and children when the Supreme Court reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar M Chaudhry recently. “No mullah could dare oppose us,’’ she said.
   Earlier at a press meet, both Jahangir and Zahid said the recent reinstatement of Chaudhri was only a milestone in the long road that would lead to a democratic Pakistan. The judges’ movement and the turbulence that rocked Pakistan was a turning point they said. “It is the common person who was at the forefront of the movement. More than 80% of the bar association members belong to rural and humble backgrounds,’’ said Jahangir.
   With general elections just around the corner and a desperate general in office, there is apprehension that Musharraf may impose an Emergency and try to get another five-year extension. But for now, politicians in Pakistan have not been allowed to hijack the movement that brought Chaudhri back. Despite the success of the lawyers’ movement, the future is uncertain, said Jahangir, though she hoped that her country would have a democracy where the rule of law would prevail.
   For her own, she said she did not have any plans. “I wish I could plan for the future. Trouble lands up at my office. I don’t plan for the future, I plan for what we should be asking for and what we should be fighting for. But let me add here, that what has changed in Pakistan is the mood and outlook of the people. God willing, we will emerge as a stronger country with a democratically elected government,’’she added.
   ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

UNRAVELLING THE SITUATION BACK HOME: In India to gain support from human rights organisations, Jahangir talks about the reinstatement of Pakistan chief justice

Fruits, vegetables and a war against cancer

Fruits, vegetables and a war against cancer

Ketan Tanna | TNN

   Life was good for Shaila Bhagwat. Married to a senior executive, this teacher’s life was closely tied to her husband’s transferable job that took her to different corners of the country. But days after arriving in Mumbai in 1999, her husband was diagnosed with lymph node cancer.
   During her husband’s treatment at Hinduja Hospital—which meant spending five hours there, five days a week, she came in touch with other cancer patients. What stood out was the fact that most of them, struggling as they were with radiation and chemotherapy, barely gave any importance to their diet. Eating right was the least of the worries among cancer patients, especially those who belonged to the poor and the middle classes. Moved by the suffering of those around her during her daily visit to Hinduja, Shaila decided that she wanted to do more with her life. She decided to help cancer patients with the aspect they ignored the most—diet.
   “I had a standing job offer from a prestigious Mumbai school, but I did not want to be constrained by time. I was welloff. My two grownup daughters were also able to take care of themselves. My husband had recovered and I had plenty of time. That is how my journey began,” she says.
   For the last eight years, Shaila, now 57, has been a familiar face at the radiation oncology department of Hinduja Hospital. Twice every week, she can be found in the waiting area, talking to patients, asking about their problems and guiding them. Her emphasis is on advising the patients on what they need to eat and how to make food an ally in fighting cancer.
   Radiation and chemotherapy, not to mention a heavy dose of drugs, rob the patients of their energy, says Shaila. The desire to eat also vanishes. The body becomes weak and it takes a lot of effort to go through the drudgery of everyday life, she adds.
   A postgraduate in microbiology, Shaila decided to fortify her knowledge in nutrition and enrolled herself in a course conducted by SNDT University. This was enhanced by voracious reading on the internet and extensive interaction with doctors and friends.
   Though there is a general diet in place for cancer patients, Shaila often prepares more specific food charts. There are times when poor patients cannot afford to eat the recommended fruits or medicines. For such patients, an alternative is given.
   In case of oral cancer, patients are advised on the right combination of daily liquid diet. There have been times when well-off patients overhear Shaila counselling the poor and they anonymously pay for the drugs and fruits needed by those who cannot afford them. Besides drugs and diet, daily exercises and yoga can heal the body faster, says Shaila.
   Suman Jadhav, a 60-yearold who was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer, found hope in Shaila in the corridors of the hospital. Her daughter Lalita says the first few days were tough. “But Shailatai gave us time, guided us on what to eat, how to do yoga and how to cope with the disease. (Contact Shaila Bhagwat on 022 26058214)
   ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

A FRUITFUL LIFE: Shaila Bhagwat’s efforts give hope to many

The man with a treasure of toys and books

The man with a treasure of toys and books

Ketan Tanna I TNN

Mumbai: Five-year-old Sunita and her three friends who have come back home from school a while ago, land up at a huge godown near Jain Mandir, Mazgaon, on a late Thursday afternoon. “Uncle, give us something to play with,’’ demands Sunita, her eyes lighting up in excitement. “Come on Sunday,’’ says the uncle, Manilal Dungershi Dand, a retired businessman.
   Every Sunday, 64-year-old Manilal is there for the children, waiting with a treasure of toys and books, which are stacked in about 70 cupboards that occupy only a little portion of his huge godown. Every Sunday, 30 to 40 children visit his godown and the party goes on from morning till noon. Most of the kids belong to poor and lower middle-class Muslim and Marathi families of Mazgaon.
   The walls are colourfully done up with pictures and messages like, “Handling children is not a child’s play and I am so glad that you are here’’. Besides toys and books, there are crayons, puzzles, carom boards, education video material, broken benches and every conceivable thing that could make a child’s day. But it’s not only about having a good time for the children, they also learn to grow responsible. The kids, when entering their playzone, have to deposit Rs 10 with their uncle. The amount is reimbursed when they leave, even if they break some of the toys. He also teaches origami (Japanese art of paper sculpting) to the children.
   A few years ago, Dand lost half the collection of the toys to a fire that broke out in the godown. “Now I have only 1,000 toys left,’’ he says.
   Children have always heroworshipped Dand who first started helping a toy library called Chacha Nehru Library, which was run by Kumud Patkar. That was in the midsixties. The library was later shifted to the Patkar bungalow in Bandra and then to a municipal school. The local Lions Club, for a long time, ran the toy library where Dand volunteered his time every Sunday. In fact, Dand’s wife would complain sometimes that her husband did not have much time for her, even on Sundays. Eventually, the library at the Bandra municipal school wound up and that is when Dand decided to turn a portion of his godown, from where he ran a spice business, into a toy library. His dream was realised in 2001.
   He would scrounge chor bazaar and other second-hand goods markets where he bought toys at a cheaper rate. Often, he would get toys that were almost new and had been discarded by affluent children. “In India, unfortunately, those who really need toys do not get it and some get too many of them,’’ he says, citing an example of a friend whose son got 11 clocks on his birthday He cannot forget a nine-yearold girl from a village on the outskirts of Mumbai who had tears in her eyes when Dand went against his rules and let her take two toys home.
   His library has been inspiring for his family, relatives and friends, who add on to the toys to his collection.
   Dand retired six months ago and since then, he has been touring various places in the state and organising small lectures and demonstrations for children. Some of his days are spent at the pediatric department of J J Hospital where the children get to play with toys while recuperating.
   (Dand can be reached at 022-23723722)
    ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

PLAYING SANTA CLAUS: On Sunday, Manilal opens his godown to children who play and read there till the afternoon

Child abuse victims have nowhere to go

Child abuse victims have nowhere to go

Ketan Tanna I TNN

   A year and a half ago, an eightyear-old speech and hearing impaired girl, Smita was raped in Mumbai. She was taken to Nair Hospital bruised and bleeding. The girl was raped a day earlier and treated at a small civic hospital. The doctors and the police later decided to transfer her case to Nair Hospital, which takes care of child victims, especially those abused or raped.
   Smita has still not recovered from the nightmare she was subjected to. Total withdrawal from people she knew, including her parents, sleep disturbances and inability to express emotions marked the days that followed her rape. Over the last 18 months, a team at Nair Hospital has worked on her case. While the smile has now returned to Smita’s face, it is mostly fleeting—the road to recovery is a long-winding one.
   Seema, 14, had entered the gynaecology out-patient department of Nair Hospital almost two years ago along with her mother. The girl, who was pregnant, told the doctors on duty that a stranger had raped her. Her tale, though, seemed to have some missing links. That, indeed, was the case as her mother approached the forensic department head after a few days and said Seema wanted to talk. The doctors then discovered that the girl’s first cousin had developed a physical relationship with her and made her pregnant in the process.
   Though the cousin had asked Seema to keep mum, the girl, with the help of trained psychiatrists, counsellors and NGO workers, gathered the courage to let the truth out.
   For every Smita and Seema, who get help sooner or later, there are countless other victims of child abuse whose cases go unreported for various reasons. Till August-end,118 rape cases were registered in Greater Mumbai. While a break-up of the number of minors was not available, recent statistics released by the CID, Maharashtra government, indicated that there was a 23% rise in crimes against children.
   Alarmingly, Mumbai has just one dedicated child protection centre at Nair Hospital. There are, of course, NGOs that help victims of child abuse, but these kids find little or no solace at the government level.
   The irony is that National Human Rights Commission recently issued guidelines for speedy disposal of child rape cases. It recommended that the probe be completed within three months and trial held in a childfriendly atmosphere. The guidelines says the investigating officer has to
ensure that medical test of the victim and the accused be done within 24 hours. The chief medical officers should make sure that the tests are done soon after receiving the request.
   The process requires a lot of coordination.“There is goodwill among doctors, but that’s not enough. There should be systematic protocol and coordination between departments like health and home,’’ said a doctor.
   Unfortunately, not many doctors in Mumbai are adequately trained to deal with children who have been sexually assaulted. During their second-year studies, they are taught how to handle general trauma victims and that too for a brief period. The fact that most cases of child rape collapse even when they reach
the court is because the doctors do not scientifically collect evidence.
   A private doctor can collect evidence and keep it for future use, but that rarely happens as most of them keep off what they call ‘medico-legal’ cases. “Survivors of sexual assault need medical treatment and counselling. Some of them may also wish to file a case against their assailant(s). In some countries, women can authorise the collection of evidence, which has to be done as soon as possible to develop a strong case. But they may withhold, for a reasonable period, their decision to pursue the case. They may first seek advice on whether they should file a case,’’ said Dr Amita Pitre, who works in the area of sexual assault.
   According to Dr Pitre, this option does not exist in India. “Some hospitals require the survivor to file an FIR before they proceed with an examination. Most public hospitals inform the police before they examine a woman or child. In many cases, the police bring in the survivor for examination. During our interaction, the police said either an FIR or a formal request from the police was needed before the examination.
   “There do not seem to be any guidelines for this practice but at least one textbook clearly states that ‘the victim should not be examined without requisition from (the) investigating police officer or magistrate’. A public prosecutor said prior examination would amount to collecting evidence before filing an FIR, which would not be admissible in a court of law,’’ explained Dr Pitre.
   CEHAT (Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes), an NGO, had launched standardised sexual assault evidence collection kits almost a decade ago. The kits included protocols and the equipment necessary for examination and care.
   Gynaecologist Dr Duru Shah tried, through a short film titled ‘Body and Soul’ to sensitise the medical community on the sexual abuse of young girls . But it was a limiting effort because at the government level, there was a tug-of-war between the legal and home departments over where the buck had to stop.
   The problem is compounded by the lack of medical personnel specialising in forensic science. Even at Nair Hospital, the child protection centre is understaffed, while the forensic department at KEM Hospital has a skeletal staff. There are seven seats for specialising in forensic science, but often even these are not filled. “What’s the chance of having a private clinic or hospital if someone chooses this field? One can become a lecturer at best,’’ said a doctor.
   (The victims’ names have been changed)
ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

The old resting places of the beautiful

The old resting places of the beautiful

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

   When she raised her arm in defiance and lip-synced parda nahi jab koi khhuda se to Lata Mangeshkar’s voice in Mughale-Azam, the entire nation heaved. Scores timed hours for a mere glimpse of her ethereal beauty. She never aged; death saw to it. Madhubala’s mortal remains lie today at
   the Santa Cruz Muslim cemetery. But not for her the peace of sleep. She is too famous for that.
   Last month, the marble slab from her grave was moved from her resting place. Bits and pieces of the marble have been stacked away in the backyard of the cemetery. Madhubala’s sister did protest to the Muslim Majlis of the cemetery that her father Amanullah Khan had purchased the right to the grave but could not back up her claim with documents.
   Cemetery authorities have their own reasons. “We simply do not have the space. Madubala’s marble tombstone was taking up a lot of place. Since 1984, we do not allow any concrete tombstones,’’ candidly admits Ashgar Ali, president of the Mulsim Majlis.
   In one distant corner of the same cemetery, a small mound of mud covers the remains of another gorgeous woman, Parveen Babi. As lonely as she was in her troubled last years. Very few visit the graves of lyricists Majrooh Sultanpuri and Sahir Ludhianvi, buried in the same ground.
   The grave of singer Mohamed Rafi though has escaped such rudeness. It has regular visitors throughout the year. “Aspiring singers, lyricists and established singers such as Shabbir Kumar come here and pay their respect to Mohamed Rafi. They pray for success and come back when their songs do well,’’ says Ashgar Ali.
Furhter south, at Marine Lines at Badakabarastan, is the place where actors Nargis and Suraiya lie. Suraiya’s grave rarely gets visitors though Nargis’ is visited by her family, especially son Sanjay Dutt who prefers to visit his mother in the dead of the night to avoid being mobbed by the living.
In this huge cemetery, two adjoining graves are hard to miss. They are adorned by sudden greenery and Urdu words say good things about the occupants. These are the graves of Allahaj Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim Kaskar and Haji Mohammed Sabir. They are the father and brother of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. The Kaskar family members do visit the grave, though erratically.
   A few kilometres towards central Mumbai is a cemetery meant for Khoja Muslims. Here, a tombstone rises in self importance. Four carved Italian marble pillars border the grave. The epitaph simply reads “Ratanbai Mahomed Ali Jinnah, 20th February 1900-20th February 1929’’. The estranged second wife of Jinnah was 29 when
she had died in Bombay, beautiful but melancholic. Recently, thieves plundered her grave and stole the beautiful brass railings enclosing the grave.
   Ratanbai or Ruttie Jinnah rarely has any visitors, although it recently had some Parsi visitors, says caretaker Amin. “They cleaned up the weeds and spoke of constructing a garden. That was some time back. I have not heard from them later,’’ he says.
   Historians say that by 1927, Ruttie and Mohamed Ali Jinnah had separated and the shifting of the Muslim League’s office to Delhi dealt the final blow to their relationship. When she died, Jinnah sat like a statue throughout the funeral but when her body was being lowered into the grave, and he as the closest relative was asked to sprinkle the earth on the grave first, he broke down.
   Later, Justice Chagla said that was the only time he saw Jinnah betray human weakness. “It’s not a well publicised fact that as a young student in England, it had been one of Jinnah’s dreams to play Romeo at The Globe. It is a strange twist of fate that a love story that started like a fairy tale ended as a haunting tragedy to rival any of Shakespeare’s dramas,’’ Chagla recorded for posterity.

The tomb of Ruttie Jinnah (right) at the Khoja cemetery at Mazagaon was recently cleaned and the plot deweeded

Last month the marble slab from Madhubala’s grave at the Santa Cruz cemetery was removed

Anti-depressants could induce suicidal thoughts’

Anti-depressants could induce suicidal thoughts’

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: On July 1, the all-powerful Food & Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States issued a warning that those popping antidepressants should be closely watched for suicidal tendencies, citing publications that suggest an increased risk among patients taking the drugs.
   Earlier, in March 2004, the FDA of the US said that several antidepressants get labels noting that all patients should be watched closely for signs of increased depression or suicidal leanings. Later, the agency called on manufacturers to add a strong “black box” warning about the link between the drugs and suicidal tendencies in children. The FDA is doing a major review of data on adult antidepressant patients to evaluate whether the drugs increase the risk of suicidal tendencies.
   Cut to the Indian context. The depressed Indian patient is rarely aware of what he or she is getting into when antidepressants are prescribed. Is it a collective apathy on the part of the Indian antidepressants manufacturers, the food & drug controller authority and the psychiatrist community in India or is it that the Indian consumer is taken for granted and not made aware of the aftereffects of taking antidepressants?
   Among other antidepressants available in the Indian market include citalopram,citalopram, sertraline, flvoxamine, venlafaxine, duloxetine, fluoxetine,paroxetine and mirtazapine. None carry any warning that among other side-effects, the medicine could induce suicidal thoughts, though there are few medications that have other form of warnings.
   However, when it comes to antid e p re s s a n t s, none of the medicines sold in the Indian market carry the mandatory warning about its suicidal side-effects.
   Leading Mumbai psychiatrist Harish Shetty candidly admits that none of the depressants carry such a warning. However Shetty said that the FDA warning is relevant to the Indian context now more than ever. It is relevant and yet our tolerance and acceptance of antidepressants is more than that of the West. Our medico-legal complications will make it imperative to all consultants to take this seriously. In the event of a suicide, one might interpret this as drug-induced rather than illness depression, Shetty says.
   Sun Pharma spokesperson Mira Desai, while admitting that none of the Indian antidepressants carry the suicide warning, says this has not been a regulatory requirement so far, nor has an increased incidence of suicides been observed. “Putting a warning there without understanding the basis for such action may cause unnecessary anxiety and may not be in the patients best interest in our country for an area like depression where as such the ailment is under treated”, Desai says.
   Desai’s hypothesis is not entirely correct, says VD Deshmukh, former joint commissioner of the FDA in Maharashtra. The patients, especially those who are depressed, need to know what they are getting into. Their near and dear ones need to know. I am afraid, there is not much concern for Indian consumers and patients, says Deshmukh.
   Dr JK Trivedi, former president of the Indian Psychiatric Association, says the FDA warning may not be taken very seriously here in India. “The FDA issues statements that may be relevant to the US, but the situation is entirely different in India. There is a tendency in the US to sue the firms over any matter, so the FDA may be erring on the safer”, says Trivedi.
   What then is the bottom line? Is it that the Indian patient is not aware of his rights and is unlikely to move court if he remains in the dark? Equally, where does the office of the Drug Controller General of India stand on this issue?
   Ashwini Kumar, the Drug Controller General of India says, FDA is not the benchmark. We need to examine the issue and see whether it is relevant for us. We do not have the same kind of packaging of drugs that US has. We need to examine so many relevant issues. Yes, we have started working on this issue in any case. We are in the process of consulting experts, Kumar said.
   Opinion is divided over whether such a warning should be carried on the anti depressants. Deshmukh feels that each time an anti depressant is sold; the chemist should give a leaflet to the buyer which should warn of the consequences in major Indian languages, as rarely does the Indian patient gets a box of medicines. Desai candidly admits that such a warning would give the patient a choice and would also put greater pressure on all concerned in the pharmaceutical arena to adhere to responsible practices in their respective professions.

Popular computer game for kids is hidden sex trip

Popular computer game for kids is hidden sex trip

‘Grand Theft Auto’Turns ‘Hot Coffee’

By Ketan Tanna & Nikhil Hemrajani/TNN

Mumbai: The many joys of boyhood are directly linked to hoodwinking parents. And these are good times for boys chafing at the oppressiveness of parental ‘guidance’. The latest version of a popular computer game called The Grand Theft Auto (GTA) looks like any other action-packed 3D animation fare in which the player goes on a mission down city lanes. The innocent user will play within the apparent boundaries of an imaginary city, modelled after Los Angeles. But many young users all over the world, including India, are downloading a free patch (a set of software codes, usually created by a hacker) from the internet that suddenly gives access to hidden alleys.
   In these alleys the player can pick up girls and have interactive sex with them by tapping keyboard buttons or clicking the mouse. The keys even permit the player to experiment with various laborious positions on the animated girl, who is quite game. “She even moans. It’s really cool and, of course, I only try it when my parents aren’t home,’’ a ninth standard boy says.
   While Indian parents appear to be in the dark, the existence of this parallel world in the Grand Theft Auto has shocked Americans in the last few days, with Hillary Clinton leading the fury. The creator of the game, Rockstar, is under attack. Rockstar is blaming game modders (hackers who write programmes that unlock the secret content hidden inside a game). It was Dutch hacker Patrick Wildenborg who released Hot Coffee, the name of the patch that opened
the dark alleys of Grand Theft Auto.
   But why does a game-maker like Rockstar have hidden sexual content in the first place?
   A complex computer game is usually three to four years in the making. Usually, the creators make content that is not immediately released but stored for the game’s next upgrade. It’s possible that Grand Theft Auto was set to become an adult game some time in its future avatar. But young users have been treated to graphic sexual experience after running the Hot Coffee patch on the game DVD.
   The DVD is not released in India but pirated copies are easily available for Rs 250 to Rs 300.

Creators wanted to hide game’s sexual content

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai:Boys are even enthusiastically burning copies of iGrand Theft Auto and distributing them to their friends. Several others with good machines are downloading the corrupted version of the game from the net.
   “Parents do not know much about the games that their children are playing,’’ says Harish Shetty, a psychiatrist. “In fact, some parents gift such games. All that parents see on the children’s computer monitor are stars, rockets and the moon. With a mouse click the children hide what they do not want the parents to see. I would advise the parents to trust their kids but keep their eyes open.’’ While some games with explicit sexual content are clearly labeled ‘A’, the Grand Theft Auto does not come with such a warning, obviously because the creators intended to hide the sexual content.

Flood-hit village woman may get Rs 42 lakh relief

Flood-hit village woman may get Rs 42 lakh relief

That’s The Price Of Losing 21 Male Family Members, But Female Relatives Want A Share

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: The recent monsoon onslaught in Maharashtra has taken a village woman close to an unexpected fortune. Twentyeight-year-old Sneha Sanjay Sakpal from Kundivati, a small hamlet in Raigad district, is likely to get Rs 42 lakh as compensation as the astonishing consequence of an equally astonishing misfortune. The floods claimed the lives of 21 members of her family, leaving her as the sole survivor.
   With Rs 1 lakh being offered by the state government for every deceased family member, she is in a position to claim Rs 21 lakh from Maharashtra. With a central government relief that matches the state government’s, she is on the verge of receiving Rs 42 lakh. This has inevitably brought some relatives into the picture.
   Sneha was married to Sanjay Sakhpal, the great grandson of Ennabai Sakhpal, a 100-year-old man who headed a vast joint family comprising 21 sons and grandsons. On July 26, when heavy rains struck Kundivati village, Sneha had gone visiting her parents in another village and escaped the landslide that entombed her husband’s family.
   Raigad district collector Bhaskar Wankhede, who is in charge of distributing the money, is disturbed by a complication that appears to be brewing. Three married daughters of Ennabai are now contesting Sneha’s claims.
   Under the Hindu Succession Act which governs flood relief in Maharashtra, the compensation is given to the next of kith and kin of the deceased. For example, if a husband dies, his wife is given the compensation. If both parents are dead, the children are given the relief. If the children have not survived as well, then the spouses of the children are first in the line of succession.
   Sneha was married to a great grandson of Ennabai and she was part of a Hindu joint family. According to legal opinion, she has a strong case as the claimant. But since three of Ennabai’s surviving daughters have made similar claims, the collector has decided to refer the matter to Prasad Patil, the district government pleader.
   Patil told this paper that in all probability, Sneha should be getting the compensation amount after a verification of her status—as Level One in the line of family succession. “Not only is she the surviving member but she is also what we can call a dependant of the family, whereas Ennabai’s daughters were married into other families. “Maybe, if there was landed property, Ennabai’s daughters would be entitled to a share. But here it’s a different matter altogether,’’ said Patil.
   There is a possibility that matters will have to be sorted out not only on the succession aspect but also on who really needs the aid. According to Patil, such cases that involve large amounts invariably land up in court. However, he added, “I need to study the matter deeply and only then can I give you an informed opinion.’’

India Govt Compensation

How Things Work

Government compensation

   “It is especially at the time of tragedy, that the victim desperately needs the compensation. When Sadaf Manzil crashed, the residents lost everything,” says Mahesh Pathak, collector, Mumbai city. Ideally, victims of any disaster should get their compensation as soon as possible. Pathak delivered compensation to the Sadaf Manzil victims in just about three days. The residents of another building Govind Towers, that crashed on August 3, 1998 in Kherwadi, Bandra, are however not so lucky. Seven years on, they are still waiting for promised compensation. Neither have they got the rupees two lakh that was announced. Nor has there been an end to the number of visits to various government offices and politicians.
   Ketan Tanna looks at the disparity and the discrimination that exists within the compensation relief system in the same city.

Stop counselling HIV patients at J J, govt tells Brahma Kumaris

Stop counselling HIV patients at J J, govt tells Brahma Kumaris

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: The state health ministry has asked a religious group to call off a programme for counselling AIDS patients at J J Hospital citing lack of space. The Brahma Kumaris had been invited by the dean some months ago following a spate of suicides by HIV-afflicted patients.
   The room where the Brahma Kumaris counselled the patients and advised them to adopt meditational techniques to counter stress is now shut. Confirming that the Brahma Kumaris had been told to leave, dean of J J Hospital Dr Pravin Shingare said the state government had denied permission for the Brahma Kumaris to stay on. “In any case it was an experimental programme which had to be approved by the government. Yet, I feel they really contributed to the well being of the patients, which is what my professors of medicine told me. I am trying to get them back,’’ said Shingare.
   Shingare’s enthusiasm for the Brahma Kumaris is not shared by the Department of Medicine which handles the crucial Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) for HIV positive persons. Under the ART programme, J J Hospital treats 2,371 severely AIDS-infected persons in addition to nearly 4,000 patients with the HIV virus who have not developed AIDS.
   Free anti-retroviral drugs are given to the 2,371 persons (1,612 males, 758 females, 1 eunuch) every month for six months and later refills are given for two months after six months are over. On any given day there are five to nine new patients and on a crowded day, there are nearly 200-250 patients sprawled across every available inch of space in the ART department on the second floor. From the same place, anti-TB, anti-pneumonia and antifungal treatment are also given to HIV positive persons. Additionally, free condoms are distributed as a measure of HIV prevention.
   From one end of the small room extending to another adjacent small room, HIV afflicted persons wait their turn patiently for treatment. If they are lucky, they get a wee bit of space on a wooden bench outside. Since many of then suffer from opportunistic ailments like tuberculosis, the likelihood of infection spreading from one person to another is always a risk. Individual counselling is tough as the resources are minimal and therefore often there is mass counselling.
   Since there is lack of space and of resources, anti-retroviral drugs that are sent in bulk packages from New Delhi are stored on the fifth floor in one corner. Often the counsellors or ward boys along with the patients run up and down to fetch the medicines.
   At J J Hospital, where space and resources are at a premium, a spacious room exclusively for Brahma Kumaris was indeed a luxury. “What was needed was medical counselling. You cannot invite Brahma Kumaris to come and counsel HIV positive persons. The hospital is not a religious place where non-medical persons are needed and that too in a crucial department like HIV/AIDS. When we in the department are gasping for more trained personnel and more space, I wonder how we can justify such peace meditation,’’ asked a senior person in the ART department.
   Earlier this week, the ART department recently became the first centre in India to give free treatment to small children who have been afflicted with HIV virus.
   Now with special oral medicines suitable enough for small babies, the ART department has started treating babies though storage and refrigeration for oral syrup is still a problem for poor patients. In addition to the existing 35 children, another 100-200 children are expected to be given treatment under the ART scheme.
   The ART department at J J Hospital is also fast becoming the most preferred centre for HIV treatment and patients often come from far off places in Bihar and UP instead of going to New Delhi. And almost all of them belong to the lower strata of the society. The patients, however, do not get any sort of railway concessions.
   This despite the fact that the chief of the JJ Medicine department, Dr Alka Deshpande, who is also in the charge of ART treatment, has written to the railway minister, Lalu Prasad Yadav urging him to give railway concession that is routinely given to other medically ill patients who use the railways to travel to any hospital for treatment.

Online business in India finally comes of age

Online business in India finally comes of age

Transactions on the internet have crossed the seven-lakh mark, a whopping 80 per cent jump since last year

By Ketan Tanna\TNN

   Ten years after the internet came to India business finally seems to be happening on it. Or at least that is what the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) claims. Reports put out by IMAI point out to the 7,95,000 transactions that go through online every month. It’s an 80% jump over last year. And then there’s the value of the transaction itself. Indians are spending, on average, Rs 1,100 on each purchase. That’s Rs 20 more than what they were willing to pay last year.
   Coming to think of it, an average transaction value of Rs 1,100 isn’t much to write home about. And that brings us to the issue on hand. Do people spend big money online? Ostensibly, yes. But the instances are far and few. eBay, among the world’s largest online retailer who took over Baazee.com recently sold a 3.5 carat heart shape diamond ring for Rs 1,90,000. Then somebody decided to go in for a large blue diamond ring at Rs 1,31,000. Somebody drove home in a 2003-built Mercedes for Rs 19 lakh. A Toyota Camry on the site got its seller Rs 12.51 lakh. And a Mitsubishi Pajero hit the sweet spot for Rs 11 lakh.
   Officials at the company sound buoyant and reel statistics like in a Udipi Hotel. Jewellery is sold every 5 minutes, a camcorder every 96 minutes, laptops are picked up at intervals of 150 minutes, while a mobile handset sells every 16 minutes in India. But the company concedes that luxury sales have a long way to go. Gautam Thakar, country manager at eBay points out that only 11% of users spend over Rs 10,000.
   In other parts of the world, eBay has managed to sell a Gulf stream II for $4.9 million, a fish breeding farm in Italy for $1.2 million and an Enzo Ferrari for $1.2 million.
   It’s much the same story at Venus Jewels, a Mumbai-based diamond firm. It manages to sell higher value items abroad than in India. Between January 2004 and August 2005, Venus Jewel sold three diamonds in the $30,000 region to people in India. During the same period, they also shipped three diamonds well over $80,000 to other parts of the world.
   A highly trafficked Indian portal declined to share details on what kind of high ticket sales it witnesses. Though officials at the company point out to refrigerators, televisions, digicams, microwaves, washing machines, mobile phones, etc, that sell routinely for Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000.
   Another player in the space says the most expensive thing it sold was a camcorder for Rs.75000. “Other than this, we have sold jewellery like a diamond ear ring for Rs.48000, high value PDA’s/mobile phones, laptop computers, Bose audio systems and gift certificates, each worth around Rs 50, 000,” said a spokesperson for the the company. He adds that things will change in a few years. “With increase in internet penetration, higher speeds of connections, robust fulfillment systems, good customer service, people will get used to buying expensive things online.” The sentiment is shared by shared by others “Well, (customers) are already buying high value goods The numbers of such products sold online will increase.”

A Mumbai mother for Chinese couple’s child

A Mumbai mother for Chinese couple’s child

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: Outsourcing to India just took on a new dimension—a childless couple from Singapore has found an Indian woman to mother a surrogate baby. In a firstof-its-kind instance at Hiranandani Hospital, the ethnic Chinese couple’s child is growing in the womb of a Mumbai-based woman.
   Xiuan Wu (name changed) and his wife had approached the hospital through internet after four failed attempts at assisted pregnancy in Singapore. His wife had a history of TB
which had been treated prior to all her IVF
attempts, but she
couldn’t conceive.
   In IVF or in vitro
fertilisation, mature
eggs are removed from
the ovaries and subsequently fertilised with
sperm. Another method
of intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, is used to treat couples who are unlikely to achieve fertilisation due to the male partner’s low sperm count.
   Wu told TOI he and his wife were in their mid-30s and had tried IVF without any success. “Coming from a small family, we felt it is important to try every possible option. We have been trying to start a family for the last five years,’’ said Wu.
   The couple will be spending nearly Rs 10 lakh to have the baby in Mumbai. Before zeroing in on the city, Wu had been in discussions with an IVF centre in California, which has a liberal law on surrogacy. “However, the costs and logistical arrangement made consider India,’’ said Wu, adding it would have cost him $60,000-80,000 in the US (nearly Rs 26-35 lakh).
   Wu had problems with Singapore laws too, which prohibit surrogacy. “Since the Indian government has came up with guidelines in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) on surrogacy, I felt comfortable from a legal perspective, knowing the law allows the Intended Parent to have the custody right of the child as their genetic child.’’ The Chinese couple
has not been permitted to meet or have direct contact with the surrogate mother. They track the progress of their baby by a “dialogue with the doctors in charge”.
   The hospital says the interaction has not been allowed as “it could lead to emotional bonding’’. The baby, due in June 2006, will be handed over to the couple the same day.
   Wu is consulting Dr Gautam Allahbadia, the consultant fertility physician at the Dr LH Hiranandani Centre For Human Reproduction. The real challenge for Allahbadia’s team was the IVF cycle when they had to transfer half the cultured embryos into the Chinese woman’s uterus and the other half into the surrogate mother’s uterus, which was primed with hormonal replacement therapy.
   “The menstrual cycles were synchronized using hormonal therapy. The pregnancy is now confirmed and we are now awaiting the first sonography results to rule out multiple pregnancies,’’ said Dr Allahbadia, who was assisted by three others, including Dr Yashodhara Mhatre.
   There have been a few cases when non-resident Indians have used Indian women to have surrogate babies. Dr Allahbadia is handling a case of a UK-based Gujarati couple who got
   help from a Mumbaibased surrogate mother.
   Dr Anup Kumar, director, Delhi IVF &
   Fertility Research Centre, told TOI that he too
   had helped a couple where the husband was British and the wife was of Indian origin. Dr Indira Hinduja, a gynaecologist at Jaslok Hospital and widely regarded as the pioneering doctor in treating infertile couples, told TOI she had helped 4-5 NRI couples have a baby via a surrogate Indian mother. “I get emails from foreigners wanting Indian surrogate mothers. But I don’t encourage them as I am not sure of the medico-legal issues.’’

Porn DVDs leapfrog govt block on net

Porn DVDs leapfrog govt block on net

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: In response to a demand made by the Indian Union Muslim League, the government has allegedly blocked access to a website accused of peddling a pornographic video called ‘Sex Life Of The Prophet’. But given that the hydraheaded internet is almost impossible to police, the offending DVD is still easily available at other leading adult internet DVD stores. One site even offers a discount if purchased along with another adult movie—bought individually, it costs just $17 (Rs 750).
   Classified as an adult film, the DVD claims to be based on the ‘Sex Life, Sex after Death, and the Re-Birth of the Prophet Muhammad’. If one is to judge by the cover, however, the fare on offer is less than tame—a tall bare-chested man in loose Turkish trousers stands with his hands on his hips while a woman kneels at his feet in a scene that could be out of any Arabian Nights story. Past efforts at internet censorship by the Mumbai police and the Indian government haven’t met with much success either. For example, on April 28, 2004, a letter from Mumbai’s commissioner of police was despatched to all Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the city directing that access to www.hinduunity.org be blocked immediately for inflaming Hindu sentiment. Most complied, but the site continues to flourish.
   Websites in India are blocked by the New Delhi-based Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-IN. CERT acts on requests made by law-enforcing agencies across the country. It was CERT that was behind the ham-handed move to restrict access to a yahoo chat group Kynhun, started by a group of Meghalayans, which was charged with “promoting anti-national news and containing material against Indian & Meghalaya Governments.’’

We know what you did this Navratri

We know what you did this Navratri

Private Detectives Keep Parents Updated On Kids’Activities

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: It’s not easy being parents during Navratri. So what do you do if you have to keep an eye on your teenaged daughter who seems to be suspiciously excited to be away from home for all the nine nights? Just seek the services of a detective agency, that is in case you can afford it.
   Well, that’s what many anxious and moneyed parents did this year during the just-concluded festival. According to Globe Detective Agency, it’s sleuths trailed at least five teenagers across Mumbai last week on the request of their parents who apparently didn’t mind shelling a substantial amount to know what their kids were up to.
   For trailing a person, the agency charges anywhere between Rs 5000 and Rs 10,000 per day plus service tax. And as it usually deploys two persons for the job, the parents have little choice but to foot the steep bill.
   Another prominent agency, Tops Detective and Security Services said that it charges according to the requirement and it even offers “tailor-made’’ solutions. According to Arunisha Sengupta, vice-president (corporate communications), several people who approached the agency wanted details of their children’s dandia partners. “We do a background check on such dandia partners,” says Sengupta.
   Globe claims that from the moment, the girl leaves her home to play dandia, she is trailed. While one detective buys a ticket to go inside the venue and keep an eye on her, the other remains outside with his vehicle to follow her in case she leaves the venue in between.
   Such trailing at times leads to situations. On Sunday night, a 19-year-old girl and her 23-year-old ‘partner’ were trailed to a hotel in Lokhandwala. The detectives sounded off the girl’s parents who rushed to the hotel and took her away.
   According to the detectives, the two had met just a few hours earlier at a dandia venue but had somehow ended up in the hotel. In fact, the girl had paid the advance for the room through her credit card.
   “Such incidents keep happening,’’ said S N Rai, the CEO of Globe. “Last year, we were keeping a watch on a girl. One night, she slipped out with a handsome guy and drove all the way to Lonavala where two other boys joined them. We were shocked. We alerted the parents but they said they would take care of the situation,’’ said Rai.
   According to Rai, the number of parents hiring private detectives to keep tabs on their children increased this year. “Last year, we had three cases, this year we had five. There are lesser known agencies across the city who also do the job at cheaper rates.’’ If Rai is to be believed, people from Ahmedabad and Vadodara too have been seeking the services of his agency.

Baby boon for wombless woman

Baby boon for wombless woman

Doc, Surrogate Mother Help Lady With Rare Abnormality

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: A city woman, who does not have a vagina and just a rudimentary uterus, is set to become a mother. Padma Krishnan, of course, should be grateful to her doctors and a surrogate mother; the doctors have been able to use her eggs and transfer four embryos to the surrogate mother.
   Krishnan (name changed) suffers from a rare congenital uterine abnormality called the Mayer-Rokitansky Kustner Hauser Syndrome (MRKH). Patients with MRKH Syndrome have undeveloped embryonic Mullerian ducts, which prevents the formation of the uterus, cervix and the upper twothirds of the vagina. Such individuals, however, show normal secondary sexual characteristics in breast and ovarian development. Incidences of MRKH are approximately in the ratio of 1:5000 and is detected when a teenager does not menstruate.
   In the United States and many European countries, there are well-established support groups for those suffering from MRKH. In India, barring the medical fraternity, it is rarely mentioned and those who suffer from it hide it as they fear being ridiculed.
   Padma, however, had no such problem; her husband was aware of her medical problems much before marriage but that did not prevent them from getting married.
   Padma, 29, ap p ro a ch e d Gautam Allahbadia, medical director of Rotunda, the Centre For Human Reproduction, in Bandra after two years of marriage when both she and her husband were keen to start a family.
   “I knew I had a problem. I went on the internet and researched on the subject. It helped me to cope with it, I learnt I was not the only one with such a condition,’’ Padma told TOI.
   Initially Padma and her husband approached the clinic seeking IVF treatment. In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a technique whereby egg cells are fertilised outside the mother’s body in cases where conception is impossible through normal intercourse. “In vitro’’ is Latin for “in glass’’, referring to the test tubes.
   A preliminary examination and a basic hormonal screening test were done to rule out other hormonal imbalances. She was asked to keep a body-temperature chart for a month to confirm the dates of her ovulation cycle. It was then synchronised with the surrogate’s cycle.
   Padma was treated with fertility injections to stimulate her ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs. Three of the eggs were fertilised with her husband’s sperms and finally two embryos were transferred into the surrogate on day two. The pregnancy, however, failed.
   “The initial setback did not deter Padma though. And her faith inspired us to go in for another round of treatment,’’ Allahbadia said. Fertility injections helped obtain 10 eggs of which nine fertilised. The doctors transferred four embryos. The surrogate mother is now pregnant and the treatment has fulfilled the hopes of the woman born without a womb.
   The baby is due in July 2006 and the Mumbai-based couple are looking forward to it. As for inquisitive questions that pesky neighbours or relatives might ask, Padma said that the couple would cross the bridge when they need to come to it.
   “As of now, we are happy about the baby. We do not want to meet the surrogate mother,’’ said Padma.

Diversion of funds for Udvada has Parsis up in arms

Diversion of funds for Udvada has Parsis up in arms

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: It’s a tiny village in Gujarat, and the present home of the ‘Iranshah’, the Parsi-Zoroastrian community’s holiest of fires, burning continuously from the time they first arrived in India over a millennium ago. So, when the Centre and the Gujarat government declared Udvada—180 km from Mumbai—as a religious destination and sanctioned Rs 1.20 crore for its development, the community’s reaction was guarded.
   Although some felt that money could be put to good use to develop the crumbling infrastructure here, many protested that turning Udvada into a tourism centre would attract hordes of outsiders, who would vitiate the holy precinct.
   But soon, the Foundation for the Development of Udvada (FDU) was set up in 2003, and it began work that included the creation of a tourist-cum cultural centre. Then suddenly, in May 2005, the FDU decided to widen the scope of its activities beyond the development of Udvada, raising eyebrows and protests from influential sections of the community.
   The foundation sought permission from the charity commissioner of Mumbai (where it is registered) also to use the funds for various other purposes such as assisting humanitarian activities outside India, supporting students travelling abroad for higher studies or financing and maintaining stadiums and auditoriums.
   Says Jamshed Mohta, president of the Bardoli Jarthosthi Anjuman, and a critic of this change in the objectives, “All of us welcomed the original trust deed, which was meant for developing Udvada and its vicinity. By widening the powers, these funds released by the government can now be sent abroad too. The whole objective has been defeated.’’ Mohta plans to move the court soon to prevent this.
   Adi Doctor, who edits ‘The Parsee Voice’, a community newsletter, points to the “thousands of cosmopolitan charity trusts in India which take care of such diverse objects’’. He alleges, “The whole gameplan of the FDU seems to be, first, to curry favour with the governments of India and Gujarat, get the initial grant, and then go for the big game in the name of public charity.’’. According to him, unsuspecting people may donate to the FDU, without knowing that it could be used for other purposes.
   Ex-Gujarat chief secretary and a trustee of FDU P K Laheri said some community members, however, felt it was all right for funds to be used for other activities instead of just limiting themselves to the development of Udvada. “They felt that the trust could do much more by helping other community activities elsewhere. Of course, the government grant will be project-specific to Udvada like developing a museum and preserving the heritage area.’’
   Dinshaw Tamboly, managing trustee of the FDU, said the objectives of the trust were changed only to enable the FDU to widen its scope of activities, should the need arise. “We do not see anything irregular in a Board of Trustees deciding to increase the numbers on their Board or the scope of welfare activities,’’ he said.
   Conservation architect Pankaj Joshi, appointed by the FDU to restore an old bungalow in the village and turn it into a cultural centre, said the government funds are specifically meant only for Udvada. “They will be used for augmenting the storm water drains, sewerage, making pedestrian pathways, a cultural centre, improving the roads etc. There is no way the money can be used elsewhere for other purposes.’’
   Interestingly, in 2004, six high priests of the Parsi community had protested to the Gujarat government that turning Udvada into a “cultural heritage and tourist centre’’ will violate the sanctity and serenity of the Iranshah Atashbehram, the fire temple. Additionally, about 1,500 signatories had endorsed this protest.
   
Vanishing Legacy    

There are nine priestly families of Udvada and each one has a house that represents Zoroastrian religious practices. Conservation architect Pankaj Joshi says these structures represent Gujarati Pol houses, which are long, linear with two common walls, front access to the main road and a back gate for servants. Over the past two years, as many as 30 of these houses have been brought down. “The timber fetches a far greater price for the owner than the land. Sadly, they are replaced by high rises overlooking the Iranshah,’’ he says.

HIV+ spouses sued for causing ‘hurt’

HIV+ spouses sued for causing ‘hurt’

‘Betrayed’ Partners Now Seek Justice

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: For long, Indian housewives have silently suffered transmission of HIV from their erring husbands. They are now fighting back. Through sections of the Indian Penal Code that clearly defines the transmission of a disease as a method of causing hurt, they are seeking justice, jail sentences for their husbands and monetary compensation. On the flip side, there are cases of innocent men who are taking their philandering wives to court.
   Thirty-four-year-old Savita Ambekar had been married for well over eight years. A teacher in a municipal school in Mumbai, her husband Sunil Ambekar worked as an upper division clerk in a government concern. Savita thought she had a happy marriage with an apparently doting husband and a daughter. She did have her fights with Sunil when at times he would stay out nights or say he had urgent work on holidays. But he would always come up with an explanation.
   A persistent cough and skin rashes which refused to go away took her to a government hospital where she was diagnosed as HIV-positive, seven years after marriage. When Savita, who had never had any physical contact outside her marriage, gave Sunil the news, she was subjected to a barrage of allegations and insinuations instead of sympathy.
   The hospital where she had gone for treatment and counselling guided her to an NGO. Determined to fight for her rights and dignity, she used all the help that came her way to go to court. She also charged her husband under Sections 269 and 270 of the IPC for hurting her (along with Sections 323 and 325 of the IPC). Section 269 of the IPC states that whoever unlawfully or negligently commits an act which is—and which he knows or has reason to believe—is likely to spread infection of a disease dangerous to life will be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or with a fine or both. Section 270 emphasises malignant transmission. On the other hand, Section 323 defines punishment for voluntarily causing hurt, while Section 325 defines punishment for causing grievous hurt.
   
THE LEGAL TANGLE    

The first HIV case in India was isolated in 1986 in Tamil Nadu and according to UNAIDS\WHO estimates, there are five to seven million HIV-positive people in India. Of these, nearly 40%-50% are women. Caught in the vicious cycle are children who are born HIV-positive, and punished for no fault of theirs. In India, criminal transmission of the HIV virus falls under various sections of the IPC. Under Section 321, intention or knowledge is the key to the offence and it’s important to prove that the accused either intended to transmit HIV to the victim or knew of his HIV positive status.

Seeking justice for HIV infection

   Another case concerns 28-year-old Nitin Kapoor, who appeared to love his wife Gauri Kapoor more with each passing day. The software engineer had met Gauri, a consultant interior designer, through a common friend. In the first half of this year, Nitin’s health deteriorated. Tuberculosis made his life miserable for many months and then he was diagnosed with skin cancer. A blood test also revealed that he was HIV-positive. Aghast at the discovery, he confronted Gauri who initially denied anything but later confessed to a brief fling with one of her clients. Outraged, Nitin has now dragged his wife to court and slapped a suit under Sections 269 and 270 read along with Sections 319 and 320.
   Although the West has prosecuted people who had transmitted diseases knowingly or through criminal indifference, in India, that is yet to happen. For a long time, diseases were considered acts of god and accepted fatalistically as one’s lot. But things are changing. Both Savita and Nitin are among the few in Mumbai who have dragged their spouses to court. Helping them fight for their rights is a nongovernmental organisation called the Lawyers Collective.
   “We are helping three women and two men who have registered cases against their respective spouses at a magistrate’s court in Mumbai,’’ says Julie George, legal officer, of Lawyers Collective. In Delhi, there had been a case where a woman filed a criminal suit against her husband for transmitting the HIV virus but the suit made no headway as the husband died due to HIV virus complications.
   Alaka Deshpande, head of the medicine department and in charge of treating HIV patients at the government-run J J Hospital, says a majority of the HIV-positive women who come to the hospital have been infected by their husbands. “It is a tragedy and what is indeed alarming is that the husbands get away scot-free because women are afraid to even admit to anyone that they are HIVpositive.’’

What The Law Says    

Sections 269 and 270 of the IPC are potent weapons in case of criminal transmission. These provisions, in the past, have been used to address the spread of cholera, plague, syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases. However, to establish an offence under Section 269, the action of the accused must be unlawful, negligent and contrary to the provisions of the Indian law. Also, it is necessary that the accused knew or had reason to believe that his or her action could cause harm. This means, that the element of malignancy is crucial in the commission of an offence under Section 270.
   The main problem in prosecuting a person who has wilfully transmitted HIV virus to another is the difficulty in establishing that the accused was aware of his or her HIV status and the implications of such status at the time the virus was transmitted to the partner.
(Certain names and professions have been changed to protect their identities)

Jailhouse blues: Reforms just on paper

Jailhouse blues: Reforms just on paper

Corruption, Financial Crisis Create Hurdles In Implementation Of Court Orders

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: In 2004, the Bombay HC passed a number of orders meant to improve condition of the state jails and the cause of undertrials. But one year down the line, most of these directives have got lost in the maze of financial handicap or rampant corruption in the various hierarchies of jail fiefdom.
   The orders were following a bunch of PILs from various quarters. One of the high court order relates to the diet of prisoners, especially pregnant and nursing women prisoners and small children. More than a year has elapsed since a 3-member panel submitted a report recommending the ideal diet for various categories of prisoners. The implementation is stuck in a maze of bureaucracy.
   The appointment of welfare officers met with a similar fate with not a single post being filled so far. The court order also included raising the need for personal hygiene, including the supply of sanitary napkins to women and setting up a balwadi for children of prisoners. While the former order is yet to be implemented, a balwadi has been set up in the Byculla prison premises, but the NGO, Pratham, that runs it is yet to be reimbursed.
   The list of such non implemented or partly implemented orders of high court is long. Lawyers who have been fighting for the prisoners’ basic rights say that guards have to be bribed even for small things. “The mulakat system (meeting of prisoners with their lawyers and kin) is so frustrating with a few prisoners and their lawyers or kin shouting at each other in barely one feet of space for each prisoner,’’ they said.
   The mulakat system has been on the reformist agenda, with an NGO, Prayas, working on what could be done to make it more humane. While some reforms have been partly implemented, others remain on paper due to lack of finance. Similarly, an order passed last year for computerising all jail records in Maharashtra and linking them to the head office in Pune continues to languish. “The software is available. The National Crime Record Bureau already has a similar software. Yet nothing seems to have moved,’’ says an activist.
   NGOs and vigilant judiciary has intervened time and again, which has helped the cause of prisoners and undertrials to an extent. A few dedicated bureaucrats too have tried to help. For example, overcrowding of prisoners in the jail has been a problem for a long time. “Sometimes, jails have prisoners more than their estimated capacity,’’ says Neela Satyanarayana, principal secretary of the state home department. New jails in Sindhudurg, Palghar, Latur, Jalna, Gadchiroli, Washim, Gondia and Nandurbar are in the pipeline.
   Moreover, criminal lawyer Shrikant Bhatt says that the state should demarcate petty criminals from hardcore ones. “Sometimes, small-time offenders are lumped together with hardened criminals and thats when jails double up as recruiting grounds for committing bigger crimes,’’ he says. He also said that bail amounts should be reduced if the defendants presence can be secured. The jail system has to take care of those sentenced. But for those who are undertrials, they do not have any stake. They are not even allowed to work in the jail. It is such a waste of human resources.
   Improvement of legal system is also on top of the wish list of those who seek to get a better deal for prisoners. “Government lawyers get Rs 1000 for a trial at the sessions court and Rs 600 in the lower court. Which lawyer would want to help prisoners?,’’ asks a lawyer.
   However, a small group of dedicated activist lawyers keep the momentum going. Two women lawyers say though they have become hardened by the murky wheeling dealings, small victories keeps them going. “Cases where we have been able to get justice for someone who deserved it make us feel good in our heart,’’ they say.

Soon, cops will get paid to cut the flab

Soon, cops will get paid to cut the flab

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: In the new year, Mumbai police will have more than mere words for motivation to take care of their health and cut back flab. Under an incentive scheme to be implemented by the end of December 2005, constables will earn Rs 400 every month if they meet certain fitness standards. Officers could make as much as Rs 500.
   “We are expecting the government resolution later this month. It had been held up due to the winter session, but we are hopeful that it will be notified any time now,’’ says M B Shinde, special inspector general of police (administration).
   Obese law-enforcers
and their protruding tummies have been an object of ridicule in Mumbai for long. The stipulated body mass index (square of the weight in kilograms divided by height in metres) for the average policemen is 23. But random checks at health camps have usually shown a body mass index of 30-40.
   It’s not just the weight that is an issue. Doctors at Nagpada police hospital say blood pressure, hypertension, TB, diabetes and heart problems are common in the city police force. Now with the government resolution on the anvil, the top brass of Mumbai police is hoping to tighten belts and cut flab, literally. “The entire force of around 40,000, will need to work on their health. Nobody is exempt. From the constable to the senior police officers, everybody will now have an incentive to be health conscious,’’ says Shinde.
Subhash Awate, Joint Commissioner of Police, said the parameters for fitness will also take into consideration blood pressure andhypertension. “All this will be co-related to the age of the person and then with the help of doctors and fitness consultants, we will arrive at a decision,’’ he said.
Awate admitted that obesity was slowing down the force but the working hours and the lifestyle of the policeman was largely responsible for it. “ We will try to have intern at i o n a l h e a l t h standards for Mumbai police but it will take time,’’ said Awate. “Please understand many policemen have constitutional problems and many of them do not take care of themselves. Irregular duty hours and desk jobs have also contributed to their health problems,’’ he added.
   
CCTV plan fizzles out    

The decision to install close circuit television (CCTV) at police stations across Mumbai seems to have fizzled out. “The decision to install CCTV was never an official programme. It was done at local level at police stations,’’ said joint commissioner Subhash Awate. He added that such cameras would help police to improve their behaviour as they would know that they were being watched but he added that such installations was not on a must-do list. “We have other priority areas,’’ Awate emphasised.

No help for the helping hands

No help for the helping hands

Quantum Rise In Number Of ‘Needy’ Puts NGOs Under Strain

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

t Savitri, (14), an orphan found at CST, would have ended up in the wrong hands but for Prayaas. She had run away from a village in western Maharashtra hoping to start life anew in the big city. Prayas offered her shelter and a rehabilitation plan. She gets Rs 50 per month as stipend.
t Munaf, (21), a physically challenged Mumbaikar, was desperate for a job. NASEOH offered to upgrade his skills by exposing him to IT which would help him get employment.
Mumbai: Savitri and Munaf are only two examples of disadvantaged individuals who receive help from NGOs in the city. However, several such welfare schemes may soon run short of funds as the numbers of those in need of help increase.
   It is supposed to be the season of caring and giving. Indeed, there are countless stories about Mumbaikars’ generosity. Yet, as 2005 inches towards a close, leading citybased NGOs, who work for underprivileged groups including street children, sex workers and battered women, are fighting with their back to the wall, starved of funds, not knowing what 2006 has in store.
   Take the example of Prayas. Since its establishment in 1990, it has helped a range of people, from those arrested for minor offences such as ticketless travel and the mentally-ill, to children of criminals and victims of trafficking. Prayas’ outreach has increased from an initial 30, to over a thousand.
   However, it is running short of funds today to pay salaries to its 37 staffers from January 2006. The shortfall is around Rs 10 lakh. But if the NGO receives a minimum of Rs 4 lakh, the staff may still be able to keep the kitchen fires burning.
   Prayas does have generous donors and its field action project run by Tata Institute of Social Sciences is primarily funded by the Dorabji Tata Trust. It also receives donations from corporates including Concern India and HDFC. The problem is grants are given according to a schedule, but the number of persons covered by welfare schemes is steadily overshooting the budget. So until April 2006, it faces a severe resource crunch.
   “This year, the number of beneficiaries of projects undertaken by Prayas has been increasing. We cannot turn away marginalised persons, especially, women and children. In crisis intervention you simply cannot turn away people,’’ says Vijay Raghavan, Project Director, Prayas.
   Prayas is not the only one facing a resource crunch on account of the rise in numbers of marginalised people seeking help. The National Society for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped (NASEOH), established in 1968, fell short by Rs 35 lakh this year.
   “The 2005-06 budget for NASEOH is Rs 1 crore out of which we face a deficit of Rs 35 lakh,’’ says Mohini Mathur, vice-president, NASEOH.
   The shortfall has affected two vital schemes. NASEOH had planned to expand its rural-based rehabilitation programmes for the disabled. “The disabled in rural areas have to be imparted skills like sheep rearing. But we do not have funds for this,’’ says Mathur. The other programme kept in abeyance is training the disabled in information technology and the BPO sector.

Helpline still ringing    

There is good news for those who may want to seek help from the Samaritans Helpline on 23073451. Earlier, it had been asked to vacate the Seva Niketan premises in Byculla by December-end. Now it has been given a two-month extension. Established in 1960, the Samaritans offer a wide range of services, mainly to help the suicidal and those in distress.

SHARING THE SAME SPACE

SHARING THE SAME SPACE

Colleagues as neighbours: Mumbai still does what Kolis did

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: What do established television actors and Andheri have to do with each other? Why would their struggling colleagues, still having some catching up to do, plump for a Saibaba Complex or a Gokuldham of Goregaon (E)? And why do you bump into so many BPO and call-centre employees in Powai, Andheri (E) or Malad’s Mindspace?
   The city, from the looks of it, is not through doing what the Kolis did several centuries back. People sharing an office or a trade are still giving the thumbs-up sign to the concept of professional ghettos that the Kolis first introduced to Mumbai and the diamond community (clustered at Malabar Hill, a stone’s throw from Panchratna, the diamond-trading hub at Opera House), the film community (initially based at Bandra and then Juhu) or the mill workers (who lived in central Mumbai’s Girgaum, Lalbaug, Chinchpokli and Parel) perfected.
   These traditional ghettos are, of course, reformatting according to the new economy’s requirements. And, in the process, they are transforming the suburban localities — once out of bounds — into sought-after addresses.
   “People are proud to say they live in Versova and they have a film star in their building,’’ says big-screen villain Gulshan Grover, who has a palatial 6,000-square-foot duplex at Versova and three beautiful women — Rani Mukherjee, Manisha Koirala and Sushmita Sen — for neighbours.
   Versova, Grover says, is the new Beverly Hills of film stars. “Staying here makes sense for entertainment industry professionals as most film and TV studios are located here,’’ he says. Adds Arshad Warsi: “Versova has evolved so much that everything, from food to servants, is just a phone-call away.’’ That most of urban India boasts this USP is another story.
   Lesser mortals — middle-level scriptwriters, assistant directors, small-time actors, cinematographers and make-up men — have congregated at Adarsh Nagar in Andheri, although their favourites are clearly Goregaon and Jogeshwari.
   Entire clusters of television actors, writers and cameramen reside in Gokuldham, Saibaba Complex, Vanrai Complex and the surrounding areas of Goregaon (E). Cinematographer Sudhir Talsane was one of the first to move in at Saibaba Complex in 1993. “It was a kind of jungle then,’’ he says. The only thing going for that area was the rate: Rs 5 lakh for a one-bedroom-hall flat. Some 12 years later, the same flat costs Rs 15 lakh-Rs 20 lakh.
   Not so cheap is Powai, now the Mecca of IT and BPO professionals. Even senior IT professionals are grunting that certain Powai localities — like the Hiranandani Complex — have become unaffordable. Powai corporator Chandan Sharma recalls that grandfather C D Sharma sold a huge tract of land to L H Hiranandani for Rs 300 a sq yard in the early ’80s. Hiranandani Complex’s current rate is over Rs 5,000 a square foot.
   Rodas Hotel general manager Sunny Sriram says Powai has become hot property as most IT offices are located there. “IT professionals and corporate honchos don’t have to bother with the nitty-gritty of day-to-day living like commuting,’’ he says. “The night life, too, is good with many pubs and discs. I don’t think places like Parel and Lalbaug can match Powai.’’ Adds Powai Labs CEO and IIT alumnus Reapan Tikoo: “This locality holds a sentimental value for IIT alumni but, more importantly, it makes sense to stay here if you are from the IT world. We have the best infrastructure.’’
   It wasn’t like that in the 1980s, when Powai had no roads, electricity or telephones, says Hiranandani Constructions managing director Niranjan Hiranandani, claiming to have created not only the township but also provided infrastructure to attract IT.
   For diamond merchants, it was Malabar Hill. “Most of us are Jain and vegetarian,’’ says Gitanjali Jewels CEO Mehul Choksi. “The development of Panchratna Building in Opera House was primarily due to its location.’’
   But with the diamond market slated to move to BKC, will the diamond merchants shift their residences to Bandra or somewhere nearby? “No,’’ says Choksi. “We will continue to stay at Malabar Hill. Travelling an extra hour to Bandra will be inconvenient but we will manage.’’

Rising salaries may blunt India’s software edge

Rising salaries may blunt India’s software edge

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: Is India’s software talent getting too expensive? Henning Kagermann, chief of SAP, the leader in client and server enterprise application software, believes so. His recent statement that Indian software developers are becoming expensive and SAP intends to look elsewhere for hiring, has sparked off a debate on whether India can retain its competitive edge in software.
   Kagermann was stating what the Indian IT industry knew for a while. The salaries have been rising because of a demand-supply mismatch in the software developers market. The mismatch is acutely felt at two levels: fresh and middle-level. Middle-level salaries have annually risen by as much as 15-18% for the past two years compared with 10-15% in other categories.
   Puneet Jetli, general manager at the People Function department of MindTree Consulting, is of the opinion that Kagermanns statement and a threat from competitors like China and east European countries should not be taken lightly. “The salary increases of Indian software developers have been in range of 15% in 2005 and we expect it to be between 14 and 15% in 2006, and in some cases a little higher. Demand is especially high for software developers, who specialise in package implementation, data ware housing, hardware design, board design specialists and domain consultants,’’ says Jetli.
   “The consistent rise in the salaries of software professionals is likely to give rise to lowcost centres, which will emerge as alternate software destinations,” says Hema Ravichandar, former HR head at Infosys India. “This is a challenge for the Indian IT industry. India retains the competitive edge when it comes to the depth of technical talent, language skills and ability to deliver quick and largescale manpower ramp up programmes. And this is evident in the way many multinationals are viewing India,’’ she added.
   The good news is that the Indian software industry, in conjunction with educational institutes, is slowly getting its act together. Nasscom and experts are taking a hard look at whether the available graduates can match industry expectations and have the required skills.

Not enough docs to take care of the mentally ill

Not enough docs to take care of the mentally ill

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: Eighteen-year-old Kunal jumped to his death last August. The teenager’s middle-class parents did not know how to deal with his assertions that he was better than tennis player Leander Peas. Kunal withdrew into a shell and was put on medicines but that did not help.
   Edward D’Cunha’s father, Stanley, is now fighting against the Shipping Corporation of India for subjecting his 33-year-old son to “stress and abuse that forced him to resign’’. Though SCI chairman and managing director S Hajara said Edward himself resigned in 2000, Maharashtra state commissioner for persons with disabilities R K Gaikwad said he was in the process of finalising a judgement that would be in favour of Edward. Stanley has now decided to devote his life to the cause of the mentally disturbed. “I do not want any parent to undergo the same problems that I went through,’’ he said.
   At any given time, 1% of the population suffers from a serious mental disorder and anything between 5% and 10% suffer from minor mental problems. But the government is woefully ill-equipped to handle the problem, admit officials. Civic hospitals have psychiatry wards but they often do not have enough trained doctors or basic medicines. There are 11 trained psychiatrists in three civic hospitals; KEM has five, Sion and Nair three each. There are nine trained psychiatrists in eight other peripheral Mumbai hospitals and private psychiatrists number 250. Mumbai, if you want to know, now has a population of around 15 million.
   Every step that the family of a mentally-challenged person takes is fraught with problems. Akila Maheshwari of NAMI India, an NGO working towards mental health, says that getting a disability certificate is a big headache. Just one hospital in Mumbai, J J, has been empowered to give these certificates and it often takes anything between six months and a year to get one.
   After the media expose about the certificate-for-cash scandal, a committee of psychiatrists, law officers, police and social workers has been set up. These experts must first agree on whether the person is mentally ill or not. Disability certificates are essential to get jobs in the public sector, where there is a 3% quota, and to establish that a person is capable to take on regular jobs in the private sector.
   There is a near-complete lack of halfway homes for the mentally disturbed. Chronic patients need full-stay homes. Those who can recover need halfway homes where they can spend three to 12 months and recover with the help of help from counsellors, regular medication, exercise, a different environment and vocational training. A couple of private charitable organisations, though, do run some kind of halfway homes.
   The government claims it is working on various welfare measures. “We have initiated district mental health programmes and added five more districts to the existing five where mental health facilities will be available. We are working on incentives for post-graduate students to teach in mental health subjects and will add 1,800 beds to the Thane mental hospital,’’ state director of health services Prakash Doke said. There will be special wards for mentally-ill patients’ families in the hospital so that patients can carry out their normal activities with their families’ help. And crisis intervention in the form of a helpline called Mamta (phone 25820728) will counsel callers.
   “There will also be a general ward for mental patients where patients and immediate members of the family can stay for 10 to 15 days,’’ Doke added.

Priceless but uninsured

Priceless but uninsured

Some rare manuscripts may be secure in a bank vault but the Asiatic Society says it is not in a position to pay the high premium for its treasures

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: Talk about the Asiatic Society, Mumbai, and the first thing that comes to your mind is a priceless collection of rare manuscripts and books housed in a magnificent white edifice in the Fort area. But unfortunately the treasure trove of knowledge collected over 200 years in the library is uninsured. And in case of a calamity, there are chances that the collection may be wiped out without any compensation or reimbursement from any agency.
   It is not that the society management is unaware of the problem, but there is precious little it can do. Said society chairman B G Deshmukh, “It is very hard to evaluate the true worth of the collection in the first place. Even if someone was to do it and come to an estimate, we are not in a position to pay the premium.’’
   For the past many years, the society has been facing a severe financial crunch, though Deshmukh’s tenure since 2001 has seen the finances stabilise to some extent. A large part of the Asiatic Society’s investment in UTI’s US-64 mutual fund took a beating when its net asset value (NAV) plunged. However, during his tenure, Deshmukh (a former cabinet secretary in the Central government) managed to get Rs 1 crore of the Rs 2 crore which was promised by the state for the library.
   The money has been invested in RBI bonds. The society has so far received
Rs 60 lakh of the Rs 1 crore allocated to it during the tenth five year plan. The recent bicentenary programme of the society added Rs 27 lakh to the corpus.
   “(But) We need a large corpus to have adequate insurance. We are in a much better position now. The books and coins as well as manuscripts have been secured, so please don’t worry,’’ insisted Vimal Shah, the honorary secretary of the society. He, however, refused to reveal the plans that the society had in mind to augment its resources. “I can’t spill the beans now but we do have some schemes in the pipeline,’’ he said.
   For the time being, two constables who guard the stamp office located on the same premises guard the Asiatic Society as well. Then there is one security guard on the payroll of the society and a watchman of the adjacent central library who keep an eye over the collection when the society closes for the day and during holidays.
   As a precautionary measure, two parts of Firdausi’s Shahanama (1495); Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1350); Aranyaka Parvan Shadavashyakasutra with commentary by Merusun—dara (13th century) and the Kalpasutra manuscript have been moved to bank vaults. The society has a rich collection of manuscripts in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Prakrit, Arabic, Persian and in numerous other languages.
   Then there is a collection of nearly 1400 maps, some of which date back to the 18th century, including the map of the west coast of Ceylon published by A Dalrymple.

The library has just one security guard on its payro

Priceless but uninsured

Priceless but uninsured

Some rare manuscripts may be secure in a bank vault but the Asiatic Society says it is not in a position to pay the high premium for its treasures

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: Talk about the Asiatic Society, Mumbai, and the first thing that comes to your mind is a priceless collection of rare manuscripts and books housed in a magnificent white edifice in the Fort area. But unfortunately the treasure trove of knowledge collected over 200 years in the library is uninsured. And in case of a calamity, there are chances that the collection may be wiped out without any compensation or reimbursement from any agency.
   It is not that the society management is unaware of the problem, but there is precious little it can do. Said society chairman B G Deshmukh, “It is very hard to evaluate the true worth of the collection in the first place. Even if someone was to do it and come to an estimate, we are not in a position to pay the premium.’’
   For the past many years, the society has been facing a severe financial crunch, though Deshmukh’s tenure since 2001 has seen the finances stabilise to some extent. A large part of the Asiatic Society’s investment in UTI’s US-64 mutual fund took a beating when its net asset value (NAV) plunged. However, during his tenure, Deshmukh (a former cabinet secretary in the Central government) managed to get Rs 1 crore of the Rs 2 crore which was promised by the state for the library.
   The money has been invested in RBI bonds. The society has so far received
Rs 60 lakh of the Rs 1 crore allocated to it during the tenth five year plan. The recent bicentenary programme of the society added Rs 27 lakh to the corpus.
   “(But) We need a large corpus to have adequate insurance. We are in a much better position now. The books and coins as well as manuscripts have been secured, so please don’t worry,’’ insisted Vimal Shah, the honorary secretary of the society. He, however, refused to reveal the plans that the society had in mind to augment its resources. “I can’t spill the beans now but we do have some schemes in the pipeline,’’ he said.
   For the time being, two constables who guard the stamp office located on the same premises guard the Asiatic Society as well. Then there is one security guard on the payroll of the society and a watchman of the adjacent central library who keep an eye over the collection when the society closes for the day and during holidays.
   As a precautionary measure, two parts of Firdausi’s Shahanama (1495); Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1350); Aranyaka Parvan Shadavashyakasutra with commentary by Merusun—dara (13th century) and the Kalpasutra manuscript have been moved to bank vaults. The society has a rich collection of manuscripts in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Prakrit, Arabic, Persian and in numerous other languages.
   Then there is a collection of nearly 1400 maps, some of which date back to the 18th century, including the map of the west coast of Ceylon published by A Dalrymple.

The library has just one security guard on its payro

Locals keep TV ‘evil’ at bay for 10 years

Locals keep TV ‘evil’ at bay for 10 years

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: It all seems incongruous. That people living at a stone’s throw from areas that churn out saas bahu TV serials by the dozen have stayed without the idiot box for years leaves one bewildered. In fact, it’s been 10 years since residents of two huge colonies—Gulshan Colony in Versova and the Gujarat Momin society in Jogeshwari (W) threw out their TV sets from their floors. And they have stuck to their resolve.
   “We consider TV, cinema and magazines as evils that don’t help, but harm the society. Look around, and you won’t see a single cable wire in this society. No home here has a TV,’’ says Illyasbhai Borania, who was the secretary of Gulshan Society in 1995, the year when the TV sets were discarded once for all. This action of the entire society was purportedly triggered by a fiery speech delivered at the local masjid by Maulana Abdul Rehman Korakiwala, who apart from highlighting the moral danger of having a TV set had also delved upon the corrupting influence of movies.
   Back in 1995, it was not that the nearly 1,500 residents of the 11 buildings in the Gulshan society could not afford TV sets. However, they either threw them out physically or gave them away—convinced that the maulana spoke the truth.
   Similarly, a few kilometres away, residents of the Gujarat Momin society in Jogeshwari (W) have decided not to fall prey to the corrupt values that TV and films inculcate over time. The colony, which has nearly 10,000 people living in 14 buildings with 830 flats, don’t care much for the TV serials, film stars or actors. “We do not watch films either. It goes against the grain of our religion,’’ says Shoaib Ibrahim Kadiwal, an accountant who also manages the society’s finances.
   The common link between the two societies being that their residents are from the Chiliya Muslim community that traces its origins to Palanapur, Sidpur and nearby areas in Gujarat. Both societies comprise middle and lower middle class with a different lifestyle compared to other Muslim societies in Mumbai.
   In both the societies, evenings see a huge congregation of children and residents, resembling a mini fair. Some prefer to spend time in the local mosque, while others gather in small groups to discuss life’s problems. Women meet separately in homes. Equally, children are not encouraged to bring home magazines or watch films (though some do see movies outside on the sly). English newspapers here are out of the question, while Gujarati newspapers do find their way into the Gulshan society.
   The sole exception that both the societies have made is allowing computers in some homes. “Computers are allowed when they are necessary for work,’’ says Borania. But, allowing computers could mean that they can see movies. “Yes, we know. But one can’t keep monitoring everybody’s home. It is also a matter of trust,’’ he adds.
   When pointed out that a total ban could restrict their avenues for entertainment, Hanifbhai Memonji, a resident of Gulshan Society, points to a group of kids playing cricket and asks, “Do you think they are not entertained?”

Israeli’s body will be sent back without post-mortem

Israeli’s body
   will be sent back without post-mortem

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: The body of Oron Lautman, 23, who disappeared last Sunday when he went swimming at the Tunghbhadra river near the tourist spot of Hampi, is being returned to Israel without the mandatory post-mortem on a request from the Israeli foreign ministry and an NGO called Zaka.
   Zaka is a humanitarian nongovernmental organisation whose raison d’etre is the recovery and identification of bodies and body parts of dead Israeli citizens.
   Talia Zaks, deputy chairman of Zaka, told TOI that since the deceased was an Israeli of Jewish faith, which forbids post-mortem, they had requested the Indian authorities to avoid the autopsy.
   “Our request was based not only on the Jewish law and tradition, but also on the humanitarian aspect as well. The family has already suffered much due to the death of their dear one and if the post-mortem is carried out, it will have caused additional suffering to them. We requested the authority to help us prevent it,’’ said Zaks.
   When Lautman’s body was brought to the Vijayanagar Institute of Medical Sciences, Forensic Department Head Chandrasekhar performed external post-mortem, reporting only the bruises and injuries found on the body.
   Zaka, founded in 1995, is an acronym for Zihui Korbanot Ason, Hebrew for identification of disaster victims. Its volunteers, identified by their bright yellow vests, are often the first rescue workers to appear at the scene of a bombing or shooting, and the last to leave. The volunteers of Zaka recover the human remains fulfilling the biblical imperative to bury the dead “on the same day’’ and handle the shattered flesh and bones with respect for the divine spirit that had filled them’’.

Asiatic Society books get a fresh lease of life

Asiatic Society books get a fresh lease of life

By Ketan Tanna TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: Preservation of rare books, manuscripts and even maps has always been a complex task. The world over, libraries and institutions set aside large portions of their budgets to either microfilm or digitise books, in order to preserve them for posterity. At the Asiatic Society in the city, microfilming has been the favoured option.
   The Asiatic Society’s collection includes books, manuscripts and maps that are over 200 years old. Despite a limited budget, the society has microfilmed 129 books and 305 manuscripts running into 1,07,560 pages in 2004-05. “Since 1994, 3,400 books and 1,000 manuscripts have been microfilmed,’’ said K Haridas, honorary secretary of the society. This year alone, Rs 6,00,000 was spent on the process.
   The microfilming process is carried in the basement of the society building and the films are kept under a constant temperature. According to Haridas, bar coding and radio frequency identification (RFID) of books is also on the agenda.
   However, the biggest drawback continues to be the fact that the documents are microfilmed in black and white.
   So how does microfilming work? Preservation microfilming involves the creation of multiple products. The “master negative’’ (the film that is exposed in the camera) is used only once, to make a “printing negative.’’ A duplicate is then produced for regular use. If the duplicate copy gets lost or damaged, a new one can be made from the printing negative, thus keeping the original book or document out of use at all times. For lovers of rare books, all is therefore, not lost

Residents fight for patch of green

Residents fight for patch of green

Plan PIL Against Builder For ‘Cornering’ Plot On Andheri-Versova Link Road

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Andheri: Yet another green patch on the Andheri-Versova Link Road has been taken over by a builder despite protests by residents of nine adjoining housing complexes. The vacant piece of land (Plot no 11, survey no 161, Versova—CST 1376-1-87), located in the middle of residential societies, has been taken over to build a transit camp.
   “The builder has been flashing a letter allegedly from the collector’s office sanctioning the transit camp under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority scheme,’’ says Mrinalini Phatak, a resident of the nearby Seema Society and a member of the ALM.
   According to Phatak, undue haste was shown in favouring the builder without considering the locals’ needs for open spaces. Since 1986, the Shiv Shanti Co-operative Housing Society, which adjoins the plot, has been requesting the collector’s office to let them build a small garden there, but to no avail.
   The lush plot, about 355.80 sq m in size, had remained vacant for years. Overnight, the builders, Pushpak Home Private Ltd, barricaded it to build a temporary transit camp to rehabilitate nearby slumdwellers.
   The work goes on mostly through the nights. “We are going in circles from the BMC office to the collector’s office to find out who sanctioned it but nobody is giving me straight answers,’’ says Dr R S Joshi from a adjoining housing society.
   S S Zende, collector, Mumbai suburban district, said he signed hundreds of letters every day and did not remember every permission he issued. He re-directed queries to the tehsildar’s office in Andheri.
   The tehsildar, Manisha Gawande, sent her deputy R S Kachare to the site who confirmed that the builder had started work on the plot which was meant to re-house displaced hutment dwellers and was not a transit camp. He, however, denied that permission had been given to the builder by the tehsildar’s office to start construction. “It could have been the city survey office who would have given a no-objection certificate based on which the collector could have approved the builder’s request,” said Kachare. The city survey office functions under the collector.
   The builder’s representative, Uday Chavan, who is the manager of the project, did not revert to answer questions. “We are thinking of filing a PIL,’’ said Phatak. “We need to save this city from greedy builders. If we don’t fight now, do we have a future?’’

Not an IAS but a very civil servant

City of Angels

Not an IAS but a very civil servant

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

   Like thousands all over the country, Vraj Patel wanted to join the Indian Administrative Service. And, like thousands (minus a few dozen every year), he failed to become one, instead managing to join the Central Excise and Customs as an inspector. But, unlike the faceless thousands like him, he has done much better. The Jetpur (Saurashtra) boy now helps others realise their dreams by running a public library for them. He does not want others to fail for lack of resources and knowhow, he says.
   Patel’s library on the busy Dadar East Station Road also has medical and management students dropping in. The more the merrier, says the man who helps others succeed. “I decided to open a library for students who wanted to appear for competitive examinations but did not have resources in terms of books or guidance. I do not want them to repeat my mistakes,’’ Patel says.
   Success to him now means hearing the likes of Pune (rural) superintendent of police Vishwas Nangre-Patil publicly acknowledge that it was Patel’s library that made him what he is. Patel has, somehow, managed to turn the tables on destiny.
   But it was not easy. He has had to sink in a mini fortune into the Maharashi Dayanand Foundation Library that, since 1996, has come to the aid of 10,000 students and evolved into a 50,000-book affair over merely 1,100 square feet; the books span 25 subjects.
   The library charges only those who can afford to pay Rs 2,500 a year (that is approximately half of the 150 students it has on its rolls now). “This way, we cross-subsidise the other half who cannot pay. The annual outgoing, including purchase of new books and maintenance, is more than Rs 1.5 lakh,’’ Patel adds. There also have been years when Patel has had to depend on wellwishers and pay the shortfall out of his pocket. The library is well-stocked, even in terms of quality. Many geology and medicine books are priced at over Rs 8,000.
   But there have been bad experiences. Students have disappeared with books, prompting Patel to charge a deposit of Rs 250 that has now been hiked to Rs 1000. “Books not returned will add up to 5,000 but one cannot go on hiking the deposit. I try to help those who cannot pay the deposit,’’ he adds.
   Patel’s enterprise has now moved beyond being a library. Experts teach IAS aspirants on Sundays, when it is open virtually round the clock instead of the usual two-hour morning and evening shifts.
   His wife and son are okay with the long hours he spends at the library. “They actually help me,’’ Patel, proud that his 21-year-old computer engineer son also tapped the library for his exams, said.

Vraj Patel, a central excise and customs inspector, runs a library for students who want to appear for competitive examinations but do not have adequate resources

Run Shinde Run

Run Shinde Run

Ketan Tanna
TNN

Ganpatrao Shinde (his real name) wakes up in his 500-square-foot one-BHK flat in Borivli’s IC Colony for which he pays a monthly rent of Rs 6,000. (In Bangalore, he could rent a two-BHK in posh Fraser town.) He hurriedly gets ready to catch the Churchgate fast. He will travel a distance of 34 kilometres in 47 minutes, one among the 6.4 million passengers every day. He is now in a nine-car rake with a carrying capacity of 1,700 passengers; the train, however, is packed with 4,700 like him. Some 500 commuters are stuffed in his coach though the optimum capacity is 188. (It’s illegal to carry so many cows in the coach.) From Churchgate, he takes a bus to Fort where there are 144 jobs for every 100 residents, making it one of the most congested areas of the country. He travels through roads where the vehicular density is 591 per square kilometre and where the level of noise is about 90 decibels; the human ear is designed for 70-75 decibels. Sometimes, hawkers who narrow his path further try to sell a T-shirt that says “I love Mumbai’’. But he does not have the time to buy it.

India becomes top gold jewellery maker

India becomes top gold jewellery maker

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Mumbai: India has surpassed Italy and is now officially the largest gold jewellery producer in the world. Confirming the development, Federazione Nazionale Orafi Gioiellieri Fabbricanti Aderente a Confindustria or Federorafi which is the federation of Italian jewellers said that India has relegated Italy to second place in gold jewellery production.
   In an interview to TOI, Federorafi said India surpassed Italy in gold jewellery production due to “competitive production costs, better access to international markets due to lower customs tariffs, good product quality and a huge internal market’’, which they say is not accessible to Italian/European goods due to high tariffs and due to administrative barriers.
   According to data released by the GFM precious metal consultancy, GFMS Limited, India with gold jewellery production of 539 tons in 2005 was numero uno followed by Italy with 228 tons. The third spot went to China with 198 tons and Turkey was fourth with 197 tons. If scrap gold is included as part of production, India also emerged as number one.
   Federorafi said that Italy lost out due to high labour costs, absence of trade reciprocity from other countries, towards non Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (India, China and South America amongst others), high rate of exchange of the euro compared to other currencies and difficulty in checking the distribution of goods.
   Commending improving standards of Indian gold jewellery design, Federorafi said Indian jewellery designs had already reached high standards and were recognisable the world over. Italian gold jewellery has a reputation of producing sophisticated designs and for many years floral designs of Indian jewellery did not attract too many international customers. But that is now slowly changing and Indian gold jewellery designers are making a name for themselves.
   Federorafi further added that unless there were sharp changes in the gold price and in the euro/$ exchange rate, Italian gold jewellery was unlikely to regain at least a part of the market share that it has lost in the last few years.

The good will go on

The good will go on

Ketan Tanna | TNN

   Life is a beautiful day. But you need to wake up to see it. Right now, at this very moment, there may be scores of people standing on a stool with a cloth around their neck. A way of leaving Mumbai that is increasingly becoming popular. But for every stool that has fallen, several nooses have loosened. Because they chose to make one last call to one of the many helpl lines in the city. And the trained helper at the other end has slowly persuaded the sorrowful caller to give life another chance. But today, helplines themselves are fighting a final decisive battle against oblivion.
With the rise of more fashionable avenues of charity that attract the city’s generous, and the increasing cost of doing good work in this city, Mumbai’s old helplines that have saved generations of men and women who wanted to quit Mondays forever are facing a destructive financial crisis. But they are fighting. A day cannot befall them when they have to tell a man who called to say he going to die, “Actually, we are broke too”.
   Last year, Mumbai’s oldest helpline and counselling centre, the Samaritans was given an ultimatum to move out of Byculla’s Sewa Niketan building. That is after more than four decades of operations — offering daycare facilities to distressed individuals, besides a phone helpline that rendered anonymous counselling. This blow did not stop the Samaritans. “Stopping our work was never an option. We can never sit idle. This is a city that needs help. If all of us start closing our offices and stop our work, who will be able to offer the helping hand that millions of Mumbaikars require,” asks Pravin Mahendra, trustee at the Samaritans.
   The organisation merely moved the daycare centre to an open space near Jeejamta Udhyan, commonly known as the Byculla zoo. The beautiful surroundings, open space and proximity to nature in fact helped them better in counselling and looking after 20 daycare patients. Adult patients suffering from psychological problems are counselled, taught skills and craft and at times, taken to picnics as well.
   The Samaritan’s Helpline division, though did not move in at the daycare centre. It was transferred to a smaller temporary place at Claire Road, Byculla. The place has been offered to the social organisation by a well-wisher as a temporary arrangement. The helpline number — 23073451 — though remains the same.
   With rains lashing Mumbai, the centre at the open space near the Byculla Zoo has come to a halt. Today the Samaritans are looking for a roof over their heads. But there are indications that a social trust may help it get a place in the city’s Lalbaug area.
   Somehow social orgainsations manage to pull through. Maybe because they are good at the business of shore-up. Earlier this year, scores of helping hands gave the much-needed relief to Prayas, one of the oldest Mumbai social organisation. “Call it blind confidence; call it the spirit of Mumbai. Call it the never-say-die attitude. Mumbaikars do not give up,” says Vijay Raghavan, project director at Prayas.
   Since its establishment in 1990, Prayas has helped a range of people, from those arrested for minor offences such as ticket-less travel and the mentally ill, to children of criminals and victims of trafficking. Prayas’ outreach programme has risen from an initial 30, to over a thousand. But when it launched a programme to train such persons at other organisations, it had to pay Rs 1,700 per month, per person, for the exercise. Although the results of this programme were extremely positive, Prayas was left with a huge cash crunch. That’s because despite generous donors (its field action project is run by Tata Institute of Social Sciences is primarily funded by Dorabji Tata Trust and other generous donors), the programme left a gaping hole in its budgetary allocation.
   The situation became so bad that the staff had to take a salary cut of 15% for three months, although currently the cut has been reduced to 8%. The staff also decided that all of them would pool in to pay the part-time temporary staff.
   After an all-out appeal, many well-wishers of Prayas went out of their way to financially support the group. “People who knew us helped us with small contributions. The word-of-mouth support saw Prayas get well over Rs 7 lakh. Though the shortfall was over Rs 12 lakh, many Mumbaikars loosened their purse strings. Some NGOs and corporate helped too. Fresh budgetary allocations in the new financial year also eased the situation,” says Raghavan.

Trams to malls

Trams to malls

The changing face of Mumbai’s entertainment through the eyes of four generations of the Madkaikar and Lotlikar family

Great-grandmother

Manorama Pandhrinath Madkaikar (86) | “Those were the days of the tram and fun also meant taking short rides on them. The ticket was around Re 1. We went to watch religious movies such as Tukaram with all our family members in tow. As the tickets were priced at 5-12 annas per movie, we would watch them only occasionally. Radio was yet to make its debut and a local bhajan mandal would bring enormous pleasure to us. An occasional pilgrimage was welcome.

Grandmother

Manda Ratnakar Lotlikar (67) | “Childhood in Girgaum was bliss. We spent our evenings on the nearby roads playing games as they were pretty deserted; there were barely one or two cars and very few hawkers. After marriage, entertainment meant going to the club, where there were lots of entertainment facilities such as swimming and plays. One day, we drove all the way to Rameshwaram as there was little traffic. There was no concept of going to Juhu beach as nobody went there. A visit to Chowpatty beach happened once or twice a year. Movies at the local Sahakar and Vijay cinema at Chembur were also great sources of entertainment. Three films every few months sufficed to keep our family happy and contended.

Mother

Kavita Ramnath Lotlikar (42) | “We would wait for our annual vacations. For they meant our annual journey to our ancestral place in Goa, where we would have a great time with all our relatives. Entertainment meant going to the occasional play, although now we go out every week to a movie. Fortunately, there were no privacy concerns as we had a large house and no in-laws. The birth of our twins made us eventually shift to a better house at Kandivli’s Lokhandwala Complex.

Son

Suraj Ramnath Lotlikar (17) | “Oh, we hang around in malls a lot. Entertainment means a computer, being online, lots of games, television and, of course, the mobile, which we two brothers share. Entertainment also means using the local club as frequently as possible. My mom is cool. In fact, she encourages me to find girlfriends and enter personality development classes. Family outings to movie halls and multiplexes are a regular event.
As told to Ketan Tanna

US co’s woes to hit diamond industry hard

US co’s woes to hit diamond industry hard

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Mumbai: News about financial trouble at New York-based M Fabrikant & Sons, the largest US importer of diamonds from India, has the country’s diamond industry worried. According to a report in Israel-based newspaper Globe, Fabrikant owes $400 million to creditors, of which $200 million is owed to US banks, and $200 million to suppliers. Fabrikant has an annual turnover of around $1 billion.
   While the Indian diamond industry pegged Fabrikant’s outstanding at around $75-100 million, Fabrikant’s Mumbai representative Shailesh Jhaveri says the figure is exaggerated. “As far as India is concerned, we have outstanding dues of only $30 million,’’ he said.
   Nalini Rajan, V-P of Tara Jewels and Tara Ultimo in which Fabrikant has a 25% stake, admits that there is a ‘small problem’. But she says negotiations are on and the problem would be solved in a month. She adds rumours are a norm in the diamond industry and that every few days there are reports of collapse of one company or the other. Fabrikant’s suppliers cut across the diamond industry. In fact, the who’s who of Indian diamond industry supply to the company. If Fabrikant is in financial trouble, the impact would be felt across all the suppliers.
   The Israeli newspaper in its Monday edition says Fabrikant is in danger of collapse and insolvency. The company is believed to have deferred payments for eighteen months and have got into cash flow difficulties, the paper says. The report adds that banks in the US have had to reduce credit lines to the company to a minimum, making it difficult for it to operate. Why is Fabrikant important to India? Since 1999, Fabrikant has consistently won awards from the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council as the largest US importer of diamonds from India even though the value of imports has declined.
   The Indian industry is now worried. A veteran diamond merchant says the merchants are worried on two counts. “If Fabrikant collapses, where will we find a powerful replacement for Fabrikant? I am not saying that there are no buyers. But nothing in the league of Fabrikant. Also, if Fabrikant files for bankruptcy, the company’s creditors will face problem as their money will be stuck for some time,’’ he says.

Diamonds For Middle Class As Well

EAR TO THE GROUND

Bling thing

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Popular belief: Diamond jewellery is for the rich elite

Ground reality: Ashok Minawala, 50, director of Danabhai Jewellers, has been in the jewellery business for the past 30 years. According to him, the profile of the diamond buyer has changed. Today more and more middle and even lowermiddle-class people are buying diamonds, though in small sizes. These small diamonds are called pointers.
   Danabhai sells both gold and diamond jewellery from its three outlets at Zaveri Bazar, Santacruz and Haji Ali in Mumbai. The cheapest diamond jewellery can be purchased for as little as Rs 3,500. Today the middle-class buyer is going in for branded jewellery, although it is 5-10% more expensive.
   Previously, only 5% of the buyers bought branded jewellery, while 95% went to their trustworthy family jeweller. Now branded jewellery constitutes nearly 25-30% of the total sales at Danabhai. The reason may be that most of the branded jewellery comes with a buyback guarantee. It also comes with a laboratory certificate that gives the buyer details about the quality of the diamond jewellery.
   Verbal and written assurance is a must when buying jewellery, whether branded or unbranded. Middle-class and upper-middle-class Mumbaikars are going in for trendy international designs, especially white gold jewellery sets studded with diamonds.
   Unbranded jewellery buyers are those who buy very expensive items, but from jewellers they trust. The price for unbranded jewellery ranges from Rs 5,000 to Rs 5 lakh.

Doc’s PILs empower citizens

Doc’s PILs empower citizens

   Last year, cardiologist Sandip Rane read about two schoolchildren who died due to an accident caused by potholes in Kalwa near Thane. The 48-year-old doctor wrote a letter to the chief justice of the Bombay high court, which was subsequently converted into a public interest litigation.
   But Rane, a director at the Asian Heart Hospital, did not watch the PIL proceedings as a curious bystander. Often, he would get up early and drive all over the city taking photographs of potholes. He presented some 70 pictures to the court.
   His efforts paid off. In early June this year, the court directed Brihanmumbai and Thane municipal corporations to ensure that no manhole under their jurisdictions was left uncovered.
   A division bench directed both the corporations to file affidavits within a week on the status of manholes. If the incidences of open manholes have reduced today, it is due to Rane’s efforts.
   Not that Rane has a lot of time on his hands. But he has another agenda —empowering the citizens legally. Rane’s civic activism started in 1990, when the doctor and citizens of Chembur fought against the atrocious services of the Chembur telephone exchange. This gave an impetus to the opening of an electronic exchange much before its scheduled date. Today he has filed many successful PILs.
   But as the surgeon understandably cannot attend all PIL proceedings, his 46-year-old doctor wife Neelam and sometimes even his daughter Kavita (21) make up for his absence at the hearings and brief him in the evenings.
   Some of his high-profile PILs include one filed against the BMC seeking answers on larger issues of Mumbai’s sewage treatment, solid waste management, disaster management as well as the implementation of the Brimstowad Committee Report. The Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drain (Brimstowad) project of the BMC has envisaged the complete overhaul of the city’s 100-year-old drainage system, after the 26/7 deluge.
   There are lawyers who help the Ranes file PIL free of charge, and continue the legal work at different hearings. But all the incidental expenses that come with such PIL are borne personally by the doctor, who says that he will continue fighting for a spectrum of civic facilities.
   That Rane cares more for Mumbai than maybe the city does for him is evident when he says that he was disappointed by the apathy shown by Mumbaikars after the formation of a road commission by the Chief Justice to inspect potholes on Mumbai roads and assess the condition of the various roads. Despite putting an advertisement after the floods, very few Mumbaikars bothered to respond. Less than 10 persons did, actually. “So what I did was to get up early and reach a particular area by 7 am, even though the commission members were expected by 9 am. For two hours, I would go around and map the road so that I could take the commission members to the potholes on the damaged road,’’ says Rane.
   In his previous avatars of judicial activism, Rane had gone to court under the aegis of the Smoke Affected Residents Forum or SARF. In 1999, SARF filed a PIL that resulted in the court ordering conversion of all taxis to compressed natural gas (CNG). The doctor’s PIL ensured that from four CNG pumps, the city has now 100. In 1995, Rane had filed a PIL against the BMC for the horrendous way in which garbage was being dumped and burnt at the Deonar dumping ground. The court ordered short-term relief measures, though even after a decade, measures like recycling of garbage are yet to be implemented.
   When asked how he manages to juggle his career and activism, Rane says, “What kept Mahatma Gandhi going? His life was his message. I am not comparing myself to Gandhiji, but I feel the same way. Let my life by my message.’’
   Anyone, says Rane, who is passionate about his cause has a lot of power to change the society. “I believe that my passion for civic activism will inspire many others. That is what keeps me going.’’

Jatin Shah, one of the three visually challenged students who was a volunteer at an RTI camp

BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY: Sandeep Rane, who is a cardiologist at the Asian Heart Hospital, had also filed a PIL which ensured that taxis switched from petrol to CNG

India Blasts hit diamond trade

Blasts hit diamond trade

Industry loses men, and its faith

Ketan Tanna | TNN

As Families Mourn Deaths, Dead Diamond Traders’ Colleagues Brace Up To Protect Themselves

Mumbai: Tuesday’s serial blasts have hit the city’s diamond trade hard. Traders’ associations have already identified 15 members who have died and fear that the community may account for many more deaths once all the information is collated.
   Many of the bereaved families have, till date, not got back to the associations, making a higher toll a distinct possibility. Besides, there are hundreds of youngsters who work on a dailywage basis, commuting from distant suburbs like Mira Road or from Bharuch and Surat in Gujarat, and they have a limited interface with the traders’ associations. At least 15 traders have also been seriously injured, says the Nausarjan Pratishthan, one of the organisations.
   Riled and upset over losing so many of their colleagues and the atmosphere of “threat and insecurity’’, 500-odd industry professionals assembled at the Jewel Theatre (Roxy Building) in Opera House on Thursday evening. Industry leaders said the blasts on the trains had prompted a general feeling of insecurity and felt it was time they took care of themselves, even at their trading hub.
   Officially, they were there to pay homage to the dead and commiserate with their families. But the mood slowly turned to that of anger.
   “Let the government do what it should do. But we need to act on our own. We are calling an emergency meeting on Saturday. We will be introducing smart cards and frisk cars and personnel at Panchratna as soon as we can,’’ leading diamond merchant and Gem & Jewellery National Relief Foundation chairman Pravinshankar Pandya said.
   Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council chairman Bakul Mehta said the industry should not be dependent on others and promised to allocate funds for urgent security measures. GJEPC former chairman Sanjay Kothari went a step ahead: “This is the time for action and not words. We have had enough of empty talk and let us now ensure the industry’s wellbeing.’’ The industry functioned with a skeletal staff on Wednesday and a notice outside the Panchratna and the Jewel buildings called for a bandh in the diamond industry on Friday.
   That the deaths had shaken up the industry was evident when the associations decided that the lane adjacent to Jewel, choc-a-bloc with twowheelers and cars, should be closed to traffic.

GLITTER FIGURES

Diamond Export 2005-2006: Rs 53,922 crore 2004-2005: Rs 50,073.60 crore

Size of cutting business: Rs 17000 crore

Number of people employed by the industry:
1 million

Trade zone: Around Opera House

Living quarters: Mira Road, Borivli, Kandivli, Malad, Goregaon, Andheri

BEREAVED: Anil Shah’s family at their Goregaon residence

A TENSE FUTURE: Diamond traders gather at Jewel (Roxy) building to take stock of the situation (above) as an employee takes care of the shop (below)

Planning a shelter from the storm

Planning a shelter from the storm

Disaster management is not just the responsibility of civic authorities, but also of families who must take care of their finances

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Manik Dey, 55, a manager with Air India was a bit too optimistic in life. Dey hopes that nobody should suffer like him and pay through the nose the way he did. Floods ravaged his home in the Air India colony, Kalina, north west Mumbai in 1991, 1997 and 2000. Each time the loss to him was around Rs 50,000. In 2005, the July 26 deluge left him poorer by Rs 1 lakh. “I always thought that flooding would never happen the next time around. Maybe I was too optimistic. I hope people learn from my tragedy. We cannot prevent tragedies and misfortune. But at least, if we are financially prepared, our loss can be mitigated,” says Dey who has now shifted to a second floor home and is thinking of buying insurance.
Dey’s neighbour A V Pillai, 47, superintendent service engineer in Air India, too lost a lot of money in the 2000 floods and is now a tad wiser. “People should have an emergency financial kit,” he says. “We did not take insurance because there was not much awareness. If LIC or some other insurance company had held road shows or awareness camps, it would have motivated us. After the Tuesday bomb blasts, I feel all insurance companies should raise awareness about the fallibility of life,” says Pillai.
The July 11 Mumbai train blasts claimed 200 lives and left some 800 injured. Some of those affected will suddenly become dependents, relying on others to earn a living. Coping with the emotional after-effects of a calamity is difficult to start with, but can be especially disastrous when the affected family faces a shaky financial future. While one cannot always prevent disasters and misfortunes in life, one can always take pre-emptive steps to mitigate post-disaster traumas.
To start with, every one must put in place an emergency financial plan to deal with unexpected calamities. This could help even in other unexpected emergencies or misfortunes (such as losing one’s job or a major illness). Financial planners and risk management experts are unanimous that an emergency financial plan can and should be made by all those who are earning and even those who are retired or senior citizens.
While situations and the financial background of every individual may differ based on age and experience, emergency financial planning can be divided into three broad categories:
A single bread earner having parents or dependent family members
A married person with dependant wife/husband, children and or parents
   A young, earning person without dependents
   According to financial planner Sujata Kabraji, if a person is the only earning member of his or her family, and is unmarried but has parents, an emergency plan should provide liquidity for three to six months of household expenses, either in the form of bank deposits or liquid funds, and an insurance policy which is of sufficient value so as to take care of his parents. Equally, the person should keep a trusted friend or an advisor appraised. It would help if that person has some financial acumen. The person should also ensure that all investments are either in joint names or have a nomination in place and that there should be a will duly validated. It is mandatory that the person’s parents should always be kept in the picture of all the investments that have been made.
   In case a person is married and has dependent wife and children, financial planning is all the more crucial. According to Gaurav Mashruwala, a certified financial planner, such persons should have contingency planning, risk management, liquidity and have an updated nomination for various assets and a will. Contingency planning essentially would mean making arrangements for three months of household budget. Risk management is ensuring that health
and life insurance is in place and
that there are no lapses in premium payments. Disability insurance
should never be neglected and always
included as a part of any insurance plan. Additionally, having at least 15-20% of invested assets in liquid form (like mutual funds, fixed deposits and shares) would ensure the availability of liquid funds.
   Updated nomination and the existence of a will is of crucial importance whether the person is single or married. Even if a person has nominated someone, it does not automatically mean that the concerned persons will get to own that asset. “Nomination is the right to receive, not the right to own. For example, if the person has nominated his wife in various assets (be it bank deposits, shares, etc), the wife gets the right to receive the asset. But, in case there is no will, any other family member, for example his mother, has the right to take the matter to the court. A written will ensures that the asset goes to the person one desires. And yes, a will need not be drafted only with a help of a lawyer. One can draft it in their own handwriting and the proforma is simple and can be easily accessed on the net. A handwritten will, attested by two persons, preferably one of them the person’s doctor, would ensure that the will would not be challenged. If a person dies intestate, then the possibility of legal wrangling and division of assets under succession acts become a reality.
Mashruwala says that soon after a person’s marriage, it is essential that the couple sit down and make a list of assets, especially the ones created before marriage. “Hiding the assets, especially the one that a person has before marriage would invariably cause complications in case of emergencies. The worst part is that a person has assets but is unable to use the assets even for his or her treatment because he or she has not disclosed it to his spouse and family and, being critically injured, is unable to disclose it either,” says Mashruwala.
Another certified financial planner, Kartik Jhaveri, says while planning for an insurance cover one needs to factor in the inflation rate. Also, Jhaveri strongly advises on not allowing insurance agents to railroad you in buying polices you don’t need. In the case of senior citizens, emergency planning should factor around investment in instruments that would
   ensure liquid cash flow which would be of use during medical emergencies, says Jhaveri.
   Wills are even more important as people age and the next of kin must know where to find the paperwork. One should try to ensure regular monthly income so that if either spouse is no longer around, at least monetarily, the surviving spouse does suffer financially, advises Kabraji.
   It is not enough to just do the paperwork for emergency planning. What is of equal importance is that policy–life and medical–copies need to kept in either a locker or with a trusted person in another location. A copy of the original will should be kept in separate locations. In fact, all papers which indicate ownership of any asset, that is marriage certificates, PAN cards, etc, should be notarised with one copy kept in a safe, separate location. “The choice of whether it should be in a locker or with a trusted person is a personal choice,” adds Kabraji.

EMERGENCY FINANCIAL KIT

Evaluate your cash inflow (income)

Evaluate financial goals

Create a contingency fund

Ensure adequate insurance

Assess liquidity needs

Nominate survivors and draw up a will

Mobile content market waiting to explode

Mobile content market waiting to explode

Ketan Tanna | TNN

Mumbai: Nothing sells better than sex and religion. In keeping with that maxim, mobile content providers are now looking at bolder revenue opportunities, beyond ringtones, contests and games, to grab the country’s 100 million cellphone users.
   So, by the beginning of 2007, Indians may lose their shyness in the bedroom—and the under-exercised couple may turn closet gymnasts. Their teacher will be the ubiquitous cellphone. It will offer a peek into 25 sexual positions from the Kamasutra for a pittance—Rs 2 per position. That’s after paying Rs 99 to download the Kamasutra package on the phone.
   The positions, content provider Mobile2win assures, have been aesthetically designed. “This is not pornography. The Kamasutra is an age-old way of life. If it can be accessed in the form of a book, why not on the cell,’’ says Rajeev Hiranandani, CEO of Mobile2win. Another content provider, Nazara Technologies, chooses to bet on religion instead. Its software application helps keep track of the number of times one chants a mantra.
   If one is interrupted in the middle of a session, it will help you start from where you left. Some 18 mantras, at Rs 30 each, are offered in this series. One lakh people downloaded it in the last six months.
   The company also offers ‘planet’ mantras that correspond with the planet of one’s birth, based on Hindu astrology. It costs Rs 30 per mantra and within a week of its launch, there were 900 downloads, says Nitish Mittersain, CEO of Nazara Technologies.
   As for sex-related products, Mittersain says the market is huge, but they would like to see how other companies fare, before they explore this avenue. Mobile2win too has a few spiritual products. Earlier this year, it tied up with Shri Shri Ravishankar’s Art of Living to offer wallpapers and bhajans as ring tones. A specially-created WAP site provides video clips of Shri Shri Ravishankar’s discourses. So far 1,40,000 people have downloaded these at an average cost of Rs 7-8 per product.
   Mauj Telecom, lets you SMS a prayer request to Siddhivinayak temple. Within a week of its launch, some 10,000 SMSes were sent daily as prayers, which were printed and kept near the idol of Lord Ganesha. Now it averages some 70,000 SMSes per week, each SMS costing between 80 paisa and Rs 3. There are plans to export these services to countries with a significant population of Indian origin.
   It has also started a service for Muslim worshippers, called qibla. This enables a cellphone to display in which direction Mecca, Islam’s holiest site, lies as well as send an alert for the five daily calls to prayer. It is available for a one-time download fee of Rs 50. According to Arun Gupta, CEO of Mauj Telecom, they have started exporting the product to some 20 countries.
   Vishal Gondal, CEO of Indiagames, feels that there is a market for adult content but everything depends on the way it is developed and marketed. Currently, the company is keeping off adult content and is focussing on marketing Ganesh Stuti, Jai Hanuman and Shri Ganesh prayers for Rs 50 per download.
   The market is valued at Rs 450 crore and is expected to rise to Rs 640 crore by April next year. That’s because the current mobile user base stands at 100 million, which is expected to shoot up to 240 million by December next year.

Bank Employees Remember Colleagues Who Lost Their Lives That Day

Bank Employees Remember Colleagues Who Lost Their Lives That Day

Ketan Tanna I TNN

Mumbai: “She told me there was a Rs 100 deficit in the accounts book and asked me to make a voucher to tally the accounts. So I returned to my table which was roughly four feet away from her chair. That was it. Immediately, after that there was a deafening sound and everything went pitch dark. We all ran out, some persons screaming, some lurching, some clinging to each other. That was the last time I saw her,’’ says Rifat Shaikh, recalling the last few moments he spent talking with his fellow colleague, Chandra Viswanathan.
Chandra died when the Bank of Oman office in Nariman Point was ripped apart at 2.57 pm by a bomb blast on March 12, 1993.
Chandra, who was in her mid-20s, was a fellow accounts officer with Shaikh. “To me, she was one of the most amazing and helpful persons I had met. That day, I had just returned after offering namaz when she asked me for the voucher. And then we lost her,’’ Shaikh says, lapsing into silence. The then Bank of Oman (which was later taken over by Mashreqbank and relocated) lost three employees. Among them was twenty-four-yearold Hemalatha, a probationary officer in the bank, who had barely come to terms with her mother’s death.
   Since Hemalatha’s future looked bright, her Chennai-based father and sister, Prema Shankar, had shifted to Dombivli. Both the daughters looked after their ailing father who had been shattered by the demise of his wife.
   Tragedy struck the family once again when Hemalatha died in the blast. Her colleague, Darlene D’Souza, who is now an officer with Mashreqbank, said the hallmark of Hemalatha was her simplicity. “Even though I sat far from her in another section, I remember Hemalatha because there would be a gentle smile on her face in the morning and she had the energy and eagerness to do whatever task was allotted to her,’’ says Darlene.
   Hemalatha’s sister, Prema Shankar was later offered a job by the bank. Every year on March 12, all staffers of Mashreqbank observe a two-minute silence for their colleagues who died in the 1993 blast.
   According to Prema Shankar, even now neither she nor her ailing father have managed to get over the death of Hemalatha. “She was the pillar of our family. She was our strength. She was not just an elder sister but someone who kept the family going after our mother’s death. I would give all sorts of work to her but she would never say no,’’ recollects Prema Shankar.
   The recent Mumbai train blasts revived the memories of the colleagues they lost in the 1993 blast. “No not again, was my first reaction,’’ says Prema Shankar. Unfortunately, the bank lost Joga Rao, a senior internal auditor, in the July 11 train blasts.
   Asked whether the impending judgment
   made her happy, Prema Shankar said she
   looked forward to getting justice.

New Generation Investors In India.

EAR TO THE GROUND

Smart investors of Generation Next

Ketan Tanna

Popular belief:

Young, salaried individuals do not invest.

Ground reality:

“The profile of investors has changed over the past couple of years,’’ says Kartik Jhaveri, director at Transcend Consulting India.
Today even professionals and salaried persons who are in their mid-20s have started making investment plans, says Jhaveri, who himself is 32-years old. The median age investors has decreased to 35 now.
   More often than not his clients are the salaried class, says the investment analyst who operates out of his 600-square-foot office. Also, increasingly single independent women are seeking his advice on investments to see them through after retirement.
Though salaries and investments have increased in keeping with inflation, Jhaveri says people are not saving enough. There is still a tendency among salaried professionals that the more you earn, more you spend. Jhaveri notes that clients who are in their mid 20s and 30s have a longer timeframe as an investment period, and are willing to take more risks. The older clients prefer easy liquidity, fewer risks and shorter investment timeframe. Retired persons also form a substantial client base for Jhaveri. Following the market crash, Jhaveri says that not many of his clients have redeemed their mutual fund units, despite a sense of fear. Volatility in the market is factored into the investment plan, he assures. TNN

Gods who specialise

Gods who specialise

By Ketan Tanna

   They are not run-of-the-mill gods. They function a lot like specialist doctors, whom a sick man approaches after the family doctor has washed his hands of the case. Devotees across the country are landing up in lakhs at these holy destinations with specific prayers, which they believe a general purpose god may be unable to answer.
   Thirty kilometres off Hyderabad is a god known to alter the minds of bored consulate officers all over the country. Also called Visa Balaji, the presiding deity of Venkateswara temple, is believed to clear visa applications of his devotees.
   On a given day, thousands of young visa hopefuls can be heard chanting at the main shrine. Unlike his devotees though, Visa Balaji is not materialistic. All he asks for in return is a holy round of the temple. According to lore, the first time a devotee reaches the temple, he has to take 11 such rounds. After the visa gets approved, the number rises to 108. Other than that, no money changes hands. “My son was rejected in his visa interview the first time. He then made a wish at Visa Balaji temple, and got it,” says Hyderabad’s Vimla Pande.
   Parents may not approve and nutrition experts may baulk at the thought, but the goddess of Jivantika Temple near Rajkot in Gujarat, apparently gets pizzas, milk chocolates, pani puris, dabelis and sandwiches as prasad. The goddess is known for her love of children and is revered by mothers-to-be for a child and mothers wishing a long life for their children. For the past 35 years, the temple used to give peppermint and chocolates to the kids. To attract them, a special prasad is offered once a week. “On routine days, the kids are given chocolates,” says Aim Prasad, chief trustee of the temple.
   For the grownups and their own set of unique problems, the state of Tamil Nadu offers a recourse in Sree Kulanjiappar, son of Lord Shiva. Kulanjiappar is known to employ slightly different methods. Empty prayers don’t work here; they have to be put forth via written petitions. The temple, which is some 220 kilometres off Chennai, hands out printed petitions to first-time applicants as examples. At the other extreme, even Supreme Court and High Court judges have trekked up to this remote destination for a resolution. The written prayers can span problems as far apart as property disputes, financial irregularities, murder cases, and the most common human predicament — marital disharmony.
   “We charge Rs 10 for the cost of application and processing fee. And once the petition is formally lodged, the complainant has to pay a bata for handling the case,” says Gurunathan, the temple administrator. The bata is calculated at the rate of 10 paise per kilometre from the place of travel to the temple. Kulanjiappar’s court,
which attracts petitions globally, handles every mundane complaint. Whenever a petition is filed, it is symbolically placed near the deity while offering prayers. Later, the petitions are tied to a lance stuck vertically on ground before the sub-shrine dedicated to Muneeswara.
   Though the petitions lie in the open for everyone to see, generally people don’t touch them out of fear. “We don’t guard them. They remain there till they get withered by weather,” says Gurunathan.
   The temple story doesn’t end at filing of petitions alone. Once Kulanjiappar administers justice, the complainant should formally withdraw the petition. The helpful temple has printed forms for withdrawing cases as well. In a year, Kulanjiappar receives not fewer than 75,000 cases. “Of these, 60,000 cases are withdrawn,” Gurunathan shows the list. One has no choice but to conclude that the striking rate of this divine court is quite impressive. And the lord, also known by other names such as Karthikeya, Murga and Shunmuga, delivers speedy justice from a minimum of three days to a maximum of three months.
   Among these new-age methods of worship, old-world beliefs somehow pesist. People still throng the Jhankeshwari temple in the backwaters of Bengal’s Burdwan district to cure snake bites. A stone near Guledgudda in Karnataka’s Bagalkote district is worshipped by mostly pregnant women, and is appropriately called the “Pregnant Stone”. TNN
   (Inputs by Meghanien Datta, Pradeep
   Nair, T S Sreenivasa Raghavan, Debajyoti
   Chakraborty, Radha Sharma & Meena Iyer)

When help hangs up

When help hangs up

City’s Oldest Helpline To Call It A Day By The End Of This Year

By Ketan Tanna/TNN

Mumbai: Bad news for hundreds of Mumbaikars, who have at some point or the other sought relief from the city’s oldest helpline, The Samaritans-Helpline, in their darkest hours. The helpline is winding up operations on December 31 for want of space.
   The Samaritans, a parent body of the Samaritan Helpline, started operations in 1960, while the helpline was set up on May 1, 1993 in Mumbai.
   Freny Mahendra, director of The Samaritans, confirmed the news. He said the Jesuit owners of the Seva Niketan building—which housed The Samaritans—wanted the place back. It was the Jesuits who had invited them in 1960 and rented out the place free of cost.
   Since its inception, The Samaritans have been functioning out of three rooms at the Seva Niketan building near Byculla in central Mumbai. One room is used for helpline activities, another room serves as a daycare centre and the third has been converted into an office. The helpline was available 24×7, 365 days a year to any Mumbaikar in distress. And indeed, that’s what many Mumbaikars really needed. A non-judgmental friend, who is willing to listen without any prejudice. It is of little wonder that thousands of Mumbaikars over the years sought help on the phone-line or personally walked in for help. The anonymity that it offered was a blessing to those who did not want anyone to know their background or personal details for whatever reason.
   The helpline complemented the daycare centre and the professional unit of The Samaritans. The professional unit, with its team of psychiatrists and medical social workers, provided back-up support to the helpline. The Samaritans provided an entire gamut of assistance to the mentally and emotionally disturbed, free of charge. The day centre was the first of its kind. Currently, it takes care of 40 patients.
   The callers were from all walks of life and when they called the helpline, trained volunteers offered emotional support through active listening. Callers could pour their heart out to the volunteers without fear of being judged or criticised. Callers could, if they chose to, also remain anonymous.
   According to Mahendra, confidentiality and anonymity were the hallmarks of The Samaritan group. “Often, one needs help to get over their feelings of distress simply by talking things over with a close friend. And the helpline offered to be that friend. Our trained volunteers listen, understand and most importantly care for the caller who may not have anyone to turn to in times of distress,’’ he added.
   The Samaritans trustees were working on constructing a residential place at Panvel in Navi Mumbai for patients with mental problems. But with the closure of its main office at Byculla imminent, the trustees are in a quandary. “We have visited a couple of ministers and councillors, but it has not helped. Even a temporary accommodation for our office, helpline and the daycare patients could help. We wish somebody would help us,’’ said Freny Mahendra.
   Samaritan helpline: 23073451; weekdays 3 pm to 9 pm, weekends 9 am to 9 pm .

Dreams in sound, not colour

Dreams in sound, not colour Ketan Tanna | TNN At times, our dreams are vivid, colourful and imaginative, based on what we have imbibed and perceived in our dayto-day life. As common as dreams are for those who have vision, the visually challenged too dream. But what do they dream of, especially those who have been born visually challenged? Do they see colour? What do persons who have progressively gone blind dream of ? “I cannot see,” says Ketan Kothari (37) an officer with the National Association of Blind (NAB). That, however, has not prevented him from seeing dreams. Never mind that he was born blind, without eye sockets as well. “Of course, I dream. My dreams are auditory. If you exclude the component of sight, a visually challenged person’s dreams are as ordinary or as extraordinary as the dreams of other people,” says Kothari. “For example, take Mount Everest. For those who have vision, it would be high peaks, scenic viewpoint and so on. But for me, it means the wind, lack of oxygen, the chill,” says Kothari, who incidentally, is an avid trekker. When the country watches Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid with bated breath, the cricket fanatic Kothari follows each and every ball-by-ball commentary on the audio. Does he dream of cricket? “I can hear the crowd going berserk when the ball has been hit midfield. I use my imagination along with the commentary,” says Kothari. Kothari’s dreams are based on a sense of smell or the feeling of heat or cold. Does he ever imagine sunset or sunrise? “For me sunset and sunrise are not vivid as described. I feel the sunrise when I first hear the crows. I feel the sunset when the temperature changes…but no colours,” says Kothari. Dream images of the visually challenged seem to be reconstructions of objects based on sensory input such as touch and sound, just as it occurs in waking life. According to research done by C Hurovitz, S Dunn, G W Domhoff, and Fiss, titled “The dreams of blind men and women: A replication and extension of previous findings”, visually challenged people experience a very high percentage of taste, smell and touch sensations in their dreams. The highlights of this research were: There are no visual images in the dreams of those born without any ability to experience visual imagery in waking life. Those who become blind before the age of five seldom experience visual imagery in their dreams. Those that become sightless between the ages of five and seven may or may not retain some visual imagery. Those who lose their vision after age seven continue to experience at least some visual imagery, although its frequency and clarity often fade with time. Suhas Karnik, 49, an officer with the Bank of India, who gradually lost his eyesight and went blind by the age of 15, says that his dreams have a visual element as he saw colours till the age of 15. “My dreams are made of sound and most of what I dream of is based on sound,” says Karnik who goes to cinema halls and watches entire three hour movies. A vision for tomorrow The progress in modern technology has made life easier for the visually challenged. For example, can one see with the ears? No? Twenty-seven-year-old Kandivali resident Pranav Lal, who was born blind, does. He uses a technology called vOICe (OIC as in ‘oh I see’) developed by Meijer, a research scientist in the Netherlands. Simply put, vOICe, can help one see with the help of sound—with the help of a tiny camera, a laptop and headphones. The camera is mounted on the head. The laptop captures the video input and converts it into auditory information, or soundscapes. The scene in front of the person is scanned in stereo. The sounds of the objects on the left are heard through the left ear and objects on the right through he right ear. Brightness is translated as volume: bright things are louder. Pitch tells one what’s up and what’s down. The image refreshes once a second. For continuous use, a head-mounted camera is preferred for best sensory feedback, but for occasional orientation purposes, say for reading signs or to have a look at graphs or other graphical material in print, on the blackboard or on displays, a mobile can be as useful. Solicitor Kanchan Pamnani (40), who progressively lost her sight, uses her mobile to see colours though not often. A Bulgarian company has developed a software implementation of the voice that runs on the Nokia 3650 (Nokia 3600, Nokia 3660) camera phone. The software includes a talking colour identifier, such that you can point the camera of your Java-enabled smartphone or PDA at any item of interest and hear the colour name spoken. The software is available free of charge for non-commercial personal and academic use.

Anti-obesity surgery has a tragic side

Anti-obesity surgery has a tragic side

Not Many Know That Some Ops Carry Potentially Fatal Risks

Ketan Tanna/TNN

   At around six in the morning on the 18th of November last year, Purnima Majumdar’s mother, Vishakha (names changed), noticed that her daughter who was sleeping next to her looked pale and her nails had an unusual bluish tinge. Her face too looked drained and “bluish’’. The mother raised an alarm. But it was too late. The vivacious 18-year-old Purna had been dead for four hours. She had passed away in her sleep following a heart attack. A week before her death, the teenager had undergone a stomach stapling surgery at a hospital which her family says cost them over Rs 4 lakh.
   She weighed 180 kg, considerably overweight even for her 6’4’’ frame. Stomach stapling is a surgery that the obese undergo to reduce the size of their stomachs which in turn limits their food intake. Soon after the surgery, she told her family that agreeing to the bariatric surgery was the biggest mistake of her life. She was depressed after the surgery, her family says. Dr Muffazal Lakdawala who operated on Purnima says that there need not be any connection between her death and the surgery. He says obese patients are prone to sleep apnea (breathing stops or gets irregular in sleep, and can be fatal) or pulmonary embolism (sudden blockage in a lung artery, usually due to a blood clot that has travelled to the lung from a vein in the leg). “Obese patients have a 20% higher risk of these two and the patient could have died because of either causes. The surgery was incidental,’’ he says.
   But Purnima is not an isolated case. A 21-year-old boy died in Chennai recently after a stomach stapling operation. His family is contemplating going to the court. A 46-year-old stock broker died last month after complications arising from liposuction. In February, the obese gregarious man had decided to undergo liposuction at a private clinic in the Khar suburb of Mumbai. Liposuction involves removing deposits of fat from parts of the body through a tiny incision. A narrow tube then vacuums the fat layer. The broker’s family alleges that during the liposuction operation, his colon ruptured. A colostomy operation was done on him after the liposuction procedure. The colostomy operation failed and he eventually died of an infection. The doctor who performed the operation has refused to comment.

FAT’S IN THE FIRE

   An 18-year-old Mumbai girl died of a heart attack a week after a stomach staple. A young man in Chennai too died after the same operation. A Mumbai broker died of colon rupture during liposuction
   Stapling or bariatric surgery involves reducing the size of the stomach to limit the patient’s intake. In liposuction, fat deposits are cut from parts of the body
   Obese patients are more prone to the potentially fatal sleep apnea or pulmonary embolism

RISK FACTOR

Stomach-stapling operation must be last resort: Doctors

Mumbai: General medical opinion is that obesity-related operations constitute a “category risk’’. “It happens in the West too,’’ said a doctor although official statistics are hard to come by. “There’s risk attached to any surgical procedure,’’ he added.
   There have been instances of death following cosmetic surgery but the families of the deceased have accepted that the operations had nothing to do with the tragedy. Last May, Jude Harris (surname changed) chose to have a tummy tuck and breast reduction at a wellknown hospital.
   Four days after the surgery, the hospital authorities called her sister and informed her that the mother of three had died of a “blood clot that travelled to her lungs’’. The family is not blaming the hospital for her death and has maintained that Jude could have died due to a “freak accident’’.
   The medical fraternity maintains that deaths following obesity-related operations are usually caused by factors that have nothing to do with the surgery. But doctors do warn patients that surgeries like
stomach-stapling have to be resorted to only when they are absolutely necessary. Dr Abhay Dalvi of KEM Hospital says, “Bariatric surgery should be done only for the morbidly obese. That too when the person’s weight continues to shorten his or her lifespan. Such surgeries are not cosmetic in nature. The surgery should be done when all other options, like dieting, have been explored. Also, the patient has to be psychologically motivated and sure of the operation.’’
   As the Indian society becomes looks-obsessed, the obese are willing to take a chance and agree to surgical procedures. Anti-obesity surgery is an industry of sorts today though its commercial size is not clear. Also, Indians are increasingly trying out tablets like Rimonabant that promise to reduce weight. Rimonabant is even being promoted as an over-thecounter drug while the US Food and Drug Administration has banned it for causing depression and precipitating suicidal tendencies.
   Dr Lakdawala says, “Though I have not prescribed it, I hope that doctors who prescribe Rimonobant educate their patients about the side-effects’’.
   ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

THE FELLOWSHIP OF PELVIS

THE FELLOWSHIP OF PELVIS

In this series we cover unusual groups formed by a common passion. This week, Ketan Tanna profiles the Elvis Presley fan club of Mumbai

   Acruelty of time, or maybe culture, is that Himesh Reshammiya is more popular in India today than Elvis Presley. But you must not say that to a small zealous band of Presley fans in Mumbai. They may turn violent. Almost 30 years after his death, the spirit of the rock and roll king is fervently celebrated and even guarded by this fan club though not all its members have sideburns. They are pleasant, amicable folks, harmless until some taboo words are mentioned. Like, this late evening when the fans are looking in anger and disgust.
   “How can you even talk of them in the same breath? I am astonished that one can talk of what’s his name…Resmiya…and Elvis as if the two can be compared,” says singer Gary Lawyer. Thirtyone-year-old sound engineer Ahit Dasgupta, one of the most ardent young fans, says, “You can never compare Elvis with Britney or Himesh. Please don’t make me swear in the morning.”
   “Elvis is evergreen. He is a legend. Please don’t compare the two,” warns 56-year-old Rashna Chiniwala, a Parsi designer, whose first boyfriend looked like Presley (“That’s the only reason I dated him,” she says). When she was in school, she was so obsessed with Elvis that she had a whole scrapbook filled with his images and her thoughts about him. She had carefully hidden the scrapbook from her parents because Elvis Presley reminded them of her boyfriend. Chiniwala eventually donated her scrapbook to the fan club. That’s what the 50-odd members of Mumbai Elvis Presley fan club do — donate the memorabilia they painfully created, old records that they collected and even intangible factoids they know about the singer.
   They interact chiefly through telephone and the internet. They also have a dedicated portal in his memory. They meet with no fixed frequency and might have formally met just about three times since the club was formed eight years ago.
   The Mumbai chapter was ordained by radio
jockey, Fali Singara of All India Radio (AIR), when he was just 17. In 1997, two years before the club would actually be formed, he decided to commemorate the 20th death anniversary of Presley by announcing on AIR that fans of Elvis could mail him their thoughts for a club. He added that those who had any kind of Elvis memorabilia could donate them as an emotional corpus.
   Among the first to respond was Mahesh Punwani, now a 62-year-old retired engineer from Colaba. “I had a good collection of Elvis Presley Long Playing records which I would religiously listen to till the player gave way and the records started gathering dust. When Singara made the announcement about the club I contacted him and donated my entire Elvis collection along with other records,” says Punwani. Incidentally, Punwani is one of the few Indian fans who has attended an Elvis concert live. Punwani had that fortune sometime in the ’60s, in Arizona “The concert was heady. There was a mass hysteria. Elvis in his traditional attire came a little late. He arrived in a limousine which drove straight to the stage. Then for the next two hours, without a single break, he performed to a rapturous crowd. And after the performance, he took a bow, went back in his limo and drove away,” recalls Punwani who spent about $ 20 to attend the concert, an enormous amount then for a student.
   “What do you mean he drove away? You did not even try to meet him, shake his hand or make contact?” asks Chiniwala, shaking her head in disbelief. “I would have rushed to see him, security or no security,” she says. Her daughter, 26-year-old fashion designer Shazneen Chiniwala, is also a big Elvis fan. A fascinating nature of Mumbai’s Elvis club is that it is not essentially the proclivity of the old. According to Singara who heads the club, nearly 30 members who make up 60 percent of them, are in the age group of 24 to 30. “It’s not a fuddy-duddy group,” says Singara who, despite being born after the death of Elvis, is an encyclopedia on the singer and has even visited Graceland, home of Elvis in Memphis, Tennessee.
   The representation of the young could have been stronger if a scam were not detected. A lot of young boys were joining the club pretending to be Elvis fans with the intention of flirting with the girls, something that Presley himself may have condoned. But the encroachment of the false devouts disturbed the more religious. “Now, I screen anyone who wants to join the club,” says Singara. Love for Presley is accepted but there will be some sort of a quiz before entry is granted. Now, the surviving members are those who are intensely devoted to Presley. Like 64-year-old Jangoo Siganporia who, for the last six years, has been writing to AIR requesting Elvis songs. He used to write every week till recently. Now, Siganporia, a grandfather from Kandivali, has cut down the frequency to a month.
   The fans, needless to say, look beyond Elvis, the showman. They want the future generations to remember that Presley brought about a whole cultural revolution. Gary Lawyer says that the impact of Elvis on the minds of urban Indians in the late ’50s and ’60s was tremendous. He says that it is a mistake to regard the Presley devotion in India elitist. “If Elvis’ music is played for some weeks on radio stations and television, believe me, even the ordinary man on the street will understand and appreciate the genius of Elvis.”
   This fan club is also “officially” recognised by the Elvis Presley Enterprises which owns the lucrative marketing rights to sell the spirit of Presley. This association helps the fan club collect rare information about the legend and interact with clubs across the world. TNN

JAILHOUSE ROCK These fans donate their Elvis memorabilia as an emotional corpus

CREATIVE LICENCE

CREATIVE LICENCE

What they don’t tell you about cancer

Ketan Tanna on how cinema has made the disease a powerful brand of death while the truth is that an increasing number of people are surviving it

   Along with “Kitne aadmi the” and “Mere paas maa hai”, one of the most enduring expressions in Hindi cinema is, “lymphocircoma of the intestine.” Rajesh Khanna is diagnosed with it in the film Anand. Long before that, and long after, cancer was, has been and will be the most powerful brand of death in mainstream cinema. Heart attack is too sudden. AIDS is film festival cinema. TB interferes with dialogues. “He has cancer,” is perfect. It is a dramatic statement that a viewer understands as the morbid certainty of pathos in the climax. But this really annoys those who work with cancer patients. The truth is cancer doesn’t always mean death. If detected in the early stages, more than 50% of those who are diagnosed with it can lead a fruitful life. But the branding of cancer is so strong that patients equate it with death.
   In India, the number of people who are claimed by heart attack is three times more than cancer fatalities, says Dr Rakesh Gupta, India Consultant of the American Cancer Society. In the case of blood, ovarian and breast cancers, the survival rate is between 40% and 50% over a five year period. This means that if a person suffering from this type of cancer survives beyond five years, it is highly probable that the patient is cured of the disease.
   It’s not just Hindi cinema that has contributed to the morbidity associated with cancer. Television soaps have efficiently used it as a mechanism to get rid of characters. For instance, in Kumkum, a cult serial for housewives, one of the main characters, having outlived her
purpose for the production company, discovers that she is dying of cancer.
   There are hundreds of cancer survivors who lead a happy life after battling the disease for years. Anurag Basu, who directed one of the most acclaimed films of the year, Life In A… Metro, is a testimony to the fact that not only can one combat cancer but also plan for a better future. Basu catapulted to fame with the film Murder and was flooded with offers thereafter. Halfway through his next film, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. The year was 2004 and he was 30. Basu was given two months to live. “I was in a bad shape and was on a ventilator,” Basu says. “My attitude was that I am not going to think cancer is different from other diseases. People take pills for blood pressure, heart problems and I take pills for cancer. Yes, there were times when I felt God had been unfair but I fought back,” says Basu.
   In fact, Basu even directed parts of the film from his hospital bed as shooting could not be cancelled. To complete the film, he would give instructions on a dictaphone, talking about camera angles and the script. Mahesh Bhatt and Mohit Suri finished the film later. Now, Basu is fighting fit even though he is undergoing chemotherapy and taking medication. His family and unit stood like a rock behind him.
   In 1986, Sobha Doshi, now 51, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She seemed to be getting well but had a relapse in 1989 which saw six months of painful treatment. “It was one of the worst periods of my illness. I could not swallow food. I would vomit constantly and many times my only hope was that I should not vomit after my kids came home from school,” she says. It has been over 17 years since the relapse but Shobha is doing well and working as a volunteer with V Care, an NGO. “Cancer should not mean death. Yes, often the treatment can be painful and there is always the chance of a relapse. But one can survive, progress and live a dignified life,” she says.
   V Care volunteer Sandhya Vora’s son, Rishab Vora is a spirited 17-yearold. Ten years ago he was diagnosed with neurogenic sarcoma on his right hand. Painful cancer treatment followed and as a result, one arm is smaller and thinner than the other. But the family never gave up hope nor did they moan in self pity. “It was clear that we would seek the best possible treatment. Today Rishabh is just like any teenager and has his problems though cancer is not one of them” says Vora.
   There are many such success stories that go against the melodramatic prognosis of cinema. In general terms, the survival rate of cancer is 20% in developing countries as compared to 60% in developed countries according to Dr Rakesh Gupta. According to Gupta, apart from the influence of cinema, cancer and death are synonymous in India because it’s usually detected in the advanced stage. “Prevention and early detection are the key to controlling cancer. Unfortunately, there is lack of awareness and a feeling among many of us that cancer is something that happens to others.” Like, Rajesh Khanna in Anand. TNN

CANCER RISING Cinema needs cancer. Characters played by Khanna in Anand, Shergill in Lage Raho Munnabhai, Swini Khara in Cheeni Kum succumb to the disease

Old men and their Official secrets

Old men and their Official secrets

They were once in positions of power that made them privy to strictly classified information. Ketan Tanna probes into the lives of retired men who know too much

   When a man lies to his wife about where he is going, he is not always headed to his lover’s nest. Sometimes, it is just a state secret. For decades, the lives of such men who walk down the forbidden alleys of intelligence or the nuclear programme are bound by a written code of silence. Then one day they retire. And state secrets become distant memories. Even their memories are guarded by the Official Secrets Act. But if we could know what they know, it would a fascinating journey into how this country is actually run.
   P K Iyengar, 75, was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and one of three men who oversaw India’s first atomic tests, now called Pokhran 1. He retired as the chairman of AEC in 1993 and served briefly as the scientific advisor to the Kerala government in 1998. For the past few years, he has been living a retired life in a middle-class bungalow at Mumbai’s Deonar area with his wife, Seetha Iyengar. She moves around silently as the healthy and alert Iyengar talks of his recent interaction with the prime minister of India.
   “Show us the path,” Dr Manmohan Singh told a group of nuclear scientists, including Iyengar, who met him last week to protest against the changing goalposts of the Indo-US nuclear deal. Contrast this with Indira Gandhi, the prime minister at the time of Pokhran 1. She asked Iyengar and others how much money was needed to conduct India’s first atomic test. They said, “Nothing.” Promptly, Gandhi said, “Go ahead.”
   It was this green signal from Indira Gandhi that resulted in Pokhran 1, even though the scientists had been quietly preparing for it after the Chinese conducted their test in 1964. And no, unlike what has been reported the world over, the famous code line, “Buddha Smiles”, apparently to convey the success of the test to Indira Gandhi, never existed. “That is simply not true” says Iyengar. After the test was over, Homi Sethna, a top hand in the nuclear programme, drove kilometres searching for a telephone that would work. In the meantime, the military commander had wired the good news to Delhi. The same night, Iyengar returned to Mumbai.
   But before that, he had told his assistant to convey the news to his wife. Was she aware all along what he was up to? “No, but she could have guessed that something was up. Whenever I went out of town, I would tell my assistant to put the bags into the car. But on that day (en route to Pokhran), I had requested a military officer to accompany me as I was carrying night-vision goggles. I did not want airport security to ask too many questions. My assistant who was carrying my bags to the car saw the military person and told my wife. She naturally asked me about it. I told her I was going to Srinagar.”
   Fobbing off the wife is a tact that former Intelligence Bureau director Ajit Kumar Doval learnt during his exciting life. His wife, Anu, unknowingly played host to a band of armed men at their home in Aizwal. For two years. He told her that they were part of an operation. But they were, in fact, army commanders of the legendary Laldenga’s Mizo National Front, which was involved in the Mizo insurgency. “They were all heavily armed but I had given my word that they would be safe. My wife cooked pork for them even though she was not used to cooking pork,” says 61-year-old Doval, chuckling. His wife came to know of their identity many years later and felt miffed.
   Besides hosting the Mizo army commanders and helping the government in Mizoram, Doval’s 33 years of service took him to inaccessible areas of India’s north-east. He was inside the Golden Temple in 1989 during Operation Black Thunder when security forces were charging in to flush out terrorists from there. He also helped plan the 1992 Punjab state elections.
   An interesting aspect of his career was the six years he spent in Pakistan. That country’s Intelligence always shadowed him. One day, Doval decided to visit the dargah in a local market at Lahore. The attraction was a qawwaali programme. “I decided to go incognito and dressed up as a middle-class Muslim gentleman. Later, when I was enjoying the qawwaali, one Pakistani Intelligence officer came to me very quietly and whispered into my ear that my fake beard was dangling. It was so embarrassing. I left quickly.”
   His two sons having flown away to the West, Doval now leads a quiet life in Delhi with his wife. He has no plans to write a book, unlike his colleague and former joint director of CBI, Maloy Krishna Dhar, who broke traditions by writing Open Secrets, which he called “the first open confession of an intelligence operative”. Dhar says he has no regrets even though many people accuse him of violating the Official Secrets Act. Dhar, 67, served 34 years in the intelligence community.
   Among his treasures of tales is the one about the late-night visit to his New Delhi home by a “leading industrialist from Mumbai”. He remembers the encounter vividly. “My wife and sons were kind of surprised. The industrialist had a minion standing next to him who placed a suitcase on my centre table. I remember my wife and two young sons peering out from behind a curtain. I asked the industrialist what the suitcase contained. He said it had Rs 50 lakhs. All that the industrialist wanted me to do was to set up an appointment with the then prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi. I told the industrialist that I would help him but for that I did not want his money. Three days later, I arranged his meeting. Since then, he became a good friend.”
   His wife was by his side, he says, through thick and thin. But there were times when the call of duty was such that he could not even confide in her. For example, Dhar says that he did not tell his wife when he was holding secret talks with Khalistani terrorist, Gurbachan Singh Manochahal. “Once during the height of Punjab militancy, I was given the task to negotiate with Manochahal. I contacted him through a journalist source. I was blindfolded and taken a few hundred kilometres from Amritsar. After three hours of negotiations, I was blindfolded again and taken back,” recalls Dhar. Later, he narrated this incident to his wife Sunanda, who freaked out. “But she eventually understood. Sunanda was more than a partner to me. Without her, I don’t know what kind of family life I would have.” He lost his wife to cancer some years ago while his two sons, both IIM graduates, are abroad.
   Dhar accepts that his books were in defiance of the law that barred men like him from revealing classified information. But, he says, he has a moral compulsion to expose some facts about the country. An explanation that does not go down well with all. Seventy-year-old Ashok V Karnik, former deputy director of the IB, says that the government could have initiated action against Dhar, “if it wanted to”.
   Karnik very rarely discussed official matters with his wife Shailaja. Working with the IB at the Centre kept him away from his family in Mumbai. But for Karnik, his job gave him a sense of fulfillment.
   He recalls that one of his career highlights was assessing the ground swell of Hindutva forces in the late 1980s and early ’90s. “Things were building up from the Shah Bano case to allowing pooja at Ayodhya. Yet, the state-level intelligence officers were unable to grasp the fact that thousands were being mobilised for the Hindutva cause. But we at the Centre assessed it correctly and briefed our superiors. It is ironical that despite this, the Babri Masjid was razed.” He says that the destruction of the mosque need not have happened.
   “Narasimha Rao, VHP leaders and even senior BJP leaders were in negotiations when it happened. My assessment is that it was done by small-time local Hindu leaders and neither the top brass of the BJP or VHP were aware of it,” Karnik says, adding that contrary to what Shiv Sena would like to project, its goons were not the ones who destroyed the mosque. TNN

(Top) Ashok Karnik of IB reported the rise of Hindutva (Left) P K Iyengar supervised India’s first atomic test

The second problem

The second problem

After the first line of defence fails, AIDS patients find the second line unaffordable, says Ketan Tanna

   Shashikant Shetye cannot afford to die. His mother and grandmother depend on his income as coordinator at Safe Sailors’ Club, part of the Humsafar Trust. The 40-year-old AIDS patient also cannot afford the expensive second line of antiretroviral drugs (ART). While the first line of ART treatment costs Rs 1,200 a month, the second line costs anywhere between Rs 15,000 and Rs 40,000.
“I know that my body is now resistant to the first line of drugs, which I have been taking for some years. I need to take the second line. But they cost the earth,” says Shetye, helplessly. He is losing time. In the past six months, he has lost 20 kilos, and weighs only 54 now. He has been hospitalised four times with severe diarrhoea. His count of CD4 (a type of white blood cell) has reduced to 111 from 264 over the past three years. A count below 200 is AIDS. “I am running my home on my savings and what I earn now. I don’t know what the future holds for me and I don’t know when I will die,” he says.
Money adds to the helplessness at the testing stage itself. Barring two private clinics in Mumbai, no other institution has the expertise or the equipment to conduct such a test, which costs more than Rs 30,000.
Nearly 52 lakh Indians are infected with HIV and AIDS. The National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco) now intends to provide the first line of drugs to one lakh patients by early 2007. Doctors say this is not good enough. Very soon, a second line of treatment will have to be stocked up. Even for the healthier lot of AIDS patients, as the first line sometimes starts failing in a couple of years. This invariably happens when the patient has either been tax in taking the drugs or was prescribed the wrong dosage.
   “This is a serious problem that we face in Maharashtra. I have come across hundreds of patients who have either been given the wrong combination or the wrong dosage of ART drugs by doctors,” says a worried Dr Alka Deshpande, head, department of medicine, J J Hospital.
   She sifts through a huge file of prescriptions that show how some doctors have been either careless or had limited knowledge. “There is little or no prescription monitoring. Drug companies have their own agenda in pushing the drugs they manufacture. The combination of these two factors have hit the lives of many patients,” she says, sighing.
   In April 2006, 32-year-old Ritesh Batra died in pain. An already tired Batra reached the J J Hospital in 2004 after taking the ART treatment for a while in his home state of Punjab. However, in May 2005, his body started showing resistance to the first line of drugs. His vision slowly blurred and opportunistic infections swooped down on him. Tests were conducted at a reputed clinic in France, and a second line of drugs was started privately. But, by then, he had developed a bad case of diarrhoea and his body could not take it anymore. His wife too was diagnosed with HIV but she has a CD4 count of over 400 and is not under the ART treatment. Fortunately, their little daughter is not HIV positive. But one wonders what will happen to her later.
   Ironically, the government’s AIDS programme that is replete with numbers does not have any hard statistics on what percentage of AIDS patients is resistant to the first line of drugs.
   Sunil Jadhav, 31, died in June 2005. Little is known about his family but he approached J J hospital in June 2004. Before he went to the hospital, he was on the two-drug first line treatment. Unfortunately, since he was not working, he took the required drugs as and when he could afford them. Later, when the government started the free ART programme at J J Hospital, he had a viral load count (the amount of HIV virus in the blood) of 1,79,638 and a CD4 count of 120. He was then given a third tablet as a part of the treatment, in addition to the two that he had been taking.
   But within a few months, his body started showing drug resistance. His test was also done in France.
   The second line, it seems, is not for the masses. Their bodies are meant to just give up one day. TNN

Ghost in the phone

Ghost in the phone

When you sell your mobile phone, you think you have deleted all the data, including obscene files. But curious buyers can resurrect it with a simple tool, say Ketan Tanna and Yatish Suvarna

TREASURE HUNT

   It is not clear if humans have the privilege of afterlife. But cell phones certainly do. Thousands of people sell their phones believing that they have deleted all the material, but the truth is that this data can be redeemed by any curious bloke with the help of freely available resurrecting software. A misfortune that haunts a 41-year-old man, living in the Lokhandwala suburb of Mumbai, who had taped his lawful sex act with his wife on his phone. The one-minute clip was on the flash card memory of his smart phone. Before he sold it to an Andheri second hand mobile shopkeeper, he had deleted all the files in the flash card. The boy who bought it quickly realised that he had got something more than just the phone. Using a software he brought back to life many of the deleted files and among them was the sex clip which he circulated among his friends, for that is a male ritual.
   The CEO of Lotus Consultancy, a manpower agency in Mumbai, Nikhil Choudhary kept less exciting data on his phone, like confidential corporate matters. He sold the phone without deleting all the files to one Tushar Kulkarni who, being somewhat ethical, bro-ught it to the notice of Choudhary.
   Improper deletion of files is the source of much activity among a growing number of young boys who are on the prowl for entertainment or saleable information. While it is easy to understand instances when someone has plain forgotten to erase his personal files, an overwhelming majority of the victims have suffered because they did not know about the software that could bring back deleted data.
   When you delete a file from your phone, camera or computer, the operating system does not actually remove it from the memory card or the hard disk. It simply removes the registry of these files from what is called the File Allocation Table. This means that while the files do not show on the system or show as deleted, they are very much there. And they exist like a ghost until the memory space that they occupy is overwritten by fresh input. This means that if the space where the old data exists is filled by something new, then the deleted information cannot be redeemed. But if the space has not been overwritten, then the file still exists in the system unless they are removed using a special software called Data Wipe tools.
   A potential data thief simply needs a data recovery tool, a PC and lots of free time. Let’s take the case of a memory card obtained from a smart phone. To steal data from this card, the thief simply inserts the card into a card reader and accesses it on his PC. Now the data recovery tool is invoked and a thorough recovery process is initiated. The tool will now check each and every bit of space on the memory card and list all the files that were deleted. The kind of accuracy offered by some tools is plain scary. Most are capable of recovering more than 80% of the deleted data. Once the tool is done with checking the card, all the thief needs to do is right-click the file of his choice and save it to the hard drive.
   On the internet, there are hundreds of forums where such stolen clips are posted for distribution. In return, those who upload these files earn reputation points on the sites and gain popularity. Such forums are increasingly becoming popular and the worrying part is that often one does not even know about them.
   It is disturbing that while an increasing number of Indians are in a position to afford high-end products, most are not entirely aware of how their personal data could fall in the wrong hands.
   The best way to protect data is to enable password access or delete using Data Wipe software before selling it. TNN

TELL-TALE Second-hand cellphones are often a goldmine of saleable data

LESSER VICTIMS

LESSER VICTIMS

A riot that got away

Ketan Tanna on how villains of the ’92-93 riots have escaped even as the blasts case draws to an end

   Do you have any information about Adam? It has been many years since I have seen him. Is he coming home?” asks 75-yearold Roshanbi, her tired and vacant eyes full of hope. Paralysed waist down due to the shock and resultant illness following her son’s disappearance, Roshanbi mistakes journalists coming to her as officers who might give information about her son who disappeared on January 10, 1993 during the Mumbai riots.
   For 13 years, Roshanbi has been sitting in a dark dingy passage leading to her squalid hutment, near Hari Masjid waiting for her son. Mohammed Adam Hassan, around 30 then, was among the 60 youths rounded up at the Hari Masjid area during the riots. Most of them came back. Adam did not. He is among the 168 officially missing. According to the Srikrishna Commission Report which
investigated the 1992-93 riots, “The police made namaazis of Hari Masjid stand in a line and forced one Adam and another person to pick up dead bodies.” The bodies were of those whom the police had shot dead. Later, Adam was taken by the police along with other youths. He never returned.
   “It is surprising that the police claimed to have fired in order to save violent clashes. There were no injury marks nor were there any mobs,” says advocate Zia-ul-Mustafa who has been fighting the cases for those who were picked up from near the Hari Masjid area.
   Even though Justice Srikrishna Commission indicted sub-inspector Nikhil Kapse (who was in charge) for unjustified firing, he was let off after a departmental inquiry. For that matter, none of the 32 police officers indicted in the Srikrishna report were convicted.
   About 900 (575 Muslims, 275 Hindus, 45 unknown and 5 others) lost their lives in the riots. In 2000, a special task force under the supervision of K P Raghuvanshi (the same person who is investigating the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts case) was set up to review the closed cases. A total of 1,358 cases were closed after being found “true but not detected.” Around 112 cases were scrutinised, of which eight were reopened.
   Raghuvanshi says he has done his best. “Wherever action was possible, we acted on it. Wherever there were discrepancies in investigation, we reinvestigated.” When told that subinspector Kapse was let off after a departmental inquiry, Raghuvanshi says that in such cases there is little he can do. “According to government rules, when a department clears the concerned person, we have to accept it. If I do not have any evidence or documents, how do I go ahead?” he asks. Denying that justice in the bomb blasts case came faster than that of the riot cases, Raghuvanshi says, “The blasts case is a matter of international criminal conspiracy. The line of investigation will differ as compared to investigation of riot cases.” So, he says, one cannot compare the two.
   But such words are of little consolation to those who were victims of the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. According to advocate Yusuf Muchhala, who represented victims of the riots in Mumbai, full justice is pending.
   “If justice is given in one set of incidents (like the bomb blasts) and is delayed or not given in the case of riot victims, then there will be a sense of alienation. The state, judiciary and the political classes have not discharged their responsibility properly in the case of the riots. It is invidious. We need to ensure fair play,” says Muchhala. TNN

ROCKY BUSINESS

ROCKY BUSINESS

When a film scares diamond merchants

A tale of how diamonds fund brutal African wars is troubling the Indian traders, reports Ketan Tanna

   Women may appear to like tiny things but you may never hear any one of them say, “Honey, don’t you think this diamond is way too big?” The influence of diamonds over women is unshakeable. But now, the Indian diamond industry fears that an unprecedented force has come.
   On December 8, Blood Diamonds starring Leonardo DiCaprio will be released across the world. It is set in the 1990s against the backdrop of a civil war in Sierra Leone, The story of Danny Archer (Leonardo), a South African mercenary and Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a Mende fisherman, portrays how diamonds mined in such areas sponsor rebellions
of unthinkable brutality. It is for this reason that the precious stones, also called blood diamonds, from some African countries like Sierra Leone are banned in the international market. Some slip through though. It is feared that many women, after seeing the film, may be repulsed by the idea of wearing a diamond that funds so much atrocity.
   The Indian diamond industry processes roughly 90% of the world’s diamonds. It is concerned that sales to western countries may slow down as conscientious persons would stop buying diamonds fearing that they are of dubious origins. “As the world’s largest diamond processing nation, we should be concerned that such a movie might send a wrong message to buyers. We need to climb on rooftops and counter this movie and the propaganda in the film,” says Bakul Mehta, former chairman of the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC).
   India has a system in place to ensure blood diamonds do not find their way in. All the diamonds that come into India need to be accompanied by an international certification system set up in 2003 called the Kimberley Process (KP). When they move from location to location, they are given additional identifications. The diamond industry says that the DiCaprio movie does not convey this filtering process.
   Without the KP process, it is difficult to trace the diamonds’ origins. “A diamond is a diamond. It is just not possible to know, in ordinary circumstances, where it came from. It is possible only if a particular region has exceptional geographical elements that are very distinctive,” says industry veteran Vinod Kuriyan.
   A report, ‘Killing Kimberley? Conflict Diamonds and Paper Tigers’, by Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), an NGO, states that although the Kimberley Process “has been very successful, some recent events have highlighted the need for governments to urgently address some important issues, such as allegations that rough diamonds are being smuggled from Ivory Coast, a country subject to a UN Security Council Resolution banning the export of diamonds into neighboring countries”.
   According to Kuriyan, the problem also is that one can easily walk with diamonds from a conflict area, like Ivory Coast, to a neighbouring country that legitimately deals in diamonds and claim that the diamond was recovered there.
   Then there is also an attempt to link the blood diamond issue by interested quarters to what it calls ‘Slave Child Labour in India’. Sanjay Kothari, GJEPC chairman, has rubbished such charges pointing out to a 2003 report by A F Ferguson & Co that reveals the child labour levels in the Indian diamond processing industry had dropped to a near negligible figure of 0.53% between 1998 and 2003.
   Blood Diamonds comes close on the heels of rapper Kanye West’s song Diamonds from Sierra Leone which won a Grammy Award in 2006 (the song was scathing about conflict diamonds).
   However, leading Indian diamond merchants are hopeful that the impact of the film will be limited in the international market. “I am sure, that the audience abroad will realise that the film is about the era where KP was not in existence. While we appreciate the social message that it is trying to advocate, it would have been nice if the prevailing circumstances like KP certification were also included,” says Kothari. TNN

SCARY MOVIE A still from Warner Brothers’ Blood Diamonds

SECRET EXODUS

SECRET EXODUS

Why a mysterious tribe is fleeing India

Poor Indian villagers who think they belong to a lost Jewish tribe are being lured by Israel. Probably for menial jobs. Ketan Tanna reports

   The Red Shield House is one of the old, unremarkable hotels that lie just beyond the morning shadows of the Gateway of India. For long a hub of budget tourists, the Red Shield is not the kind of place where guests are protected by uniformed security. Yet, the 110 men, women and children who are holed up in the dormitory here are under the vigil of private guards.
   The mysterious inmates are not allowed to speak to strangers. But by chance, two young men emerged from the dorm and walked out onto the streets of Colaba. After a brief chase, very reluctantly they gave a glimpse into the tale of a dramatic exodus. They are newly converted Jews from Mizoram, fleeing India for Israel. Hundreds have preceded them in this shadowy ritual and more will follow.
   The story actually begins in 721 BC. The Assyrians invaded the northern part of what is now regarded as Israel and enslaved 10 native tribes. The tribes eventually escaped and fled to various parts of the world and then, vanished without a trace. For long, they were remembered in the oral and written history of the Jews as the 10 lost tribes.
   In 1981, a researcher of north-east Indian tribes began to piece together the oral heritage of several disjointed village communities in the region who collectively called themselves Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for ‘Children of God’) and concluded that they were descendants of one of the 10 lost tribes that had settled here. In 2004, a DNA test done in Kolkata’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory reported that the tribe had indirect links to the Jews of Israel. In March 2005, a top clergyman from Israel formally recognised the Bnei Menashe as descendants of the Jewish people.
   In September 2005, 218 were converted. Since then, there has been a churning in the region. Israel’s policy of welcoming any Jew back home and the country’s affluence, have been influencing the impoverished Bnei Menashe of north-eastern states to convert and migrate.
   Hundreds are slowly making their way to Mumbai on their way to Israel. That nation’s leading paper Haaretz has claimed that the Indian Civil Ministry refused permission to Israir, the Israeli airline, to depart on November 12 with 812 members of Bnei Menashe who had converted to Judaism.
   All this has upset the Presbyterian Church, a Protestant denomination to which a huge portion of the Bnei Menashe belong. “We are not happy. It’s not that all of them are (Presbyterian) Christians. They belong to various other denominations. But, we firmly believe that their going to Israel is more an issue of economics and less of religion,” says Upa Zonunmawia, coordinator of the Mizoram Presbyterian Church. According to him, the extraction of a historical link is merely Israel’s way of finding people from poor countries to do menial tasks that an average Israeli does not want to do anymore.
   Thirty-six-year-old Azriel Hmar, formerly a social worker in Mizoram’s capital Aizawl, and one of the fleeing men holed up in the Red Shield House in Mumbai, is leaving his parents, three brothers, two sisters and his religion, Christianity, for good. But, he is taking his wife and three children, the youngest being eight months old. “India is my mother. Now I am going to my father,” he says. His parents are worried. “They have heard and read about the strife in Israel. They were not very hap py, but for me it is a matter of life and death. There is no other option but to migrate to Israel. Our destiny is Israel,” he says.
   And this destiny is not necessary pleasant “Most of us do not have specific skills that could be absorbed into the Israeli economy. For a year or so, all the Bnei Menashe immigrants will have to learn Hebrew and certain required skills. It
   would be unfair for the new immi grants to expect cushy and well-pay ing jobs,” Hmar says.
   Indian authorities are not com menting on the matter. Fearing the displeasure of India with this type of mass conversion and exodus, the Israeli government too, is insisting that it has nothing to do with all this. “We are not dealing with this issue. I have nothing to say,” says Lior Winetraub, spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.
   However, Red Shield House says that the dorm for the 110 Bnei Menashe in Mumbai has been booked by the Israeli Consulate. The guards too, the hotel says, have been appointed by the Consulate. And these guards sud denly loom in the corridor as Hmar is talking to this correspondent about his future in Israel. They glare at him for breaking the rules and shepherd him inside.
   Another lot of 115 from the north east are sched uled to arrive in Mumbai on or around Novem ber 21. They will be joining over 800 Bnei Menashe tribals from Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland who have already migrated to Israel. TNN

FULL FLIGHT New converts from Mizoram roam the streets of Colaba before leaving India

DESPITE APPLES

DESPITE APPLES

The super doctors

They are among the most respected and the most expensive doctors in the world. Whole lives and fates pass through their deft hands. Ketan Tanna and Abantika Ghosh on the places where medicine becomes art

   The difference between God and a doctor is that nobody wants an appointment with God. The desperate demand for good doctors has always ensured that they are among the most powerful people in a society. The most talented among them, the inimitable artistes of surgery, have politicians, business tycoons and film stars at their mercy. In this list of Indian super doctors, we do not claim that we have covered every deserving name. The idea is to give a peep into the mystical world of these medicine men and discover their arcane views about life.

DR SUDHANSU BHATTACHARYYA ,

CARDIAC SURGEON

RS 3 LAKH PER OPERATION, AT LEAST

It’s nine in the evening. On the fourth floor of the White Hall building in South Mumbai, around 25 people await their turn. Somewhere inside, 60-year-old heart surgeon Dr Sudhansu Bhattacharyya, his little white beard giving him a quiet elegance, peers through scanned Xrays and medical papers. “The most glamorous branch of medicine,” says Bhattacharyya about the occupation of heart surgeons.
   A heart operation by this doctor costs Rs 3 lakh on the lower side, which he graciously confirms. The higher side he would not like to reveal. “I charge depending on the economic capability of the person. For me, asking for what I deserve is a necessity.” Till a few years ago, he conducted up to six operations a day. Now, he does not go above three. For two years in the 90s, he was the highest tax paying doctor in India for which he was awarded a certificate by the government— a more pleasing treatment than an income tax survey that was unleashed earlier. “They did not find anything,” says Bhattacharya. All his fees are paid by cheque. His client list includes former Maharashtra governor Dr P C Alexander, film producer Rakesh Roshan and renowned cardiac surgeon Dr B K Goyal.
   Bhattacharyya travels by J-class Mercedes and
takes two annual foreign vacations. “I don’t
consider myself any less than the best doctors
in the US or anywhere else. I see no reason why I should not charge what I deserve.”
   A few years ago, armed men attacked him. They slashed his arms and left behind deep scars. “I don’t know who was behind the attack, my rivals or some aggrieved patient.”
   His doctor wife, a retired gynaecologist with KEM hospital, worked for free. “In my life, my wife is the 50% which does charity and I am the 50% which charges,” the doctor says.

DR S NATARAJAN,

EYE SURGEON

RS 45 LAKH A MONTH

Less than 20 years ago, 41-year-old Dr S Natarajan used to earn Rs 4,200 in the Bombay Hospital. Now the eye surgeon owns a modern four-storeyed eye hospital in central Mumbai called Aditya Jyot that is estimated to be worth over Rs 15 crore. His monthly income is in the region of Rs 45 lakh. Former Maharashtra chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and state home minister R R Patil are among his patients. As the doctor hurries around giving final touches to a live eye surgery demonstration, using suture-less technology, his three assistants from different corners of the country say that they are privileged to work with the “best retina doctor in India”. A product of the famous Shankar Netralaya in Chennai, the doctor says that for him money is a tool to chart out different frontiers in the development of his skills.

Dr NARESH TREHAN,

CARDIAC SURGEON

“I AM THE HIGHEST TAX PAYER AMONG DOCTORS”

When he was a child, he lived in a three-room apartment in Connaught Place, where his family took refuge after they were dislodged from Lahore during Partition. Now, he is the face of cardiac care in Delhi. The executive director of Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, Delhi, and one of the leading surgeons in India, Dr Naresh Trehan directly or indirectly presides over 350-odd surgeries performed in the institute every month. He gets a percentage of the fee in remuneration for the involvement. His financial worth is a matter of speculation among his peers. The 60-year-old doctor himself is reluctant to make public his charges. “I get a percentage from the package,” he says. (The bypass package at Escorts is worth Rs 2-2.5 lakh.) Colleagues say his share per bypass is between Rs 40,000 and Rs 60,000. He is not comfortable talking about money. “Let’s put it this way. I could have charged ten times the money I am charging right now. But I did not want my charges to be a barrier in making quality cardiac care available to all,” he says. Is he the most expensive cardiac surgeon around? “I can’t say but I can say this that I pay the highest taxes.” In the mid ’80s, he was making $1.5 million a year as a surgeon in the US. Does he regret coming back? The answer, from both financial and professional perspectives, is a big “No”. Though he puts in 12 hours a day at the hospital, most of them in the operation theatre, Trehan still manages to be seen at parties. That, he says, is the secret of his energy, along with limited alcohol intake. “I enjoy every moment of my life with family and friends. I go to parties. I exercise and practise yoga every morning,” he says. Patients come from north India, some for his professional acumen, and some, like Anil Sarin for unexpected reasons. “He was my senior by one year in Modern School,” says Sarin.

DR ASHOK RAJ GOPAL,

ORTHOPAEDIC SURGEON

RS 1.2 LAKH A DAY

At Rs 10-12,000 per operation and 12-13 operations that he is involved in every day, his remuneration at Fortis Hospital in Delhi is not entirely explained by maths and is the subject of whispers within the hospital fraternity. “It must run into crores and he is hardly there (in the country),” says a colleague about Dr Ashok Raj Gopal’s monthly income. The 54-year-old doctor does not deny it. “I travel all over the world doing surgeries. I have done extensive operations in Australia, Malaysia, Spain, China, France — you name it,” he says. Sometime in the ’80s, during his formative years in a Delhi hospital, he actually paid the medical bills of the first 30 patients (“about Rs 4,000-5,000 per head”) who let him perform arthroscopy on them. Arthroscopy is a system of orthopaedic examination with a pencil-sized instrument. Now, there are patients who are willing to wait just to be operated by him. Theatre person Salima Raza, who underwent bilateral knee replacement says, “I will give him 11 out of 10.” As a surgeon who has treated at least two presidents of India — Dr A P J Abdul Kalam and K R Narayanan — Gopal is a high society figure.

DR M G BHAT,

GENERAL SURGEON

RS 50,000 PER OPERATION

In Bangalore, patients wait long, sometimes more than 20 days, for an appointment with 58-year-old general surgeon and laparoscopy expert Dr M G Bhat. Though associated with the Manipal Hospital, he currently practises at the upmarket Wockhardt. When not at the hospitals, Bhat runs his own clinic at the very corporate Prestige Towers, Residency Road. People in the know say that the moment a particular patient is seen by Bhat, the charges escalate almost automatically, like some unsaid rule. “Even if it is a minor medical procedure, the patient is given the most expensive room in the hospital and charged Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh. And this is not for some highly specialised surgery, it could be a rather small one,” says a junior doctor who worked with Bhat earlier. He says that he does not run after money or prestige but admits in the same breath, “I live my life luxuriously. Unlike my peers I don’t hoard money. Money is for spending, not hoarding.” Bhat travels abroad about four times a year, but he ensures that he never takes favours from any pharma company. “I do not get sponsored for any trip abroad. I pay for my entire trip. If a trip is sponsored by a company, you’ll end up doing whatever they say; you’ve been bought by them. If I’m supposed to be a high-profile doc, I can damn well pay for my jaunts, even if I’m presenting technical papers.” TNN
   (With inputs from Smitha Rao in Bangalore)

I don’t consider myself any less than the best doctors in the US. I see no reason why I should not charge what I deserve.
   — Dr Sudhansu Bhattacharyya

SMOOTH OPERATOR Eye surgeon Dr S Natarajan loves going to the disco

FAMILY MATTER

FAMILY MATTER

State of the union

The year saw a record number of divorces across cities. Ketan Tanna on the consequences of wealth, empowerment and other demons

   In blocking traffic, marriages are second only to God. The pomp and scale of marriages in 2006 were probably unmatched in the past. But the year also saw an alarming number of divorce suits and an unprecedented number of verdicts. Some of the reasons for divorce in cities include snoring, incompatible eating habits, dress sense and other things that may, at first glance, shock readers. But it is easy to fathom that in the metros, where affluence and independence are on the rise, both the young and the old are not viewing marriage as an inescapable bond. Tolerance, that vital side effect of love, is vanishing.
   On an average, 40 divorce petitions are filed every day in the eight district courts of Delhi. In Hyderabad and Secunderabad, 100 divorce cases are filed daily and the annual growth rate in the last few years has been 15%. Chennai’s three family courts are currently dealing with over 3,000 divorce cases. Last year, these courts successfully dealt with about 1,500 of them. Between January and September this year in Mumbai, there were 8,941 divorces, many of them residual from previous years. Between July and September, 2,932 divorce applications were filed. In 1995, there were 1,446 divorce cases pending in the Bandra Family Court. The data for the last quarter has not been compiled yet, but the figures are climbing. In 2001, the figure was 2,877. In 2004, it shot up to 3,400 cases. In 2005, the number touched 6,000. Now, 20,265 divorce cases are pending in the city.
   According to Madhavi Desai, a counsellor at the Family Court in Mumbai, about 60% of divorces are consent cases. This means that both husband and wife want to end the marriage. According to counsellors, there is an increasing trend across the country of couples not seeing the point in working on their marriage. At the first sign of trouble, they reach out for the terminal solution. “A fair majority of the couples who want divorce are under 30 years of age and very often
   they want to walk out within a year of marriage,” says Desai.
   Equally, such divorces are generally amicable with both sides opting to divide the assets and child custody peacefully. Some of them are so amicable that they come holding hands, chatting, laughing and exchange jokes when they sit on the wooden table in the reception area outside the courtroom. But during the mandatory counselling session, they are vehement about the need for divorce. As far as they are concerned, they can be good friends for the rest of their lives, but they would rather not have the obligations, responsibilities and the constrictions that marriage entails. Some of them even continue their physical relationship after divorce.
   Divorce is today a lot easier than before. Not because courts are more efficient, but because the society does not pretend to be shocked anymore at marital discord. “As the stigma of divorce has reduced, often, people do not give much thought to the very step of divorce. Also, increasingly, more women are opting to have a divorce, especially if they are earning,” says Desai.
   Some of the major reasons for divorce are temperamental differences, the need for having a career at the cost of marriage, adultery and sexual incompatibility. Also, despite the rise in nuclear families in Mumbai, the influence and the role of other family members is a critical factor in marriages breaking up. The poor too, are increasingly taking recourse in divorce. NGOs and other samaritans are giving impoverished women the confidence to take the step.
The surprising aspect of the divorce scenario in Mumbai is that even old couples are opting for the split. Recently, the family court here had an unusual case of a 72-year-old husband coming along with his 71-year-old wife and saying that he wanted a divorce. He said that he was fed up with her. In the last few years, about 5% of the divorce cases that are filed in the Bandra Family Court are from senior citizens. These are usually couples who have suffered in their marriage for decades just for the sake of their kids and once the children are settled, cannot bear to spend a day more with each other.
Aggressive parents of couples too are increasingly becoming potent splitting agents. “Of course, there are parents who do not want their kids to divorce, but many times, they are the ones who aggravate the marriage of their children,” says Desai. There is a case of a young doctor who had eloped with a man of another caste. Her furious father was adamant that she divorce the boy. The father’s contention was that he had invested both financially and emotionally in his daughter and that she had no right to run away with someone.
The couple was brought to the family court and when the aggressive father was holding forth on his ungrateful daughter, some employees of the court helped the couple run away a second time. TNN

THE BOYS INSIDE THE MATRIX

THE BOYS INSIDE THE MATRIX

In this weekly series, we portray incredible, desperate and even very sane groups. This week, Ketan Tanna travels to the parallel worlds of hardcore gamers

   The wars are raging. Across the country, from hundreds of homes and cafés, young boys, and some girls, are battling each other in perilous mazes. To survive here, one must kill. And to kill is an art that is not within the reach of everyone. Twentyyear-old Ray, or in another duller world, Amar Ratnam, narrows his eyes. He is getting ready to strike. The console does not move in his hand. The eye of the bird is all he sees. He then shreds a “terrorist” to bits. R4ID, Ritz, Impale and Mike join the attack and blast more terrorists into plasma debris. “I need to have a sense of control. For charting my path and removing obstacles, whatever they may be,” Ray says, sitting in an unremarkable cyber café in Santacruz.
   The boys are characters in a team game called Counterstrike. They buy weapons and ammunition and then they kill anybody who is not part of their team. The players are cast as terrorists or counter-terrorists. Every player has unique attributes and the ability to upgrade his gear after he successfully completes a mission. Ray and his team, which is called ATE (Accuracy, Teamwork and Experience), has won all the four major gaming tournaments in India including Electronic Sports World Cup, Kode5, World Cyber Games and World Game Master Tournament. These are competitions spread out on vast halls where teams and individuals battle one another in chaotic computer games.
   Ray and his team members, famous in the gamer community of Mumbai and beyond, initially used to play with different teams. It was during a friendly match last year at a gaming café that the five decided to hook up. Their chief rivals in the city are Team Wolf, D5 and DW (Disturbed Weasels). Ray does not think much of Team Wolf (“they cheat”) but concedes that D5 and DW are rivals who have to be respected. Team Wolf could not be reached for its comments.
   All these boys, aged between 16 and 20, are part of a larger gaming community. A community that spits fire and abuses each other during contests (even team members are berated when they botch up). But otherwise most of them are friends who go out to movies or have coffee over hookahs or just observe girls keenly. The blood and gore is only in the realm of the virtual universe.
   In the campuses of the Indian Institutes of Technology, gaming is believed to have assumed the elements of insanity. The student of IIT Powai, who recently committed suicide, was an obsessive gamer, according to his friends. Following his death, Anil Chawla, an alumnus, said in an open letter to the director of IIT Powai that the Institutes need to accept the gaming craze as a very serious issue. He also said that the director of IIT Chennai is rumoured to have stated that he was less bothered about porn than game addiction. IIT Chennai turns off its server from 1 am to 4 am so that students stop gaming. Bharat Raj Agarwal, a finalyear undergraduate student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Powai, says, “Gaming influence in IIT is all pervading as everybody has access to computers.” Admitting that his grades were affected during the second year when he gamed night and day, Bharat says that gaming, despite its dangerous magnetism, also offers the fun element in the harrowed lives of IITians.
   The gaming community in Mumbai congregates in various cafés that have good connectivity, or meets online. Every month, a gaming café hosts friendly contests. Friendly before the game starts and after it ends. During the actual game, it is war. There are prizes at stake. Sometimes the prize is just a couple of hundred rupees or a couple of thousand or maybe just a graphic card or small gizmo. But the war is a passionate affair. In these places that boys inhabit, nobody ever says, “Come on, it’s just a game.”
   Gamespace in Matunga, Hakone in Powai, Netfrag in Nerul, Private Eye in Andheri, Joylab in Churchgate and Energy in King Circle are some of the most popular cafés. Some of them have dedicated rooms where teams have space and privacy to hone their skills. Some gamers have also started their own sites, like reinforcement.com and frag-shack.com, with online games and message boards where gamers discuss their world and lives.
   It is believed that in Mumbai there are 150 to 200 professional gamers and thousands of amateurs. It is a fast, transient world where nobody stays on top for long. By the time a gamer hits the early 20s, he is considered over the hill.
   A common grouse among the community here is that parents always frown on their passion. As parents are wont to do, they remind gamers all the time that there is no future in gaming. However, some parents do feel proud when their kids win contests and are even sent abroad by companies to participate in international tournaments. But in such competitions, Indian gamers do not match up to the best in the world. National champions are often knocked out in the preliminary rounds when they go abroad.
   Binoy Shah, 22, one of the members of a larger gaming community, was once considered among the best in Quake 4 (a game where earthlings defend themselves against aliens). But it has been over a year since he moved on and joined his father’s business. Moving on was inevitable because according to Shah, gaming is just not paying in India.
   Twenty-four-year-old Peter Fernandez, a retired gamer, says, “Abroad, people don’t laugh at you when you say that you are a full time gamer. Gamers make decent money there, which is not possible in India.” The top international players make around $1 million per year. There is hope though. With more software multinationals wanting to hawk their products in India, the number of tournaments is rising. Prizes are modest still. But gamers say they see good times coming. TNN

ADMISSIONS OPEN

Get in touch with senior gamers. Two of them are Yogesh (98922-99026) and Amar (98196-17974)
Join online gaming groups like www.re-inforcement.com, www.v-street.net and www.frag-shack.com to perfect your skills
Gaming in India is not yet a career option. So do your homework well

MR & MRS

MR & MRS

Never delete the spouse’s number

Many estranged couples keep in touch, sharing the warmth of each other’s friendship despite the pain of divorce. Some even continue their physical relationship, reports Ketan Tanna

   It is often said that a divorce creates an Indo-Pak situation between a couple. There is familiarity and contempt. Subterfuge and parleys. People would rather read the telephone directory than even talk to the ex. Yet, there are many couples, separated legally, even bitterly, who keep in touch and some even sustain a physical relationship. In the relief of divorce and since the wounds have healed, they discover that the proximity of marriage, however turbulent, has bequeathed them a friend more valuable than anybody else.
   Last year, 37-year-old filmmaker Shrikant Gupta got a divorce from his wife Rekha. She left Mumbai but every time she visits the city, she lives with him. That disturbs Shrikant’s girlfriend, Seema who fears that the estranged couple is so comfortable with each other that the old spark may be rekindled. Meanwhile, Seema herself is separated from her husband Rajesh, though not formally. She confided in Rajesh about her insecurities and it was he who convinced her and Shrikant to go to a counsellor.
   If the above paragraph is confusing, it is because the triangles and rectangles of the new age are so. In the cities today, where acquaintances are many but friends are rare, even divorcées are not willing to say goodbye easily. The person you woke up with on many sunny mornings is hard to let go of. Sometimes love, no matter what Karan Johar says, is a habit.
   Psychotherapist and counsellor, Minnu Bhonsle describes the final phase of a marriage as an ‘emotional closure’. When this part is not settled clearly, couples continue to maintain a relationship, its nature nebulous. “When one hears of cases where the couple reignites its physical relationship post divorce, it is evident that there is no emotional detachment despite the divorce,” Bhonsle says.
   There are pragmatic reasons for divorced couples to stay in touch, like their children or financial matters. But far more compelling and poignant is the fact that despite all the curses they flung at each other in their bedrooms and on the legal documents, they probably still like each other.
   Thirty-two-year-old Loveleen Advani and Neel Mitra who is two years older, broke off their marriage due to serious incompatibility. Neel is a pilot with a private airline. Loveleen works as a corporate trainer with a multinational. They had fallen in love and were married for over six years. Neel’s flying job meant that he would not be home very often. “There were times when I would get an important assignment or make a deal and there would be nobody to share my feelings with because Neel was never there,” says Loveleen. When he was there, he had the tendency to sleep, especially on weekends. Often, he would be home when Loveleen was not. She was not sure if she could bear the child of a man who would probably be an absentee father. Eventually, their marriage ended.
Loveleen has remarried and, recently, became a mother. But Neel and Loveleen keep in touch and they share their joys and sorrows like old friends. No one understands you better than the person who once loved you and still wants to know honestly if everything is alright with you. Neel and Loveleen, their picture frames of smiling photos now dismantled, would never give up a bond that was once their common fate.
Photographer Jagdish Maali separated from his wife Preeti two and a half decades ago. “But I’m on the VIP list for any function at her home in Mahim,” he says. “There’s no malice. In fact we can actually laugh about a lot of things.” Jagdish is also happy that Preeti shares a happy equation with his ageing mother. And when he misses a good home-cooked meal, he picks up the phone and asks Preeti to send him a dabba.
Sometimes, children build a bridge between their estranged parents that begins as a road of convenience and ends as something more than a utility. Wedding planner Divya Patel who lives in Mumbai and Ajit Bhonsle who lives in Pune, parted ways 27 years ago. After the divorce, the logistics of loving their daughter made them keep in touch. A few years ago, Ajit underwent major surgery and Divya was there attending to him despite the presence of his current wife. Fifty-five-year-old Divya recounts, “Our marriage fell apart not because he was unfaithful. It was because of a classic ego struggle. Ajit was younger than me and less successful. That created friction.” The clarity of an obituary is always cutting.
   “Aruna (Ajit’s current wife) and I are polite to each other,” says Divya. “I have a slightly better equation with his two children from this marriage. In fact when I celebrated his 50th birthday in my home, his children were very much a part of the celebrations.” She invited Aruna who did not come.
   Sometimes, in-laws, usually perceived as a divisive force, keep estranged couples together. Twenty-eight-year-old Sunita Kapoor hails from a lower middle class background. She was once married to Harsh, who belonged to the elite South Mumbai circle. His parents liked Sunita and thought she was the best bet for their son. Soon after the marriage, Sunita discovered that Harsh was into substance abuse. Their relationship became strained. Along the way, they had a daughter, but their marriage was always unsteady. In time, they separated but she says that her in-laws work very hard to ensure that the two are in touch. “He still sounds weird on the phone,” she says.
   For those with children or financial issues, the interaction is not a matter of choice. But counsellors insist that there should be an emotional closure after divorce. It’s called a clean break. As though there is such a thing. TNN
   (Some names have been changed)
   —With inputs by Meena Iyer

THE FAT PEOPLE’S CLUB

THE FAT PEOPLE’S CLUB

Ketan Tanna enters a society of seriously overweight people and finds that their hearts weigh the most

   They are hard to miss. As they walk down the lobby of a hospital in north Mumbai, strangers cannot take their eyes off them. Some are amused, some pass comments. But all this attention and caustic remarks do not affect them. They are used to ridicule. They are members of the Obese No More group. That objective is not fulfilled yet but they are trying. While there is no set criterion for belonging to this group, none of the 125 members weigh less than 100 kg. Like Rafique, a 51-year-old television professional, who weighs 149 kg. Even at his towering height of 6 feet 2 inches, he is remarkably overweight. After an operation, he lost over ten kilos.
   All members suffer from a clinical problem called morbid obesity. Morbid obesity is having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 37. Most members of the Obese No More group have a BMI that is well over that dreadful number. BMI is a ratio of body mass in kilograms and the square of the height in meters. An ideal BMI should range between 19 and 25. Obese people, chiefly victims of an unfortunate influence of genes that either makes them eat excessively or reduces their metabolic rate, are highly vulnerable to heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. A BMI of 30 or more raises the risk of death from various diseases by 50% to 150%, according to some estimates.
   All members of the Obese No More group have suffered both physically and mentally. And in a last ditch attempt, many of them have either undergone bariatric surgery which involves an operation that seals a portion of the stomach or attaches the small intestine to the upper portion of the stomach, limiting the volume it can hold. Apart from direct medical help, they also want emotional support and the comfort of being with others with the same affliction, a reason why Obese No More was birthed in July 2006.
   The group meets at least thrice a year. These are mainly interactive forums for consultation and moral support. Such meetings heal the wounds of these morbidly fat people who survive in a world which looks down upon them. Most of the members have encountered situations where even passing strangers give unsolicited advice on how to reduce weight.
   Members chat with each other, recounting the various travails of obesity. When a member speaks, the rest of the group nod in empathy. Rajesh, a businessman stands at 5 feet 11 inches and weighs 180 kg. He is a frequent flyer and he tells the group how he often tries to
get upgraded to the business class. “More than me, the person sitting next to me suffers,” he says, laughing. Medical advice and emotional support flow freely in the group. The members also discuss the best in medicine and diet. Bariatric surgeons, nutritionists and endocrinologists regularly counsel them.
   Every member who is part of Obese No More has a heartrending story to tell. Rati Pujari is 23 and weighs 100 kg. She had gone into depression as she could not handle the pretentious advice of well wishers. “Many of them get inner satisfaction by putting you down and belittling you,” she says. She was a member of a well-known dance class but was asked to leave because she was overweight. Her mother saw her daughter sinking into depression but there was little she could do. “We tried every trick in the book. But after losing weight, she would be back to square one in no time,” says Rati’s mother, Hema.
   Rati could not even enjoy simple recreational exercises like shopping. Most stores do not stock the sizes she is looking for. Her only consolation in the depth of despair was eating chocolates and ice cream stealthily till one day she could not take it anymore and decided to go for surgery. She took a loan for the operation that costs over Rs 2 lakh.
   Keerty Parikh, a 32-year-old Marwari housewife, weighs 111 kg and stands at 5 feet 3 inches. Her five sisters do not have a weight problem. Though she tried all sorts of treatments, her problem only worsened with each passing year. By 1995, she was 103 kg. At one point, she stopped her parents from shortlisting prospective grooms because she realised that she would only be humiliating herself by parading her large body in front of shocked men. Eventually, it was on the internet that she found the man she married. Keerty made it clear to him that she was obese and that there was nothing she could do about it. She was 115 kg when she married a Gujarati man who loved her. But when she wanted to have a baby, she was told by doctors that it was dangerous for women with morbid obesity to have children. So she went in for bariatric surgery to reduce weight.
   And so it goes with this club. Stories unfold. Everyone listens keenly. Advice and concern flow, and then they go back to their difficult lives.
   The group had met last July and November and now plans to meet in the middle of this year. It usually meets in halls or hospital meeting rooms in different parts of Mumbai. For the morbidly obese, every meeting is a catharsis. “For me, it is a time to tell old and new members that being fat is fine and definitely not a sin. It is a disease and that is it. Don’t let it engulf your life,” says Keerty. TNN

SMALL HELPING Members of the Obese No More club say cheese

The man with a green thumb

PROFILE

The man with a green thumb

M S Swaminathan always strived to make life easier for farmers. Today, they are killing themselves. Ketan Tanna meets an embarrassed revolutionary

   It’s 4 am. The rest of Kerala is still sleeping in the comfort of darkness. An 82-year-old grandfather switches on the bulb in his spartan room in Kottakkal’s Arya Vaidya Sala complex. It illuminates an old divan in the corner, with neatly arranged books and papers, where he is now furiously scribbling notes. Something in his benign smile says this is a habit. He goes on writing, compulsively for about two hours, till it’s time for his Ayurvedic therapy.
   Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan, the father of India’s Green Revolution, is on his annual two week journey to Kerala “to rejuvenate myself.” A small table with a computer and printer and a TV in the corner show that he is in touch with the world. But for now, all of them are switched off. It’s his sabbatical, he need not work. Yet, the bespectacled scientist maintains a punishing schedule of writing through the day, interspersed only by meal breaks.
   Whenever he is depressed, he goes to the fields. Lately, his trips have increased. These days, Swaminathan who discovered the seed that doubled the yield for farmers in the ’60s, naturally feels sad. No one asks him about his favourite subject, agriculture, anymore. “I am questioned more on farmers’ suicides rather than on our farmers’ great capacity to produce abundant agricultural commodities under severe constraints,” he says.
   It’s an uncomfortable subject for this scientist, who normally has prompt answers to the most difficult queries. Perhaps it’s something that reminds the geneticist that his purpose is slowly being defeated. His eyes crinkle behind his spectacles as he talks about the feeling abroad. “While in the ’60s and ’70s, we had got the reputation for making the country a bread basket from the status of a begging bowl, the reverse may happen now and we will once again revert to a ship to mouth existence.”
   Swaminathan knows the consequences — unplanned migration of the male members of marginal farmer and landless labour families to urban areas. It’s the road that leads to square one —to proliferation of urban slums and faminisation of agriculture. The very things he wanted India to emerge from when he took up the unglamorous agriculture as his subject after BSc, much to the dismay of his college principal. In 1952, Swaminathan earned his PhD from Cambridge University in genetics and later turned down a professorship in the US. “I asked myself why I studied genetics. It was to produce enough food in India. So I came back.”
   That was the beginning of an era in Indian agriculture. In the ’60s, he brought seeds, developed in Mexico by American agriculture expert Norman Borlaug, to India and cross-bred those with local species to create a wheat plant that doubled the yield for farmers. After this, Swaminathan’s success could be spelt faster than his name. His proudest moment was when Indira Gandhi released a set of stamps in 1968 titled ‘wheat revolution’.
   Today, all this applause is history for him. For a better part of the day, agriculture and the ways and means to take India forward dominates his mind and his thoughts. He blames the dire straits of farmers on the breakdown of family and community social support systems that were prevalent in the days of joint families. And, he places the blame on, “farmers without adequate coping capacity taking loans for adopting technologies which are expensive.”
   Several years of interactions with farmers, have made him aware of things that make them vulnerable. Cotton farmers from the dry farming areas of Vidarbha in Maharashtra have particularly been affected during the last few years by serious market failure. “Even the credit system is anti-ecological, since in dry farming areas the recovery cycle should really be 4-5 years and not annual. Such a reform of the credit system will help a farmer to retain eligibility for getting credit, if there is drought during a year,” he says.
   These days, he is in a contemplative mood, sometimes hopeful and at times despondent. Winner of several awards, and the father of three successful daughters, he could have easily sat back at home basking in his laurels. Yet he travels all over India and the world, working consistently on the issues of agriculture, sustainable development and governance.
   Swaminathan who has always been a man of action, doesn’t want to waste time in bemoaning the past. That’s why even today, he writes, almost with a vengeance. That is his defence mechanism against India’s backward progress from “green revolution to greed revolution”. And he has plenty to write about. The 82-year-old visionary currently holds the UNESCO chair in eco-technology and is the President of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World, besides running the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation.
   The solutions to agrarian crisis lie in reforms, he says. The insurance system which hardly covers 4% of the farming population now, needs urgent reform. “There is practically no effort to impart credit, insurance and trade literacy to resource poor farmers.” Compounding all this is the absence of multiple sources of livelihood, so that if one source of income fails there are other avenues which can insulate the farmer from distress, deprivation and despair. If public policies and investment are appropriate to the need, agricultural growth can be even higher than general economic growth. “We should put faces before figures,” he says. TNN

PLANTING HOPE M S Swaminathan is still sowing seeds of agricultural reform almost fifty years after the Green Revolution

GRILLING MINORS

GRILLING MINORS

When the witness is a child

Children go through great trauma when they have to appear in court. Ketan Tanna on what happens when a young rape victim is asked to explain her ordeal in front of others or a little boy has to give evidence against a parent

   Last year, a 16-year-old girl was raped by her teacher in Mumbai. She managed to contact a psychiatrist who took her to the police station in a western suburb of Mumbai. A policeman asked her to describe in graphic detail, in front of her rapist, what he did to her. The psychiatrist was livid, but could do little. “The police arranged for a settlement. The parents of the girl did not want to pursue the case and the rapist was punished by the police who gave him a few punches and made him promise he would never do that ‘ganda kaam’ again,” the psychiatrist recounts. The matter ended there. If the case had been pursued, the girl might have got justice but she would have undergone what another 14-year-old girl had to about four years ago.
   That girl had stood in the middle of a juvenile courtroom in Mumbai. Surrounded by about 20 people, mostly strangers, she was shivering. She had been raped by two boys in her neighbourhood. She was asked in front of the two boys — “What did these two boys do to you behind the bushes?” She could not answer and the two boys were standing there with smirks on their faces. It was only much later, when the victim was called to the magistrate that she managed to give the details. The two boys were eventually punished.
   Less fortunate was a 10-year-old girl who was gangraped. According to a person who was present during the proceedings, “She had to undergo humiliating questions for three days. The defence lawyers tried every nasty trick in the book to prove that their clients were innocent. She was questioned on the minor differences on the points she made in the witness box. And her three rapists were there all the time. Sometimes, out of sheer embarrassment, she would giggle at the risqué questions of the lawyers. That was used by lawyers who murmured that she might have enjoyed what had happened to her. Nothing came out of the case.”
   A child witness in India is anyone below the age of 18 who is called to give evidence in court. According to Section 118 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, a child is competent to testify if he or she can understand the questions and can give rational answers. A child under the age of 12 need not give evidence under oath as it is presumed that the child may not understand the nature of an oath or the consequences of falsehood.
   Asha Bajpai, a professor at The Tata Institute of Social Sciences and author of Child Rights in India: Law, Policy, and Practice, says that juvenile victims suffer another form of abuse at the doorsteps of the justice system. “The language of the child is not understood by the legal system. Trained personnel are not there to interview them.” She feels that judges, police
and lawyers have to be suitably trained to deal with children. Also, though many child depositions are recorded in camera in India, the system has not been able to do anything about the fact that defendants bring a battery of lawyers to badger minors.
   While India has largely neglected the plight of children who suffer the torments of the courtroom, many countries have established highly sensitive norms. The use of closed-circuit television for child testimonies is common in the US and the UK. The children are thus spared face-to-face confrontation with the accused. In New Zealand, considerable research has been done on techniques that can help children. As a result, props and drawings are used during interviews. In some countries, child witnesses are shown the design of the courtroom as as part of their preparation before the deposition, says Bajpai.
   There has been some attempt in India to make the ordeal lighter for children. It is common in family courts for the magistrate to call children to his chamber — a minor consolation for children who have become the bone of contention in bitter custody battles.
   Children, who are forced to appear in family courts and make statements that may not favour one of the parents, suffer severe trauma. During one such hearing, a five-year-old girl, in the middle of the interrogation, went to her father and whispered something in his ear and then she went to her mother and whispered. “It was obvious that she was trying to please both her parents and was confused,” says a counsellor at the family court in Mumbai.
   There have been cases where magistrates have tactfully chatted with the children, inquired them about their friends and asked them to draw things or even talk about what they liked before extracting relevant information from them. Children are extremely complex and it usually takes an experienced hand to get into their minds. For example, there was a case of a boy who told his mother that he would not testify in her favour until she got him an iPod and an Xbox. The truth came out when a psychiatrist was roped in.
   In the Sakshi vs Union of India case of 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that a sexual abuse victim has to be protected by a screen or a similar arrangement. Also, the
   cross-examination by the defendant’s lawyers can be given in writing to the presiding officer of the court who may change the language of the questions. Also, the child, while giving testimony in court, should be allowed sufficient breaks.
   According to Bajpai, the Supreme Court in the Gurmeet Singh vs Union of India case of 1996 directed that when the defence counsel adopts the strategy of persistent questioning of the victim or the witness about the details of the crime, the courts must not remain silent. The tough stand taken by the highest court in the country is slowly percolating down to lower courts. TNN

TRANCE

TRANCE

The worldof rave

Ketan Tanna and Yatish Suvarna on the changing character of drug parties

   Aphone call confirms the date. The place is still a secret. The next day, an email arrives giving the time and the location. A scanned image of a roughly scrawled map is in the attachment. The rave party is somewhere in Karjat, on the outer fringes of Mumbai. The boys go to the location and they stand flummoxed in the middle of desolation. There is nothing here. And it’s around one in the morning. They feel silly. Then someone notices an arrow with the logo of the shadowy organiser. There are many such arrows along the road. The hint is unmistakable. The boys follow the arrows for over ten kilometers. The distant lull of trance music reaches them. They arrive at some kind of a lawn with half a dozen small tents. About six to eight people are dancing in every tent. Finally, the pilgrims are in the middle of a rave, a name given to parties where drugs are available. In the psychedelic moonlight, one can see about 40 young boys and 20 girls scattered around, almost all of them dressed in casual clothes as though this is a college canteen. There is no decadent hysteria nor semi-naked lovers. Everybody is in his or her own world. Somewhere, white ecstasy tablets pass hands, somewhere else there is the smell of grass. There is word that cocaine and LSD too, are available. This was about two and a half years ago.
   These days, the discretion has somewhat crumbled. Old timers are shocked at how audaciously invitations are being handed out. The recent Pune rave party that was busted and resulted in media images of scores of young BPO workers looking morosely at the ground, was advertised on Orkut social groups and on sites like www.isratrance.com. So wide was the net of the organisers that people from places like Kolkatta, Chennai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad had accepted the offer and landed in Pune. It was not surprising that cops came too.
   The networks of raves have traditionally been exclusive channels. Friends tell their trusted friends and the happy crowd grows. Cell phones and internet chat rooms have become the chief dispensers of news and increasingly the law enforcement is finding ways to infiltrate. The organisers of rave parties have developed their own brand identity. And DJs have become the brand ambassadors of the organisers. In fact, some of the DJs double up as drug peddlers. At the party in Nallur, near Hosur, on November 13 last year, the DJ had allegedly made arrangements with an associate for distributing cocaine, ecstasy and ganja. The revellers, between the ages of 20 and 30, were not the prodigal children of the rich, but middle-class professionals in the software, hotel and fashion industries.
   What began as deviant fun of the rich has today infiltrated the working class. Many middle-class youngsters aspire to go to such rave parties just to experience firsthand an exhilarating subculture, not knowing how deeply enmeshed such parties are with criminal elements.
   Police sources say that drug cartels are directly involved in raves because they are convenient mass outlets. Pune’s parties are known for the preponderance of foreigners and students from various states. In Mumbai, a rave party called Trance Ganesha is organised near Mahalaxmi around Ganesh Chaturthi and is attended by the rich and famous. But it is Goa that has for long been the epicenter of the rave culture. And this culture is believed to be controlled by Russian gangs. Drug cartels in Goa are most active in Anjuna, Arpora, Morjim, Saligaon and Palolem.
   Enforcement agencies in India are waking up to the use of the internet as the gateway to rave parties. Recently, a senior officer from Orkut met Sanjay Mohite, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, Mumbai, and agreed to share the IP addresses of those that are breaking Indian laws. The officer did ask the Mumbai Police to prove which sections of the law were being violated by the offenders. The Mumbai Police then read out the various sections of the IPC and CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code). Three specific cases have been processed by Orkut and the IP addresses, the cyber footprints of a net user, have been given to the Mumbai Police. It is not easy though to trace visitors of a chat room only from their IP addresses, but they are vital clues. The Mumbai Police has been cultivating a close relationship with Internet Service Providers. A few days ago, top Internet Service Providers assured Mohite that any request from the police will be attended to in 48 hours. Meanwhile, the Mumbai police is today equipped to crack a password of four letters in 15 minutes. But then again most passwords do not have just four letters anymore. Only rave does. TNN

TWELFTH MEN

TWELFTH MEN

Misery of the cricket clones

The World Cup debacle has hit the look-alikes of cricket stars very hard. Ketan Tanna on how some of them have gone broke after commercials and stage shows were suddenly cancelled

   It was his dream to buy a one-room flat on the outer fringes of Mumbai. He had verbally fixed the deal with a broker for about four lakh rupees. His loan had been passed and he was certain that the balance amount would be raised in a matter of days. After all, 37-year-old Balbir Chand, the duplicate of Sachin Tendulkar, was being sought after in many advertisements and stage shows as the World Cup fever was rising. Then, on the 23rd of March, India lost to Sri Lanka. Sachin went for a duck. Suddenly, nobody wanted Balbir.
   The next day, Balbir placed a call to Sahlon, some 50 kilometres from Ludhiana in Punjab where his wife and three kids were eagerly awaiting his call. They were supposed to join him once he bought the flat. But what Balbir told his wife was that he would not be able to send them any money for a few months. “I told her to manage the house without money for some time,” says Balbir, his voice choking.
   Balbir was a ward boy at the Dayanand Medical College Hospital in Ludhiana for well over seven years earning around Rs 1,500 a month till advertisers discovered him. In 2001, he moved to Mumbai. Life was good then. Every advertisement or stage show or even election campaign appearance fetched him anywhere between Rs 2,000 and Rs 15,000. Work was not consistent but on an average, he made Rs 10,000 a month, half of which went to feeding his wife and kids, and other family members in Punjab. He was featured in advertisements of Hero Honda Majestic, TVS Victor, Visa Power, MRF and Boost among others. Now, the bounty has ended. “Organisers who used to hound me have stopped calling and are now not taking my calls,” he says. Neighbours and friends have been taunting him since India’s unceremonious exit. “I do not meet anyone, I just stay at home,” he says.
   Jeevan Varma is among the few who can fully understand the trauma of Balbir. Varma is a clone of Virendra Sehwag whose only consolation is that, “nobody expected anything from me as Sehwag was out of form.” The 29-year-old bachelor was once a hosiery merchant. Even though some lucrative deals have fallen through, he feels he is luckier than Balbir. “I used to work as a garment producer and would make Rs 5,000 a month. Then people started comparing me to Sehwag and I shifted to Mumbai to make a career out of it.
   Sachin and Sehwag, Balbir and Varma, were till recently a package in the eyes of advertisers and show organisers. They were usually featured together. The duo also acted in Bombay to Goa (a remake of the earlier film) for which they were paid about Rs 10,000 each.
   “During the World Cup, I thought I would be in many shows. I wanted to use the money for training myself in anchoring and improving my acting. I also thought of buying a flat. But, Sehwag nahi chala. I am puzzled why the entire team did not perform,” says Varma. India’s exit from the World Cup has reminded him of the uncertainties of showbiz and has made him determined enough to start his own business. “I have certain business plans which I am working on. I can’t go on living this way,” he says, looking a bit dejected.
   Thousands of kilometers away in Ludhiana, Ravi Verma, also known as Dhoni, says that for now he would concentrate on his job as a medical representative. The 23-year-old used to make between Rs 2,000 and 5,000 for every day he worked as a Dhoni clone. The World Cup hysteria, he had hoped, would help him buy some gadgets. But that was not meant to be. “Strangers are coming up to me and berating me. I let them get their steam off. If they have the right to love Dhoni, they should have the right to question him when he does not perform,” he says philosophically.
   The Irfan Pathan look-alike from Punjab, shares the fate of the other clones. “Some people have threatened to beat me up, but I know they will not. I let them vent,” he says.
   Of all the popular clones, the only person who has come unscathed is Jatin Jambudiwala who, appropriately it might seem, looks like Sourav Ganguly. The 29-year-old works with Asian Paints in Ankleshwar, Gujarat, as a system administrator. Being Ganguly in ads and stage shows was nothing more than a hobby. “Ganguly was out of the team for over year and therefore people were not expecting much from him in the first place. Yes, I did lose a couple of advertisements and local events, but that is ok with me,” he says.
   For the other duplicates who are facing similar crises, there may be hope in the fine art of satire. MTV recently hired some of them for a day’s work at the rate of Rs 7,000 for a spoof. Dwarfs are dressed as the Bangladeshi cricket team. Sachin, Sehwag and the rest of the Indian team play a match and lose, of course. Then they press the legs of the Bangladeshi players, shouting slogans like “Jeetega bhai jeetega, Bangladesh Jeetega.”TNN

DHO DALA Sachin is homeless while Sehwag is planning to move on by starting his own business

OLD SPICE

OLD SPICE

1931: A True Story

Ketan Tanna on why it’s absurd for the government to use the 1931 census as an OBC reference guide

   It is amusing to note that the census report of 1931 influenced the central government in 2006 to make recommendations on what constituted the backward castes. Free India never conducted a caste-related census and instead of doing a fresh survey, the Congress-led government used the 1931 document as resource material. To understand the absurdity of falling back on such an ancient report, one has to just study the India that the census report portrays. It was another place. The population was about 350 million. According to Thomas Callan Hodson, a professor of anthropology, the census report distinguished Indians on physical traits. The nose was a defining character in the report. “Narrow or fine noses in which the width is less than 70% of the height; broad noses in which the proportion rises to 85% and over and medium noses with an index of 70 to 85%,” said Hodson in his analysis of 1931 census.
   The modernity of the Indian male was also clearly described in that census. Men, across India, had discarded ornaments but had taken to wrist watches and fountain pens. “The clothes worn by all sections are more varied and usually of better quality than they used to be. Shoes are worn by an ever increasing number, and in the matter of jewellery, the tendency among women of every class is towards a greater refinement,” Hodson noted. Also, aluminum vessels were most sought after among all classes. And, “the electric torchlight has achieved a tremendous popularity.”
   That Bengalis like an easy life was true in 1931 too. “In rural Bengal, shops are practically non-existent. But hatkhola (market places) are more frequently met with. Hat are scattered so profusely over the country that a cultivator can go to one every day without going more than five or six miles from home. He has his meal about mid-day or a little before, smokes a pipe, has a short sleep and at about three in the afternoon, sets out to the nearest hat. He goes mainly to meet his friends, hear the talk of the neighbourhood and find out the prices of the various commodities because such are the things that interest him,” Hodson noted, adding later in a perceptive line, “The Madrasi emigrant takes his own world with him and sets it down in his new surroundings.”
   Even in the ’30s, Indian gods did curious things to get attention. In February 1930, the gas generated by night soil in a trenching ground near Delhi precipitated into a flame and the spot promptly became the scene of a local pilgrimage to the goddess. A large number of persons congregated at the site claiming that the goddess of small pox had blessed the site. It was only later that the goddess in this case proved to be a composition of 70% methane, 20% carbon-dioxide and 10%inert gases.
   Also, a wave of modernisation was haunting India in 1931. In Punjab, due to the arrival of fans, the old system of building underground cellars or sard khana for the scorching days of summer was abandoned. It is astonishing how every age, if the details are ignored, sounds the same. The enigma of new arrivals and the sighs of the dying. But the Indian government in 1931, somehow, was not considered as comical an entity as it is today. TNN

THE YOUNG AND THE RADIO

THE YOUNG AND THE RADIO

In this series, we look at unusual groups formed by a common passion. This week, Ketan Tanna finds out how an ancient technology is attracting the youth

   In the time of internet and cell phones, ham radio is closer to heritage than technology. But this ancient means of radio communication is, against all expectations, fascinating the young. They are joining ham groups in impressive numbers. Like this group of 12 fans who have gathered in a flat on a lazy Sunday. These are the members of The Mumbai Amateur Radio Society (MARS). There is visible excitement on their faces. They have just made their first contact of the day with a person who has an Italian call sign (identification code), but is currently in Saudi Arabia. The contact’s call sign is IT9ESW, a language these people understand.
   Eighteen-year-old Bhoumik Shah, a science undergraduate, is trying to listen into the conversation between IT9ESW and MARS, which has 220 members of whom 40 are in the age group of 15 to 21. A ham radio operator is an amateur who uses advanced equipment to communicate with other enthusiasts around the world. Ham radio is recreational and educative. It is also, inevitably, a public service. Historically, ham operators have played an active role in almost all natural calamities because when everything else is destroyed, it is the radio signals alone that work. In India, ham radio aspirants have to procure a licence issued by the Department of Telecommunications for which they have to clear a written exam. Also, they have to be Indian nationals over the age of 12. Various ham groups like MARS conduct coaching classes for the aspirants.
   Shah took the test recently and is eagerly awaiting the day when he will get his licence. Inspired by his decision to appear for the test and with his PowerPoint presentation given on ham radio, about 15 of his college mates have decided to join MARS. Shah was familiar with ham radio long before he joined MARS, but the Mumbai floods of 2005 impelled him to join the community of radio enthusiasts. During the deluge, Shah and his father were trapped for almost a whole day on the Bandra bridge. Mobile batteries had run out and there was no way that either of them could communicate with his mother. “I realised the importance of ham communication then. When no other means of communication is available, it is ham radio that helps out,” says Shah.
   Twenty-one-year-old Prashant Gore who is preparing for a course in aircraft maintenance is among the many young boys who are looking forward to jabber away on ham radio. For him, the fascination for ham began when he saw local policemen talking on their walkie-talkies. When he wanted to know more about ham radio classes and what it took to acquire a licence, most of his teachers had no clue about it. Finally, his physics teacher explained the concept of ham radio communication.
   Last year, when he was doing research on the net, he came to know more about MARS and how one could join the group. For Gore, ham radio is
about making contact with real people. “In ham, each call sign can be identified and we know with whom we are chatting. Compared to chatting on the internet, ham radio is communicating with real people in the real world,” says Gore, explaining why he thinks ham is better than internet chatting.
   For 18-year-old Zuzar Kudrati, who has recently appeared for his twelfth standard exam, ham radio was something that he saw on TV regularly. “I used to be fascinated by films and serials where I saw people communicating with their handy amateur radio. Fortunately, I had time and also guidance from a relative who is a ham radio operator,” says Kudrati.
   According to Kudrati, what really thrills him about ham radio is that dozens of people can communicate simultaneously on one medium. “In Yahoo or MSN, web cam chatting is often one-onone. On ham radio, the response one gets is far more interesting because one can speak to a number of people from different geographical areas.” Kudrati recently cleared his ham radio exam and is awaiting a licence pending police verification. Kudrati has not formally entered the world of ham, but he has a sense of the community because all MARS students and members are part of Yahoo and Orkut groups.
   For 16-year-old Shruti Sathe, it was big disappointment that she could not take the ham radio tests as they clashed with her eleventh standard exams. But she is more than determined to take the exams and believes that it is just a matter of time before she becomes an amateur radio operator. “Ham operators are a cut above the rest. The quality of people who are ham radio operators is amazing,” she says. Members of MARS go on occasional outstation trips. Sathe talks wideeyed of such trips. The team was split into two groups. One went to Khandala and the other to a farmhouse near the Gujarat border. The two groups then communicated with each other.
   Ham or amateur radio is a hobby for about six million people in the world, according to Wikipedia. Japan alone has 1.4 million of them. India’s numbers are modest — just over 15,000, but the number is growing. The new adolescent entrants have company in the form of seasoned professionals like 37-year-old Dr Rita Savla, a homeopath, and Khozema Siawala, a 31-year-old businessman dealing in essences and food flavours.
   Needless to say, it is not always the young who are eager and enthusiastic. Fifty-seven-year-old Ashok Kulkarni, a consultant in the soft drink industry says that when MARS classes were announced, “I was the first one to pay the fees and run to their office.” The course fee is Rs 3,500 which covers the tuition, course materials, licence fees and two outstation trips.
   Following the exams (which includes passing a Morse code test), police verification is done by local police stations. Licences take as long as one year to be granted and the wait can be frustrating. After getting the licence, one needs to buy radio equipment which is also called a base station. To have a conversation in a limited area, a ham licence holder can also use a hand-held walkie-talkie. It is against the law to use a ham radio for commercial purposes, as in a cheap mode of business communication. Conversations are monitored by government officials and those violating the terms and conditions of the licence can have their licences revoked.
   There are hundreds of ham groups across India, even in small towns. They organise various contests that bring the amateur radio enthusiasts together. The main events in the life of a ham operator are Foxhunt (where a transistor is hidden in a secluded spot and the task is to find it) and Island on the Air (ham enthusiasts visit secluded islands and report on the conditions there). Then there are car rallies where ham operators use their equipment to coordinate the rally. TNN

ADMISSIONS OPEN

If you want to be an active member of a ham radio group, you have to procure a ham licence issued by the Department of Telecommunications. There is a written test for that. Various ham groups offer coaching classes
Go to www.mumbai-hams.org
Contact Huzefa Merchant on 9892786110 or Zyros on 9821025289 (Readers who are aware of unusual groups may send in their suggestions to tribalinstincts@timesgroup.com)

SMOOTH OPERATORS Even though the internet and cell phones have diminshed the charm of ham radio, youngsters are falling in love with it

PARENT TRAP

PARENT TRAP

Surviving Parents

Singles who love their parents too much to abandon them suffer the quirks of the aged and sacrifice the freedom of adulthood, say Ketan Tanna and Meena Iyer

   Acommon perception is that singles enjoy considerable freedom. However, the truth is that many of them are forced by an Indian mindset to live with their parents, and as a consequence suffer the tantrums of the old. Caught between love for their parents and the madness of living with them, they go through a hellish domestic life.
   Every day, before the break of dawn, Meena Krishnan feels the gentle nudge of her mother’s elbow. “Wake up, it’s early morning,” her 76-year-old widowed mother Mangalam cheerfully announces. It’s another matter that Meena, an unmarried 47-year-old, had a late night and could do with some more sleep. But she gets up groggily and for the next few hours listens as her mother talks incessantly about this and that. “All I want at that point is some peace and quiet. But I give in because she has nobody else to talk to,” says Meena. There are times when Meena snaps at her mother only to regret it for the full day. “She loves ice-cream and I assuage my guilt by taking home her favourite flavour.”
   Sanjeev, a 35-year-old unmarried chartered accountant who does not want to reveal his full name, says that he moved in with his parents due to ill health. He is severely diabetic and has very high blood pressure. For some reason, his parents are very suspicious of him. They have locked all the cupboards except one and have refused to give him the keys. And, they do not believe that he is truthful about how much he earns. They accuse him of not giving them his full salary. They suspect that he is spending all his money on ayyashi (debauchery). When they asked him for his passbook, he told them that the concept was outdated. “Wait for the quarterly bank statement,” he said, but that only deepened their suspicion.
   Obviously, not all parents exhibit abnormal behaviour. An overwhelming majority are regular people, going through their twilight years watching their diet, recounting memories and basking in the gratitude of their wards whom they had given that invaluable gift called a normal childhood. But even here, there is an inevitable clash of cultures. They do not tolerate the late nights of their adult children. They do not understand why their children need something called freedom. Single girls suffer the most. A talented actress who lives with her mother often has to listen to uncomplimentary remarks about her late nights, even though she is just returning from a night shift. Thirty-one-year-old Sakshi, who is a director of a media-house, has an understanding mother, but there are rules at home. “I cannot stay out late without informing her, or bring home men in the middle of the night. Even those men who do come home to fetch me for an evening out aren’t allowed beyond the drawing room,” she says.
   Sakshi feels an acute lack of privacy in her own home. She cannot even walk around her home, mulling over her thoughts. “That’s not possible because my mom craves my indulgence. If I snap back, she reminds me that she is not a paying guest in the house. That’s how bad it gets.”
   Single men who live with their parents have unique problems. A journalist who comes from an affluent business household says that unpleasant situations develop over finances. He is a salaried person in a creative field and his earnings do not measure up to the wealth of his siblings. “There are times when one is made to feel bad about how your salary is less than the phone bill of the family.” But usually, single men face problems that are similar to what single women face.
   Thirty-year-old Mahesh (surname withheld on request) who is a media professional, says, “Earlier, when I had invited some girlfriends over and brought them to my room, I was told to leave the door open. It was so awkward. Also, my mom would come in on some pretext or another and try to make small talk. I have stopped calling friends over.” Ashok Shah, in his late 30s, says that boy’s nights out are out of the question. And a conservative dress code has to be followed.
   Singles who live with their parents have to sacrifice the little joys of life for the grander purpose of being there for their elders. Not all singles complain though. Film publicist Parull Gossain wouldn’t trade living with her mother for anything. “My friends tease me about it,” she says happily. TNN

BUT IT’S ALMOST NICE Parull Gossain’s (left) friends tease her about living with her mom but she loves it. Ashok Shah (right) looks happy though he can’t host parties.

TIME TRAVEL

TIME TRAVEL

Not the last Don story

Meenakshi Sinha and Ketan Tanna trace the rupee and other variables from the first Don to the second

   Every generation recounts the past with an unmistakable condescension — “simpler times”. And so it must be said about the Technicolour age of Don. 1978. Simpler times. An Amabassador car cost less than Rs. 50,000. Pran charged just ten times as much and even this modest fee was twice as much as what Amitabh Bachchan was paid then. When Nariman Irani, producer of the first Don, died before the film could be completed at the age of 49, the stars waived off a part of their fee because he was survived by three children. The item girl Helen was 40. And the fact that she wore green lenses became a hysterical topic of discussion in the upper perches of the society. The film was made in Rs 85 lakh, an extravagance then but adjusted to inflation it would cost less than Rs 8 crore today, roughly the expense incurred in the publicity of the new Don. Yes, they did not know it then, but those were simpler times.
   The first Don was sold at Rs 21 lakh per territory and just 30 prints were distributed. Farhan Akhtar’s Don —The Chase Begins Again, releasing next Friday is believed to have cost Rs 30-40 crore. Its lead star Shah Rukh Khan was paid over Rs 4 crore, according to trade analysts. And the film hits the marquee with 300 prints worldwide, 115 of them to cinemas in North America. “It is definitely seen as the biggest release in today’s times,” says Siddharth Roy Kapoor, marketing head of UTV that is managing the overseas distribution of the film.
   The first Don, an action packed story of a smuggler who is killed in a police encounter and replaced by the law enforcement with a clone, arrived facing great difficulties. Its original script was rejected by many, including Prakash Mehra and Dev Anand, because it was about a don, an unheard of concept in those days. “I had always felt that Don was a bit ahead of its time. Technically it may look dated now, but the characters and the dialogue were very hip. Therefore, it lent itself very well to a remake,” says Akhtar.
   Interestingly, the famous song Khaike Paan Benaras Wala almost didn’t make it to the original film. In those days, for music to be put on the Long Playing (LP) record, it was mandatory to have a minimum of 22 ½ minutes of songs. And the first Don did not have so many songs. “The song Khaike Pan Benaras Wala was added after the completion of the film, just so that we could bring out the long playing record,” recalls director Chandra Barot.
   Don — The Chase Begins Again arrives without such fumbles. In its planning, technology and marketing, it stands for everything that is new and imposing about Hindi cinema. But it is a victim of comparison already. The debate over the artistic merits of something that is old and a work that is new, is usually rigged in favour of the old. Also, the choice of Shah Rukh Khan in the remake, has been a matter of discontent among the average person. Television channels are asking the dramatic question — Who’s better, Amitabh or SRK?
   Yet, director Akhtar says, Shah Rukh was an obvious choice. “He fits the part like a glove and is the only person today, who could do justice to the part. He had the style, flair, confidence, sense of humour, focus and drive.”
   There is a lot of Kareena in a song, a bit too much around the thighs in fact. But she too, is a victim of comparison and somehow a more vicious comparison because the original is Helen. “I felt if there is anyone who can come close in looking ultra-glam and non-vulgar while seducing an actor on screen today, it is Kareena. She is very classy, much like Helen aunty and can never ever look tacky,” Akhtar says.
   Cinematographer Mohanan claims to have tried hard to deglamourise the film. Sticking to colder blue and green hues, he made the camera seek out the realities in the milieu of a don. To achieve this end, Mohanan was asked by Akhtar not to refer to the old Don. In less than a week, arrives this film that is somewhat cutely called a ‘remake’, as it belongs to a plagiarising industry that is in the business of remaking films. It’s just that Don — The Chase Begins Again has owned up. TNN

Evolution

(Figure in brackets is ’78 rupee in ’06 adjusted for inflation. All figures in rupees)

Don 1978

Cost of the film 85 lakhs (7.5 crore)

Bachchan fee 2.5 lakhs (21 lakhs)

Pran fee 5 lakhs (43 lakhs)

Don 2006

Cost of the film 30 – 40 crore

Shah Rukh fee 4 – 6 crore

Priyanka fee 85 lakhs – 1 crore

OLD WINE SRK who plays Amitabh’s role is up against the venom of nostalgia

CORPORATEGIRI

CORPORATEGIRI

D-Company to Company

The film industry is today finally professional. The management system is replacing what was once the vocation of temperamental men and women, report Meena Iyer and Ketan Tanna

   In simpler times, in the eighties and the nineties, when some actors used to sign up for more than 40 films a year, producer Prakash Mehra, in white shirt, white pants and white shoes, would reach his workplace in Juhu at 4 pm. And though he sometimes ran two hours late, people would be waiting for him. There would also be a regular melee of financiers and distributors and proposal-makers queuing up.
   Today, Mehra’s office and preview theatre Sumeet have given way to a restaurant called Bohemia. And the man himself has been reduced to being, well, just a man. His innumerable attempts to return to his old silver magic have failed. “Mehra may never make a film again,” says an industry person. “Not only is his spirit broken, he can also never hope to pay stars the kind of money that they’re used to now.”
   Down the melancholy lanes of a generation past, the gloomy whispers are about how “the corporates have come”. Many among the biggest producers of a very recent era, are now sitting at home twiddling their thumbs, left behind by the changing times. The tusi-great-ho and the balleballe Punjabi culture of Bollywood producers is making way for the pinstriped executives of companies like Adlabs and the Birlas, and leading banks like IDBI. They are all moving in to replace independent producers, and traditional vehicles of dirty money. Corporate funds are beginning to call the shots in Hindi cinema. And the film community is being lured into this new order by the lustre of unprecedented earning potential.
   Last week, Hrithik Roshan signed three films for over Rs 30 crores as a package deal with Adlabs. Akshay Kumar has a Rs 16-crore contract with the company for four films. Director Vipul Shah has reportedly signed a Rs 210 crore deal with Adlabs to make eight films and television software. But with such money comes accountability. Shah admits that if he overspends on any of the eight projects that he has lined up, he may be required to balance it in the next project. In short, Adlabs will definitely make Shah account for the money they’re entrusting him with.
   Suddenly the screenplay has become a sacred tool. Till recently, films went into production without complete scripts. Films like Satya were written on the sets. But such luxuries are over. A film today is planned and budgeted according to the final screenplay. Actors are seldom given the power to change the script according to their megalomaniacal desires. Companies now also have inhouse script teams that look at the scripts and give views. “And sometimes we even suggest changes,” says a script doctor from Sahara One.
   Also, the new economics of the industry is such that the collection between Friday, the time of release, and the Sunday, accounts for nearly 56% of the total revenues a film generates. And 40% of a film’s revenue comes from the 55 urban multiplexes in the country. This has made aggressive marketing in big cities targeting the 15-35 age group, the single most important element that decides the fate of a film. Accordingly, promotional expenditure has increased by nearly 70%. The publicity of Don, it is believed, cost nearly Rs 8 crore. The maths of the corporate structure today has made it clear that the life of a film in theatres is short. Never again will a film run for months on end. Every bit of revenue is extracted in that short period through television, music sales, and merchandise. Film production is now closely associated with the gaming and the mobile phone industry too unleashing various entertainment activities that bring in additional revenues.
   Sunil Manchanda, who has produced seven films so far, including the super hit Salman Khan-starrer Tere Naam, says that change in film financing was inevitable. “It was not unexpected. If you look at the United States and their studio culture, we seem to be heading that way except that here we will have corporate bodies and not studios.” He says, till recently the antecedents of some of the film investors were not known. It was leading to unlawful money entering the film industry. Now, all that has changed.
   Film financing, till the beginning of the millennium worked on two models — big filmmakers whose projects would attract a lot of notice, like J Om Prakash, Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra, Yash Chopra and Subhash Ghai, would invariably presell major territories at the onset of a project. They would use this money to make their films. The projects would generally consist of big stars, so distributors would be lining up to buy the rights of the film. The distributor would generally pay 40% of the money on day one and 60% when the movie was completed. The second option was to go to money lenders in the market who would give funds to filmmakers at a high interest rate (in the range of 25 to 34% per annum). This system put pressure on the filmmakers to finish the project in time. If star dates went awry, it played havoc with the economics of the project. And many a producer has been reduced to penury.
   In the last six years, the new economy of the motion picture business has undergone a sea change. With the consumer markets opening up and the national economy getting healthier, the entertainment sector found investors looking positively towards it. An encouraging response from the financial sector prompted motion picture firms like Adlabs and Mukta Arts to go for public issues. Other firms like PNC and UTV followed suit. Today, major film companies are listed ones with deep pockets. Adlabs Films Limited is a Rs 3,000 crore company, a size that no film company would have thought possible few years ago.
   Stars used to be remunerated in a surreptitious way. The era between the ’60s and ’90s saw stars opting for a substantial portion of their fee in cash. Today corporates insist on cheque payments only because they have to show their investors the balance sheet at the AGM. Also with listed companies, the balance sheet is a public document, and a consequence is that accounting ambiguities are not easily tolerated. TNN

Black magic boomerangs. White magic heals’

Black magic boomerangs. White magic heals’

UNDER THE SPELL OF SPIRITS

In this series, we cover unusual groups. This week, Ketan Tanna enters the world of white magic

She has a slight foreign accent. She looks like any other modern young woman and makes a material living from public relations.
   This year, on the second day of February, the group came together again on the day of Imbolc, an ancient pagan festival. Crystals, symbols, candles, enlarged tarot cards and the like were used to aid the 22 participants. The group meets like this on special days of supernatural importance. Through meditation and symbolic rituals, they believe that they can achieve their wishes. Some of them take the messages that emerge from such meetings to make career and health decisions.
   “A spell can be positive when one focuses attention and energy on a desired outcome. It could be the desire for a new job, a new relationship or
any other goal,” says Swati. The group is aware that most people will dismiss their activities as juvenile rubbish. But they argue that the world is entrapped in a myth called rationality.
   Rafique Pirani, a 47-year-old mathematics lecturer, insists that energy within the self is capable of achieving magical goals. The huge, lumbering man says that the use of black magic is more prevalent than accepted. He says it is a dark force that eventually boomerangs. He talks morosely about a woman who used it to attain the love of a man who did not care for her. It doesn’t work, he says, as well as white magic does. “Meditation techniques and crystal therapy can help you achieve your goals,” Rafique says.
   Sangeeta Krishnan, a 24-year-old postgraduate in Microbiology, says that superstition is a much maligned word even though most people believe in some form of divine power. She implies that any form of faith, like say in God, is not very different from faith in magic. “I’m not saying be superstitious but don’t dismiss this group outright.”
   The Magik Group, which has 79 members, meets on ferries and in homes and restaurants. Swati says that there is a steady stream of interested people. “There are relatively fewer members who are magic practitioners as compared to those who are interested in tarot and magic. Mostly, when magical events are organised, they are free for the public. I put the events in newspapers or online listings,” she says.
   The members are happy to narrate how white magic helped them. A woman who requested anonymity says that she agreed to a major surgery that her husband wanted to undergo after consulting tarot reading and following the guidance of the group. “The surgery was successful.” She is a Muslim and that, she says, is not an issue. “Muslims believe in the Djinn. Isn’t that supernatural?” she asks pointing out that religious beliefs too involve elements of magic. Rupal Gune, a 35-year-old mother who is wearing the Leo zodiac sign as bindi, says that a mark she has inscribed on her body — a pentacle in a circle — has saved her from major accidents. TNN
   One night last December, a ferry left the Gateway of India and sailed into the darkness in search of magic. It was the Yule night, the longest night of the year. Wiccans and Pagans, disciples of witchcraft and supernatural rituals, celebrate the Yule night as the birth of the sun. Twenty one people were on board. They were members of a society called the Magik Group.
   Very few in the group knew each other but that didn’t matter. They had assembled for a purpose far deeper than socialising. They meditated and created a collective “spell” to visualise what 2007 had in store for them. The sea was chosen, according to one of the members, “to connect with nature and bring out the deep truths that are hidden within the self”.
   There was no black magic on board but there was “white magic” (a positive spell, apparently). Giant tarot cards were strategically placed around the participants. Every card had a different symbol that conveyed different fates. The Wheel of Fortune, for instance, signified a new beginning. The World Card announced success and enlightenment. The participants then lost themselves in the trance of meditation through which each person conveyed what he or she expected from life. “It was a group spell to visualise goals for the coming year and to add focus to this goal, followed by an interactive session,” says Swati Prakash who founded this group in May, 2006. She is now sitting in Mocha café, with permed hair, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. She is wearing a pink crystal necklace (the crystal is to achieve love).

ABRACADABRA Members of the Magik Group meet on ferries, in homes and restaurants, on days of supernatural impo

HOLY COW

HOLY COW

The Longest Running Protest

For more than 25 years, every single day, a group of Gandhians has protested outside a slaughter house. Ketan Tanna reports

   Outside an abattoir in Mumbai, a truck arrives carrying cattle for slaughter. A bored police constable blocks the vehicle at the gates. And a group of austere men and women rush to the truck. They offer prayers and shout feeble slogans against animal slaughter. The constable “arrests” these volunteers and takes them to the Deonar police station (Sambhaji Nagar beat chowkie) where they are respectfully offered chairs. A record of the arrest is made in the police diary and the protesters are let off. In the meantime, the truck has entered the slaughter house. The fate of the cattle is unambiguous.
   This happens every day — the arrival of the truck, the stirring of the constable, the protest, the arrest and the honourable acquittal. And the transition of some less fortunate visitors into food. It has been going on every single day since January 11, 1982 when Vinoba Bhave first gave a call to his fellow Gandhians to protest against the slaughter of cattle. It is possibly the longest running demonstration in the world. Neither the ’93 riots nor the consequent serial blasts, not even the 2005 deluge, have given the abattoir any respite.
   The endurance of this protest has in fact lent it signs of permanence. Outside one of the many gates of the
slaughter house is a small modest hut with two wooden benches. At any given time in the day or night there are a few Gandhians keeping vigil. The perfunctory constable too makes use of the benches. The hut has a few sign boards that talk of Bhave’s philosophy towards animals and the levels of the Sarvodaya movement.
   The abattoir is in the grey deprivations of Deonar, a dingy working class area in north east Mumbai with narrow by-lanes that are chiefly inhabited by butchers. When it all began, the butchers were enraged by the protests and afraid that their livelihood will be threatened. At the height of hostility, they had even burnt down the hut. But now, they are friendly with the Gandhians, reassured of their symbolic value. But now there is warmth and understanding between the two camps. In fact, it was the butchers who had guided this reporter to the hut. “They have never harmed us,” says Mohammed Hamid, a butcher. “They believe in their cause. On the other hand, we have to feed our family. We co-exist peacefully.”
   Deonar police station constables take pride in the fact that the Gandhians have never resorted to violence. “We treat them with respect. We have provided two constables who work round the clock in twelve hours shift. Their main duty is to ensure that there is no disruption when the bulls are taken inside the abattoir for slaughter. The Gandhians have never been disruptive and have always protested peacefully for the last 25 years,” says a constable.
   Though this peace is largely due to the fact that the slaughter has continued unabated, the Gandhians believe that one day they will be successful. “Change always takes long and you must remember even our independence took many years to come,” says 47-year-old Suchitra
Jhade, a volunteer for the last 15 years of the Gauraksha Satyagrah Sanchalan Samiti (GSSS) which organises this protest. The GSSS is a part of the Sarvodaya movement. Another volunteer, 39-year-old Kishore Kumar is on a three-month sabbatical from Vinoba Bhave’s Paunar ashram. The protest fuels itself like this by summoning volunteers from across the country. In fact, while the number of Gandhians outside the abattoir has dwindled with time, a far greater depletion is in the number of cattle. The slaughter industry is losing steam faster than the protest.
   “Earlier, the abattoir used to get nearly 3,000 bulls every month. Now the number has dwindled to less than 1,000,” a police constable says. “Bulls are more costly now. A pair of healthy bulls which used to cost Rs 8,000 today costs Rs 15,000. Even farmers are unable to afford the bulls. Also, the government has banned the slaughter of bulls that are less than 15 years old. All this has affected the trade,” adds Kishore Kumar.
   Over the years, the number of Gandhians outside the slaughter house has reduced from 300 to just a handful. Many of the original protesters are in their 60s and 70s. While new volunteers still join the movement from different parts of the country, their numbers are not encouraging. But those who do join exhibit astonishing levels of passion and commitment.
   Volunteers who come from different towns live frugally in the Sarvodaya Hospital premises in Ghatkopar. Suchitra Jhade, one of the most dedicated volunteers behind the sustenance of the protest, too lives there. She is in a simple cotton sari and when she is not protesting she is usually with the Gita. Her recent marriage to fellow Gandhian, 65-year-old Sudhakar Jhade, has not affected her involvement in this long relentless
protest. Both of them live in the Sarvodaya Hospital and eat from the community kitchen.
   “We believe that one day we will win. One day people will see reason. It is not as if we have idealistic expectations or that we are we living in a delusional world,” she says. TNN

GANDHIGIRI Kishore Kumar and Suchitra Jhade say prayers at the gates of the Deonar abattoir

PLEASE ADJUST

PLEASE ADJUST

Longest Indian Waits

Ketan Tanna on how we are a nation that has got used to standing in eternal queues

   Apart from the dark blue passport, the endorsement of Indian citizenship comes from the inescapable anthem — You Are In Queue. Indians are so many and human activities so few that most ventures in this country consign you to the dreaded waiting line. This is the story of some poignant Indian waits.

School Admission    

In urban India, the birth of a child drives parents to the best schools to register their ward for admissions that are four to five years away. Meera Isaacs, Principal of Mumbai’s The Cathedral & John Connon School, says, “Yes, we are taking applications from the parents of a year-old child so that he or she can join the kindergarten when the child is five years old. We stop taking applications when the number of registrations reaches 500. Unlike other schools, we do not want parents to line up overnight outside schools or stand in a long queue.”
   In Ahmedabad, Manish Mehta has been waiting for two years to get his son admitted into the Delhi Public School (DPS). The boy is now in the eighth standard in a local school and he has been looking forward to a better school since he passed the sixth. He has been taking the entrance tests and interviews for DPS but has been unlucky. The school turns away at least five students a day at the peak of the admissions season.

Club Membership    

Even if one is willing to pay huge amounts for the membership of an elite club, the waiting period runs into several years. That is if there is a benevolent waiting period in the first place. Bombay Gymkhana, for instance, has stopped accepting applications for the life, permanent and ordinary memberships. Corporate memberships are open though. A manager at the Gymkhana, who did not want to be identified, said that life membership was last opened in 1998 and closed within a couple of months. According to him, ordinary memberships had opened in 1979-80 and every time memberships open, there are thousands who want to get in.
   The Delhi Gymkhana has a waiting list that runs into several years while getting a membership in the India Habitat Centre too can take more than a decade. The Karnavati Club in Ahmedabad started with a membership fee of Rs 5,000 for ordinary members which then went up to a lakh about five years ago. Now the figure is Rs 7 lakh but there are so many on the waiting list that the club has stopped taking in new members.

Justice, of course    

As of February 2006, 33,635 cases were pending in the Supreme Court, 3.34 lakh cases in high courts, and 2.5 crore cases in subordinate courts. The Bombay bomb blasts trial that went on for 14 years is among the faster cases. It is not uncommon for justice in this land to take decades.
   Thousands of farmers were forced to give up their land in Akola, Vidarbha, so that the government could establish the Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth in 1969-70. In return, the government had promised a government job to a member of every family whose land had been acquired. Some 38 years later, the farmers are still fighting for what was promised to them.

Trademark    

People who have applied for the grant of trademarks over a decade ago are still in wait. A lawyer who did not want to named said that one of the trademarks he applied for took 18 years to come, and another took 11. In 2004, he says, there were around 2,50,000 pending trademark applications. On an average it takes anywhere between 18 to 36 months for a trademark to be granted. The average for some categories of trademark is close to four years.

Salvation    

Even if one were to get fed up of the materialistic world and hope to seek salvation, there is a waiting period. At the Tirupathi temple, between mid-April and mid-May this year, the temple saw 22 lakh pilgrims, a 30% increase over the same period last year. On some days, over 80,000 have thronged the temple. As a consequence, the waiting period for an economical Rs 50 darshan of Lord Venkateswara stretches to close to three days.
   If you decide today to do the Rs 50,000 Udayastamana pooja at the Guruvayurappan temple in Kerala, you will be able to do it only after 2050. “We are not accepting any new applications. The new managing committee will take a decision about the next round of applications,” says a temple official. A few years ago, when the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, wanted to give a baby elephant as an offering to the temple following an election victory, she was told that she would have to wait for 38 years.

Art Galleries    

If you apply today, the earliest you can hold an exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery is in 2012. The gallery’s secretary, Mrs K G Menon says that it can play host to only four artists in a week. “Every year, we get 1000 applications and I can accommodate only 250.” The gallery has acquired two new places on the first floor and the waiting list is expected to come down. The mushrooming of private galleries has helped ease the pressure on Jehangir but even private galleries these days are beginning to have a long waiting period. TNN
   (With inputs from Vasundhara
   Vyas in Ahmedabad and Abhinav
   Bindra from New Delhi)

PROPHETS OF FREE SOFTWARE

PROPHETS OF FREE SOFTWARE

In this series, we cover unusual groups. This week, Ketan Tanna profiles a movement unleashed by a legendary hacker

   They are not idealists. They are fighting for a cause because, among other reasons, they are making a living out of it. These are India’s free software warriors who want to extricate people from the hold of Microsoft and other proprietary software, and in the process spread a whole new economy. They are the ambassadors of a global revolution that they call, ‘swatantara software’, an operating system that can be freely downloaded to any network. It tries to eliminate the enormous expense involved in buying and maintaining software. And like the human body, it heals itself from the inside. But free software does not exactly mean free. Innovatively modified versions of the software are sold to those who are interested but these versions can be further modified by others. In fact, that’s how free software grows and improves itself. And that’s how it has become much more difficult for hackers to crack than the Windows.
   On a rainy morning, five supporters of the Free Software Foundation of India (FSF India) have gathered in a small room in the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) in suburban Mumbai. Meena Kharatmal, a thirty-threeyear old graduate in marine science and a scientific officer with HBCSE plays host. She had no clue what free and proprietary software were all about till she met Dr G Nagarjuna, chairperson of FSF India. Nagarjuna too does not have a formal background in software but was slowly drawn into the open software movement heralded by legendary programmer and Robin-Hoodlike hacker, Richard Stallman who started a project called GNU (GNU is a curious acronym that stands for GNU’s Not Unix), and Linus Torvalds who created a revolutionary operating system called Linux.
   The free software movement, which is often wrongly called Linux to Stallman’s overt irritation instead of GNU/Linux, tries to resolve the problem of not just the huge cost involved in installing software but also the issue of incompatibility between various software and hardware brands. The movement has millions of passionate followers and in India there are several groups like FSF which try to promote the idea of free software. An increasing number of corporates and government offices are shifting to GNULinux.
   Besides passionately discussing the future of the movement in online forums and in the tangible world, the 200 members of FSF India also promote the idea through seminars and other forms of interactions with corporates and individuals. They are sustained by donations and sponsorships from leading companies including IBM, Cisco and Intel.
   Twenty-five-year-old Vihan Pandey, with his flowing beard and thick mustache, is one of the most striking members of the group. In fact, from some angles, he faintly resembles Richard Stallman. He looks like a free spirit who has emerged from the Jehangir Art Gallery and that, in a way, is the inner personalities of most people who are associated with the free software movement.
   Pandey works as a GNU/Linux consultant with an online travel company and there is an unmistakable force in the way he talks that makes others listen. “I don’t think you can classify Microsoft as capitalists and free software guys as socialists or communists,” he says targeting a common perception. “The main point is not to let others make choices for you. You do what you want to do. If you really want to classify this movement call it the human way of life. Inherently, a human wants to help others. This movement is all about helping one another and letting talent bloom across countries. The free software world is in fact the best of capitalism and socialism,” he says.
   According to him the future of free software is in hand-held devices. Many cell phones already use GNU/Linux. While the spread of the revolution has been slow, he says, the future is increasingly looking bright. Companies like IBM, Oracle and Hewlett-Packard are asking an increasing number of their engineers to work with the open source as they find it more secure. The GNU/Linux server growth was 5.4% last year and the revenue generated through sale of customised versions was $1.5 billion for the quarter ending November 2006.
   Across India, there are many groups in big cities and small towns that have come together for the purpose of developing free software. There are over 60 active online groups that disseminate free software information. There are also scores of GNU/Linux Yahoo groups. One of them with 400 members is called ‘Linuxvadapav’.
   Research firm IDC (International Data Corporation) which tracks server shipments says that in India, GNU/Linux had a market share of 19.3% in 2005, 21.1% in 2006 and is expected to grow by 25.7% in 2010. Among the majors who have gone for GNU/Linux based applications in India are LIC, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, UTI bank, Kaun Banega Crorepati SMS system and various Airtel applications. The state governments of Kerala and West Bengal too have adopted
GNU/Linux to cut costs. TNN

FREE BIRDS These members meet online and in the real world to promote the use of free software

DESPERADO

DESPERADO

We are closed right now….

Mumbai’s mental health helplines don’t work at night. But, says Ketan Tanna, episodes don’t only occur during office hours

I A few weeks ago, late in the evening, 15-year-old Rohit doused himself in kerosene. He had been suffering from depression for a while. His parents were in the process of splitting and his grades in school had fallen. In desperation, his mother called Saifi Hospital. The hospital’s ambulance, dedicated to cases of mental breakdown or trauma, sped to their home in Worli. A junior psychiatrist, a counsellor and a ward boy managed to sedate Rohit and take him to hospital. He is still in hospital, but could have suffered a fate far worse. He was but a matchstick away from death.
I Shilpa, 24, could not cope with the fact that her widowed mother wanted to remarry. In a rage, she threatened to burn her mother and burn down their house. Her mother called the Saifi ambulance. Shilpa was sedated and this helped tide over the crisis.
   At any given time, one per cent of the population suffers from a serious mental disorder and anywhere between 5 to 10 per cent suffer from minor mental problems. But the state heath infrastructure in Mumbai, a city which breeds stress like mosquitoes, is woefully inadequate to handle the problem. The three civic hospitals have 11 trained psychiatrists between them; there are nine trained psychiatrists in eight other peripheral Mumbai hospitals, and private psychiatrists number 250.
   Mumbai has over 15 million people, and every family faces crisis situations at some time or another. Some families are rich enough to go to a private counsellor whose fees go up to as much as Rs 1000 per session. But not everyone has this kind of
   money. More often than not, helpless families have no clue about what to do and whom to turn to when plates are smashed and a son or daughter suddenly grabs a knife and spirals out of control. And if the episode happens in the late evening or at night, it is nothing short of a nightmare. Frantic calls are made to the family doctor, who despite having the advantage of knowing his patient’s problems, is not the right person to deal with situations of violence or suicide.
   Another crucial support system that unhooks in the night is the helpline—that distant but intimate ear into which the city pours its stories of rejection, abuse and failure. Most of Mumbai’s helplines call it a day at around 10 pm. Pravin Mahendra of the Samaritan helpline says that a dedicated mental health helpline run by the state could be of enormous help. There have been cases when callers have slit their wrists, panicked, and then dialled the helpline; the volunteer at the other end then calmly tells the caller that it is not too late, and asks if he can inform the hospital or police. Lives have been saved by this crucial intervention, which by night is rarely available.
   Akila Maheshwari, convener of NAMI India, an NGO working in mental health care, says that while Mumbai does have an emergency mental health care system, it is insufficient. She points our that there is just a single dedicated mental health care ambulance run by Saifi. At a basic of Rs 1000 per visit, the ambulance does not come cheap, and if the patient lives on the outskirts, in Mira Road or Navi Mumbai, costs mount.
   But Dr Y M Matcheswalla, assistant professor (psychiatry department) at the JJ hospital, says that with growing awareness things are improving. “Around 20 to 25 hospitals in the private and public sector have dedicated psychiatry personnel available even at odd hours. In Mumbai, if a person cannot afford treatment at a private hospital, he or she can always go to JJ or GT hospital. The best way to tackle a mental health crisis or a breakdown in the night is by approaching the casualty department of these hospitals,” he says.
   Mental health professionals advise that if a family member has a violent episode or threatens bodily harm to himself or another family member, the first thing to do is summon an ambulance or even the police if no medical help is at hand. Calling the cops may sound bizarre, but there have been cases where on police intervention, the patient has been sedated and the situation brought under control. TNN

Outstation cancer patients can put up here for free

Outstation cancer patients can put up here for free

Ketan Tanna meets the man who has put his spare flat to good use

Mumbai: Cancer is a cruel and expensive disease. It drains you physically and exhausts you financially. And for the thousands of families who travel to Mumbai for treatment, one of the most challenging hurdles is to find a cheap and safe place to stay while the patient is being treated. Which is why a threebedroom flat in Kandivli is like an answer to a prayer.
   A few years ago, businessman Suresh Agarwal, 47, realised that accommodation for outstation families was a crying need. For the last two years, his spare flat in Kandivli’s Lokhandwala area has been hosting cancer patients and their relatives who have not been able to get accommodation at Tata Memorial Hospital or Hinduja Hospital.
   On an average, four patients are allowed to stay in the flat for up to three months. The flat is furnished and has a proper kitchen where the patients or their family members can cook as well.The lodging is free, and all that is needed is a letter from the doctor treating the patient. So far, 45 patients have used this generous facility.
   It’s not just free boarding that Agarwal provides. Last week, he organised a musical show called Amit Kumar Night that raised Rs 35 lakh for Hinduja Hospital. Around two years ago, another musical event called the Vinod Rathod Night had raised Rs 15 lakh for the hospital.
   Agarwal, who runs a plastic factory in Daman, knows too well the havoc cancer can cause to family life. His younger brother Sushil, now 45, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1987. His brother-in-law, too, developed lung cancer in 1992 and later the wife of his brother-in-law was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
   What followed were almost daily visits to Hinduja where he became friends with the doctors and the management of the hospital. Even after his brother and relatives recovered, Agarwal continued to visit the hospital. On one such round, he noticed a frail person sobbing in the waiting area. He found out that the man’s treatment had been stopped midway as he was unable to pay.
   It was then that Agarwal decided that he had to do something. After consulting the management, Agarwal decided to create a corpus so that each time there was a needy patient, the corpus could be used. It has helped many patients.
   The Agarwal family has its roots in Assam. Soon after Sushil was treated successfully, they started getting requests for help from cancer patients from that state. “An empty flat near my home spurred me into offering it free to needy cancer patients,’’ says Agarwal.
   Dr Asha Kapadia, head of the oncology department at Hinduja Hospital, says, “I wish we had more people like him.’’ Suresh Agarwal can be contacted on 98200 65184.
   ketan.tanna@timesgroup.com

WARM WELCOME: More than 40 patients have so far used the accommodation facility offered by Suresh Agarwal

BLIMEY! SNAKES AREN’T SLIMY

BLIMEY! SNAKES AREN’T SLIMY

In this weekly series, we cover unusual groups. This week, Ketan Tanna profiles the naturalist tribe which thinks creepy crawlies are more evolved than human beings

   Call them nuts, freaks or plain barking. It doesn’t affect them. By now they are used to being pointed out at family weddings as the “kutta-billi lovers’’, the “Maneka Gandhi chelas’’ and so on. For them, the slithery, feathery world of lizards, snakes, frogs and owls is far more fascinating than the banal one of human beings with their EMIs and monogamy. The dull, cold touch of a snake does not repel. A frog is a potential Ph.D, an earthworm a fund of ecstasy, and an owl no ill omen but an object of solemn affection. This dedicated band of researchers and scientists at the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) is perfectly happy tramping through a bog or crouching for hours beneath a dripping tree in a dark forest waiting for a brand new species to swim into their ken.
   For six years, until recently, Navi Mumbai resident Shubhalaxmi spent her nights in the heart of darkness at the Borivli National Park, spread over 9,000 green hectares. Rainy nights were particularly looked forward to. With the help of a lone assistant, she would drape a net over a tree or between two trees, light up the area with a generator and wait patiently for the moths to start flocking to the net. Some nights, the moths came in droves, on others, such as during the summer, the attendance was thin. Irrespective, Shubhalaxmi enjoyed every single nocturnal date with the wilderness.
   Fondly called “Purgul Atta” (Insect Auntie in Telugu) by her nephew, the 37-year-old moth-lover grew up in perfectly ordinary surroundings in Sion, with a storekeeper father and housewife mother. Despite rebukes from the latter—“Why don’t you get a clean job? Be a teacher or work in a bank?’’—she pursued her passion by joining the BNHS and now works as manager of the Goregaon centre. She specialises in the Hawk and Emperor Moths—very little research has been done on moths in post-Independence India—and has managed so far to document 33 species of the Hawk Moth and three species of the Emperor Moth.
   Moths were a mystifying enough flame to be attracted to but Varad B Giri had an even harder time convincing his family that reptiles and frogs were worthy subjects of study. Giri grew up in Ankali village near Belgaum and did his BSc in
chemistry from Karad. So far so good. His priest father hoped that his academically inclined son would be a teacher. Then came the shocker: his son loved lizards and reptiles and was happier rooting in the forest than in the schoolroom. Over the years, Giri has caught hundreds of snakes for research and been routinely bitten for his efforts.
   He says, quite calmly, that he has no objection to being labelled ‘loony’ because “to be passionate about something one has to be mad’’. The highlight of his career was the discovery of three new species—a rare variety of frog and two caecilians (amphibia that resemble earthworms or snakes but unlike worms have jaws, teeth and sometimes scales, a remnant of their piscean past). “When people talk of legless amphibia in the future they will refer to our team. Our names will be immortalised in a way,’’ says Giri proudly, sitting at the Society’s headquarters at Hornbill House, in a room walled with glass jars of pickled lizards, snakes and a variety of suspended bio-diversity fit for the foulest witches’ brew. Founded in 1883 by the British who were overwhelmed by the tropical riches India had to offer, the BNHS is one of South Asia’s largest NGOs with over 5,000 members.
   A floor above the coiled glass cages sits Asad R Rahmani, BNHS director. The 57-year-old is a name to reckon with in the world of Indian Bustards (a large, brown-and-white bird that lives in arid and semi-arid grasslands and is associated with dry open country). Rahmani’s father, a district judge in Uttar Pradesh, was keen that his son, who boasted a 96% intermediate score, should be a doctor or an engineer. Rahmani’s dreams were otherwise feathered and not only did he go on to study ornithology but chose to specialise in a bird with a name that sounds like a racist cuss word. He has written several books and articles and spends two weeks every month on the road criss-crossing the country. “Eventually,’’ he grins, “my father came around and the relatives who were kept in the dark about my career, were told what I was doing.’’
   But Rahmani is a bachelor without the daily cares of tuition and childcare. When Girish Jathar, 29, decided to propose to Janhavi, a young doctor, he had to admit that neither did he have much of a bank balance nor was he likely to suddenly lay a nest egg. Considering that he wanted to devote his days to the study of the endangered Indian Owlet, money and fame were hardly likely to be fellow travellers. Luckily for him, Janhavi agreed to be one. For three years, Jathar has spent the better part of his day in the dry heat of the Toranmal Forest Reserve near Nandurbar, where the temperature often kisses 48 degrees, studying this small, stocky bird with heavily banded wings. “What was really interesting was the forest owlet,” he says. “They are just like humans. When the female delivers, it is the male who brings the feed and provides for the little ones till they grow up and can hunt on their own.”
   Fuelled by similar passion, Deepak Apte took off on an all-India tour to study shells when he was just 16. Now 41, Apte has devoted his life to the study of sea shells and has been with the BNHS since 1994. Although he didn’t grow up on the coast, he responded to the pull of sea even as a boy. The highlight of his vacations at an uncle’s house in Alibaug was accompanying the fishermen on their trips to sea. His all-India tour started from Okha in Gujarat (where the sea starts) and ended at Kanyakumari. He took copious notes along the way and finally published a book on shells.
   When Isaac Kehimkar, a local Mumbai boy and son of an RBI officer decided to become a volunteer with BNHS in 1978, all he knew was that he loved butterflies. He has progressed from assistant librarian to author of several books to a senior position in the organisation. His elder son, Sameer, has inherited his love of nature, but Kehimkar, now 50, insists that the boy continue with his parttime job as graphic designer. “That way he can earn a little bit and be a part-time nature conservator,’’ he says.
   Sameer, 24, couldn’t agree more. “I have seen the difficulties others have had to face. Ashok Captain (an authority on reptiles) had to sell his scooter, his house and finally his marriage broke down. Even to fund your field work you need money—good batteries cost thousands of rupees. Hard work and low cash don’t go. It is better to have
this as a part time hobby,” he laughs. TNN

OF THE SAME FEATHER The Bombay Natural History Society is one of Aisa’s largest naturalist groups

Are You In Your Right Mind?

Are You In Your Right Mind?

Indians are known to be strong on analytical thinking and arithmetic reasoning—skills associated with the Left Brain. But in today’s creativity-driven world, is the Left Brain enough, asks Ketan Tanna

   In June 2005, General Motors vice-chairman Bob Lutz, while speaking at a shareholder meeting, said his company could not be managed just by the left, analytical side of the brain. “You have to have a lot of right side, creative input. We are in the arts and entertainment business, and we’re putting a huge emphasis on world-class design,” he said. Lutz, in his wisdom, was reflecting on a shift in the way this world is being run. In mature economies, the glory of jobs tied to analytical reasoning is being surpassed by creative enterprises. A whole gamut of professions that Hollywood, gaming and animation have unleashed are eclipsing traditionally profitable fields like code writing, law, management and accountancy. The Right Brain is emerging.
   Research has shown that the two different hemispheres of the brain are responsible for different faculties. The Right Brain is credited with, among other thing, creativity, intuition and the ability to look at the whole picture while the Left Brain is responsible for problem solving, logical reasoning, rationality and the ability to look efficiently at parts of the whole. Intelligence today is widely accepted as a virtue that involves a good balance between the functions of the two hemispheres.
   India’s analytical skills, chiefly a left brain business, are today fetching its engineers and bankers considerable sums. This has influenced the youth of this country to focus their resources on mastering quantitative ability. There is a huge coaching industry worth several hundred crores that is adept at transforming students into entrance-exam crackers.
   Infosys Technologies senior vice-president and group head Hema Ravichandar says the Indian education system encourages individuals to conform, not challenge; to learn by rote rather than be original. This, she says, limits lateral thinking and creativity, a function of the right brain that people like GM’s Lutz believe will drive the economy of the future.
   “Even in industries fuelled by strong left brain skills, I have seen the importance of right brain thinking,” Ravichandar says.
   MindTree Consulting Chief Operating Officer, Subroto Bagchi, says India cannot be called a left-brain nation only because of the success of the IT industry. “The IT industry is only three decades old. Agriclture in India has a history of over 3000 years. If we study the history of our civilisation, it had a holistic approach to understanding and using the power of thinking. When we created zero, it was a deeply profound act. It was not about bean counting and algorith chanting. It was a philosophical act that encompassed the entire consciousness of the mind.”
   Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, is reshaping his entire MBA program around the principle that business people will have to become more masters of innovative solutions than ‘managers of algorithms’. “Design skills and business skills are converging,” he said in the school’s alumni publication.
   What does all of this mean to India? According to a recent analysis done by Business Week magazine, gusts of comparative advantage (which a country such as India has had so far) are blowing away only certain kinds of whitecollar jobs — those that can be reduced to a set of rules, routines and instructions.
   That’s why narrow left-brain work such as basic computer coding, accounting, legal research, and financial analysis is migrating across the oceans to India. The study says, “If the Industrial Age was built on people’s backs and the Information Age on people’s left hemispheres, the Conceptual Age is being built on people’s right hemispheres.”
   Technologies are proving they can outperform the left brain. They can execute sequential, computational work better, faster and more accurately than even those with the highest IQs. Stockbrokers, lawyers, financial agents all are feeling the heat of automation. It is not fantastical to imagine a day when certain types of left brain jobs need not be outsourced to India because they can be automated. Paradoxically, the left brain can create machines and software that can do the left brain’s jobs.
Drawing on his visits to Indian software firms as well as his own two-year study, writer Daniel Pink who has also authored best selling book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age explains that the present world operates on a much more emotional, creative level where designers have been empowered to express themselves.
“Doctors. Lawyers. Engineers. That’s what our parents told us to be when we grew up. But were Mom and Dad right?” Pink says, “Actually, the future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind, people like artists, inventors, storytellers, caregivers. These rightbrained people are the next business elite—the women and men who will power your organisation.”
According to Pink, there are three questions that would one would need to ask one in the future: Can someone overseas do it cheaper? Can a computer do it better? And finally, am I offering something that satisfies the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age? This then would determine the future of the fight between the left and the right brain. As India pushes ahead to occupy its slot of world’s third largest economy in the next two decades, the management world is grappling to address the issue of which jobs would survive and which would be history.
   A ceaselessly innovative world is known to suddenly abolish or shrink jobs that appeared to have great prospects. In the 1980s, America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) forecast lots of jobs for data entry clerks. But suddenly, the PC became so cheap and popular that top-end executives were doing ‘data entry’ themselves, endangering the data entry clerk. “Ten years from now, I fully expect lots of people to be working in professions none of us have heard of today,” Pink says.
   Bagchi of MindTree Consulting feels likewise. “No job will maintain currency beyond 10 years. Some will go in less time than that. At highest risk will be people who intermediate between any two processes. All forms of intermediation are at risk,” says Bagchi.
   No matter what those jobs will be, it is fairly evident that in the future the Left Brain will be exposed for what it is—half a mind. TNN

How Things Work

How Things Work

Mangal Pandey economics

The Rising has divided the Hindi film industry. While some claim that the film is a superhit, others say that barring the first four days — August 12 to 15 — the movie has performed badly. While both producer Bobby Bedi and distributor Yash Raj Films are upbeat about the film’s prospects, some trade analysts and even theatre owners rubbish the collection figures, pointing out half-empty multiplexes in the metros. Ketan Tanna reports that at the moment, the jury’s out. Informed opinion is that the future of the film depends on multiplexes.

Spiral Binding

Spiral Binding

An increasing number of suspicious fathers are openly or secretly performing tests on their children to ascertain who the dad is. Ketan Tanna unravels a new Indian experiment that Lord Ram had once done differently

   Amoment that most men fear. Even married men. The unemotional announcement of the woman, “I think I am pregnant”. But there are men who see a long plot when they hear it. Like the 29-year-old resident of Hyderabad who could not believe that after five years of failed efforts to make an issue, his wife could be suddenly carrying his child.
   His sperm count was low, doctors had told him that. He doubted his role in his wife’s pregnancy. After six months of sleepless nights during which he searched for peace on Google, he discovered that the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad could conduct a paternity test and solve the mystery for him.
   To the officials of that facility, he mumbled clumsily, “I do not think the baby is mine.” They said that he should wait after the child has been delivered and return with the issue’s blood samples. When the baby turned three months old, the mother, aware of her husband’s suspicions by now, agreed to let her child’s blood prove her innocence. The tests absolved her. Happy ending, by the standards of some marriages.
   Today, there are several men and their curious parents who are overtly and covertly seeking the assistance of this science from a handful of forensic and private laboratories in the country.
   Suspected infidelity is not always the only provocation.
   Some fear baby swap, not an uncommon occurrence in Indian hospitals. Also, there are valid fears that fertility clinics, after having failed to help a woman conceive, inseminate her with a frozen sperm to appear successful.
   To the hundreds haunted by such fears, a paternity test that costs anywhere from Rs 3,000 to several thousands, depending on the lab and the number of tests, is bringing peace of mind or the peace of a shocking conclusion.
   The test compares a child’s DNA pattern with the alleged father’s. Since we all inherit our genetic material from both our parents, these tests are comprehensive if done well.
   Saliva, hair, blood and other body components contain unmistakable imprints of our true parentage. For effective tests, labs demand that both parents give their samples along with the child’s. For instance, Hyderabad’s CCMB insists that samples come from both man and wife. And parents are only eager to participate if the intention of the tests is not to nail cheating but clear fears of baby swap. “Do you know that one out of every 1,000 infant transfers in the hospitals is a mistake?” claims the weighty literature at Hiranandani Hospital at Powai in Mumbai. The institute, needless to add, offers paternity testing service. For Rs 11,000.
   The hospital website especially asks parents who conceive after infertility treatment, artificial insemination and assisted reproduction to go for tests to rule out the “possibility of intentional or unintentional mix-ups”.
   Private labs like Hiranandani do not have the resources and legal sanctions that government forensic labs have to actually perform the tests. They collect saliva samples of both the parents and the child on cotton swabs, which are then dried and sent in an air-tight pouch to Chicago in the US of A. Results are normally available after an agonising wait of two to three weeks. But they have been getting brisk inquires.
   While such tests bring relief or pain to the family, they do not have a legal standing yet. In 1993, when DNA testing was not prevalent and simple blood grouping tests instead were the norm to ascertain paternity, a landmark judgment was passed by the Supreme Court.
   The child maintenance case involved one Goutam Kundu who disputed that he was the father. His wife had gone home to give her higher secondary exams, during which period she claimed she was pregnant. Kundu questioned the paternity of the child and asked her to abort. She refused.
   The couple separated but the wife demanded child maintenance from her estranged husband.
   To counter this claim, Kundu asked for a blood grouping test to support his claim that his wife had not delivered his child. But Justices A M Ahmadi and S Mohan ruled that since the purpose of his application was to avoid paying maintenance, the request cannot be accepted.
   They also quoted a section of the Evidence Act of 1872 that naively states that “if a person was born during the continuance of a valid marriage between his mother and any other man or within 280 days after its dissolution and the mother remains unmarried, it shall be taken as a conclusive proof that he is the legitimate son of that man, unless it can be shown that the parties to the marriage had no access to each other at any time when the child could have been begotten.”
   Ten years later, in 2003, by which time DNA testing had permeated the society, the Supreme Court took a different view in the Sharda Vs Dharmpal divorce case.
   It said that a Family Court had the power to order a person to undergo medical test, the nature of which was not specified, but an interpretation includes DNA paternity test.
   The fact that the results of DNA testing can be a weapon in court and would inevitably drag doctors to the witness box, is a reason why some medical practitioners avoid being associated with such tests, though it’s good business. “We are doctors. We cannot run every other day from clinic to court,” says Dr Hema Purandare of the Centre for Genetic Health. Interestingly, she points out, many requests for tests come from the lower middle to poor classes, who somehow manage to gather money for the tests.
   A bulk of DNA paternity tests is being handled by the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) in Hyderabad, an autonomous organisation funded by the department of biotechnology, ministry of science and technology. In the past three years, the institute has handled over 1,000 paternity cases.
   CDFD handles requests from government bodies and legal authorities across India. Dr J Gaurishankar, director-incharge, informs that CDFD has handled nearly 1,000 paternity-related cases in the past three years.

THOUGHT CONTROL

THOUGHT CONTROL

The BOOK banwagon

Two weeks ago the United States had a Banned Books Week. Ketan Tanna looks back at India’s long and glorious tradition of banning anything perceived to hurt religious, patriotic and other sentiments

   DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was published in Italy in 1928 and in Paris the following year. However, it was banned in the UK until 1960. Lady Chatterley’s erotic affair with the family gamekeeper would have been tame fare today, but it set off a storm of outrage then. In 1960, the book’s publisher, Penguin, sent 12 copies to the UK Director of Public Prosecutions challenging him to prosecute, which he did. The six-day trial at the Old Bailey gripped the nation. The defence produced 35 witnesses, including Dame Rebecca West and E M Forster. The prosecution was unable to make a substantial case, and the ban was lifted. Within a year, two million copies were sold, outselling even the Bible. Fortyfive years later, the book continues to be banned in India although it is freely available.
   The Indian government has been quick to ban books that it feels will hurt religious sentiment, threaten national security, or upset the holy cows in the political pantheon. The censors are particularly thinskinned when it comes to literature on government bungling. The British in India had no compunctions about banning what they called ‘seditious’ literature—Premchand was a target—and the government of independent India has followed suit. Books have been banned for saying unflattering things about Pandit Nehru and Shivaji (James Laine’s Hindu King in Islamic India), or offering an alternative perspective on Gandhi’s assassination (Stanley Wolpert’s Nine Hours To Rama). “Hurting religious sentiments’’ though is the clear winner. Dom Moraes’ Bombay was banned because it had a picture of the Tower of Silence.
The heat and dust generated while a book is banned is in stark contrast to the aftermath. In most cases, the Centre, and even the state governments, couldn’t be bothered about whether the ban is implemented.
Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was banned by the Centre, the Bengal government banned Taslima Nasreen’s Dwikhandito. Once the Centre takes a decision, it is for the state governments to implement, says J P S Verma, deputy home secretary, internal security, ministry of home affairs.
   Verma says the Union home ministry does not enforce the ban, nor does it maintain a list of banned books. The list is with the customs department. Customs officers at various airports and ports are the guardians of our morality as they are the ones who can impound a banned book that dares to land on pure Indian soil.
   If the book has been published in India itself, it’s a different matter altogether. Once the politicians have finished with burning the book (The Moor’s Last Sigh), few care about whether the ban is implemented. “I started the Strand Book store on November 20, 1949. So far, no government official or policeman has ever contacted me to say that so and so book has been banned and that I should not be stocking a particular book. For that matter, nobody has ever searched my shop for a banned book,’’ says T N Shanbhag, owner of the Strand Book Stall in Mumbai.
   Invariably, controversy and bans help sales. In September 2005, the Calcutta High Court lifted the ban on Dwikhandito, which promptly sold out within a couple of days. “Whenever anything is banned, more people take to it. The government has never been serious about banning. The intention behind any ban is always political,’’ says acclaimed playwright Vijay Tendulkar.
   There have also been books that have not been officially banned but have nevertheless disappeared from public reach due to machinations of political parties or motivated business groups.
   The good news is that in the last few years, the Centre and the state governments have been less zealous in playing watchdog. The sudden season of tolerance (indifference?) is a welcome change given the long and winding list of banned books in India.

Stingy Bodies

Stingy Bodies

Why we keep our organs

The belief that organs will come in handy during afterlife is one of the many reasons why Indians are the worst body donors, says Ketan Tanna

   Shiva in his famous fury beheaded son Ganesha and then replaced his human head with an elephant’s, in what was perhaps the first recorded case of organ transplant in India. But that was another time. Organ transplants in India have since become a bit difficult. There are simply not enough donors. For every 20 million Indians, only one donates his body for its organs to be embedded in a living needy. In Spain, 640 in every 20 million donate their bodies.
   It is not merely lack of awareness that has made India parsimonious about donating its organs. In a country where the custom of hanging lemonchillies outside the door to ward off evil draws respect, organ donation is naturally seen as being unfair to the soul. Most Hindus continue to believe that if they lose the body,
they will need rebirth. More
imaginative sects say that by
donating an organ one will
be reborn without it.
   Muslims too have an opinion on the matter. “The body is a property of the Allah,” says Maulana Mehmood Dariyabadi, general secretary of the All India Ulema Council. He however doesn’t write it off completely. “Exceptions can be made if a person is in dire need of an organ.” Well, a man in need or an organ is usually in a dire need of the organ.
   Christians, usually associated as a progressive society, is not untouched either. Father Anthony Charanghat, editor of The Examiner and a respected name in the Christian community, says that although Christians are not allowed to mutilate their bodies, organ donation is not forbidden, provided the person is brain “stem dead,” a stage when all body functions cease permanently.
With or without the excuses of religious dogma, this is a nation that is clearly fearful of letting go of its bodies. In the past ten years, India had just 963 organ transplants: 850 kidneys, 50 hearts and 60 livers, two pancreas and one lung. In that period just about 3,000 kidneys and 30 livers were donated. In organ and cadaver donation, India is at the very bottom of the heap.
Other nations, even thirdworld countries are evidently more generous. But there is hope. As with any social change, the initiative has to come from within. Religious bodies and scholars are now looking at the issue laterally. They are opening up to the idea. According to Dr Sunil Shroff of Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network Foundation, a survey found that almost 70% of Hindus and Christian were now willing to consider organ donation, and 58% of Muslims.
Dr Shroff adds that the Jain community in the state of Gujarat, the biggest organ donor in the country, leads in eye donation and has started contributing other organs too. Voluntary organisations are imploring Indians to lend their bodies after they are gone. Bangalore-based Foundation For Organ Retrieval And Transplant Education, has motivated 22 families to donate organs of their dear ones, and in the process saved 42 kidney patients, two liver and two heart patients.
For some reason, in India, eye-donation is the most glamourous type. Remember the famous social message advertisements on eye donation by Aishwarya Rai?
As a result, eye donation is gathering momentum. According to Dr S Natarajan, chairman and medical director, Eye Bank Association of India, the current cornea procurement rate in India is 22,000 per year, which is still way off requirement. But if other organs find even this level of generosity, thousands of lives could be saved every year.

Certificates of Illusion?

Certificates of Illusion?

Certifigate scandal has landed diamond industry in a dilemma. Ketan Tanna offers tips on how to escape unscrupulous traders

   The scandal over diamond certification by the Gemological Institute of America is snowballing into a major controversy with industry watchers calling it certifigate. Indeed, are diamond gradation certificates just an illusion? The resignation of Thomas C Yonelunas, CEO of the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) Laboratory, and sacking of four employees, is the first major scandal in the firm’s 74-year history. In India, the scandal has raised a larger question—who or what an average Indian should trust when buying a diamond.
   First the facts. New York jeweller Max Pincione, in a lawsuit filed against the GIA lab, Vivid Collection and two others, had alleged that GIA had upgraded certified diamonds in return for payment. The case raised an uproar in the diamond industry. For many decades, it was the much touted gradation certificate provided by various laboratories that was broadly accepted as the parameter of diamond quality. Diamond certification industry gave rise to scores of diamond grading laboratories .The leading ones are American Gemological Society (AGS), Diamond High Council, European Gemological Laboratory (EGL), Gemological Institute of America and the International Gemological Institute (IGI).
   Essentially, diamond certification ensures that a diamond is being sold at the price it has been valued at. Otherwise, in reality, it is a carbon stone with a notional value. Before a diamond is eventually sold to the customer, it passes through grading at various stages right from the mine to the market. A varying number of gemologists with varying degrees of training and expertise grade them. Grading of lower quality of diamonds can be subjective at times, depending on the person grading it. Minor variations in the quality or colour are acceptable but when the grades itself are fixed, the credibility of the grading system takes a knocking as has happened after the GIA scandal.
   “Naturally, the Indian diamond industry is worried though it hopes that the storm will blow over. Well yes, the industry will take a few knocks but it is more of an aberration,” feels Sanjay Kothari, former chairman of the GJEPC. According to Kothari, it is not just the diamond industry that has been hit by such allegations. “Even the gold industry faced questions about purity. But since then things have changed. Every industry faces such problems and comes out stronger after learning its lessons,” he says.
   According to Kothari, there cannot be a completely full-proof system of diamond grading. However, he says, an average diamond buyer needs to ensure that he or she purchases from somebody trustworthy. “Please do not go to someone you do not know. And yes, if you have some doubts, get them verified from another jeweller or laboratory,” says Kothari. There should not be price variation of more than 20-30% in case of a re-check.
   Arvind Sanghvi a leading diamond merchant, who is a partner of K P Sanghvi firm, hoped that the industry would tide over the problem created by GIA imbroglio. “I agree that GIA was considered the best and we did not expect such a problem. Naturally, it will hurt the credibility of the grading system. Having said that, I do not see any major fall out. There have been lapses in the diamond industry. But then this is true of other industries as well. In any case, it is better for a customer to have a certificate than not to have one,” says Sanghvi.
   The solution Sanghvi says is that each diamond merchant should have his own certificate which clearly states the quality and the value of the diamond.
   According to Roland Lorie, CEO of IGI Worldwide, (a rival of GIA) the aftermath of the GIA scandal will be felt more in the coloured diamond category. “The gradation of coloured diamonds is more subjective while the gradation of white diamonds is less complex,” said Lorie. Pointing out the fact the Indian market is dominated by white coloured diamonds, Lorie felt the impact of GIA scandal will be less in India as compared to the world market, as coloured diamonds form a minuscule portion of the diamond industry in India.
   Lorie said that IGI handles on an average 500-600 diamonds everyday in India for gradation and ensures that for each stone, a minimum of two gemologists have a look in addition to computer gradation.

ALL GLITTERS

•There cannot be a completely fullproof system of diamond grading.

•Therefore, never buy diamonds from a jeweller you do not know and, get verification from another jeweller or lab.

•Ensure that the jeweller offers a buy back scheme for each diamond as it offers a psychological assurance.

Googlephobia not yet in India

Googlephobia not yet in India

Google has announced its plan to digitise every book available in five major libraries—Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, the University o f Michigan, and the New York Public Library. Publishing houses are feeling sandbagged. Ketan Tanna checks out the reaction in India to find out why no one seems overly bothered

   Does the word Google causefear and trembling in the Indian publishing scene? The big boys of the digital world—Google, Microsoft and Amazon—have announced their intention to turn millions of books into bytes that can be accessed by readers anywhere from Guatemala to Siberia. Readers will be able to search for a book by punching in a few relevant keywords and can then buy the book in instalments—by the page or chapter. In short, it’s a revolution that could redefine copyright law and change the way knowledge is owned and shared around the world, say experts at the Wharton School of Business. Already, Google is asking you if you want to do a Google book search.
   The big imprints in America and Europe have broken out into a cold sweat at the thought of the software raiders plundering their ware, but the Indian English publishing industry is almost Zen like in its response. Let’s wait and see, seems to be the unworried line from an industry that has finally come into its own, with hundreds of fiction and non-fiction English titles being released every year, increasing sales, shiny new retail bookstores, and generous media coverage. Penguin India, the market leader which started out with a paltry 15 titles a year now has more than 250 releases tumbling forth annually, so what if quality is not always a consideration.
   There seems to be an amazing confidence among publishers that what is sauce for the US goose is not necessarily sauce for the Indian gander. For starters, digitisation is pooh-poohed because the Indian readership simply does not have the same exposure to technology. “In India only a fraction of persons has access to a computer or the internet. In any case, it is extremely difficult for anyone to read a whole book on screen. Most would read a chapter or two (as hyper text)s, certainly not the entire book,” says Sukumar Das, former president of the Federation of Publishers and Booksellers’ Association of India, and chairman, UBS Publishers’ Distributor.
   Thomas Abraham, president of Penguin India, cites the old truth that you can’t curl up in bed with Bridget Jones if she’s on your laptop. He says that Penguin is watching the outcome of the lawsuits that have been filed against Google (in October, the Association of American Publishers announced that it was suing Google for copyright infringement). “In the final analysis, I believe that online versions work primarily for reference books like dictionaries and encyclopaedias, and for the educational sector (online resource manuals), where there’s a clear user benefit. But where trade publishing is concerned, one can’t curl up with a laptop or PDA to read a book. As long as that experiential difference remains, books in their current form will stay” he says.
   As for the inventive pay-per-chapter Dickensian throwback that Amazon is developing, Abraham predicts the model won’t work. “Most publishers are already moving towards putting up a free sample chapter or two for promotional purposes. Why would anybody want to read one chapter except to sample the writing? I don’t see a clear revenue model here.”
   This, however, has not stopped Indian publishers from plotting similar strategies. Penguin is already working on a promotional idea of free sample chapters of their fiction and general non-fiction works, and paid downloads of reference material or travel guides. Das says a similar scheme (pay per chapter) is under consideration, but R K Mehra of Rupa & Co says that as of yet they have not thought of a similar offer for the Indian reader.
   Given the fairly nascent retail book market, there is a lack of clarity on the worth of the publishing market here. Mehra pegs it at Rs 2000-2500 crore and Das pumps it up to Rs 7400 crore. While no one agrees on the size of the book pie, all concur that it’s getting plumper. Mehra says that India is a growing market with many multinationals waiting to come in (Random House opened this year). Abraham adds that though India is the third largest publishing hub in the world in terms of output, it will take another 15 years for it to emerge among the top three in terms of revenue.
   In the meantime there are very real problems on the ground: from social issues like primary educationto industry ones like piracy and the fact that India is still a dumping ground for remainders. Publishing firms themselves need to upgrade professional standards of editing and stick to production deadlines. And while regional publishing and translation are high on their agenda given India’s multicultural populace, Das adds that its growth depends on government policy and the rise in literacy levels. Sometimes, Google does seem a bogey too far.

BOOK VS BYTE: You can’t curl up with Bridget Jones if she’s on your laptop

Bar Code

Bar Code

For a few rupees more

There are people stuck in jail for years because they cannot even afford the paltry bail amounts. Ketan Tanna reports

   Every locked-up man knows that freedom has a price. It’s something called bail. Though these sums may be just a few hundred rupees for petty crimes, there is a growing number of men and women who cannot afford even that. And live in the confines of a prison for years.
   Like the case of this dark and short woman who was caught begging at Mumbai’s Santacruz railway station with a fair baby. A do-gooder woman commuter who saw them together was convinced that the baby was not hers and approached the police. They picked her up for questioning, but made little headway as the woman could only speak Tamil. When social workers who knew the tongue were summoned, she insisted that the baby was hers and requested to be sent back to Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu. Of course nobody heeded to her shrieks and she was promptly charged with kidnap and begging. A bail amount was set at Rs 3,000 but she could not find that much money.
   After languishing for six months in the Byculla Jail, a DNA test proved that she was indeed the mother of the curiously fair baby. The police decided to drop the charge of kidnap but insisted on prosecuting her for using the baby to beg. A social worker met the magistrate who after considerable time, thought and deliberation decided that she be sent to Nagapattinam. Finally the mother and the child, who was kept elsewhere, were reunited and they travelled to a Tsunami-ravaged village near Nagapattinam. “I will never forget how she went insane when she was told that her baby was in another place,” recalls the social worker.
   Another 40-year-old woman from Mumbai’s Goregaon suburb spent eight months in jail because she did not have Rs 1,000 to pay her bail. Her three-and-a-halfyear-old baby spent the time, alone, outside a liquor shop close to her locked house. Her husband, a drunkard, couldn’t care less. The woman had been arrested for pickpocketing in the women’s compartment of local trains. The woman had another two-and-a-half-yearold child, who stayed with her in prison and wanted her older child with her too. “We found the daughter sitting on an old gunny bag outside the liquor shop. When we asked the kid whether she wanted a biscuit, she immediately said ‘yes’ and gobbled up the full packet. Obviously she had not been fed.”
   A 29-year-old man, who ran a Chinese food stall in Thane, has already spent 22 months behind bars. His landlords had accused him of grabbing property and threatening them. The Rajasthani man was charged under Section 324 and Section 326 of the Indian Penal Code. The man was granted a bail of Rs 10,000.
   He did not have the resources to pay nor did he want his family in Rajasthan to know that he was in jail.
   While the poor undertrials of Mumbai and Maharashtra know that freedom has a price, not many are aware that it can also be bought. At the Metropolitan Court near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, if one does not have money for bail or wants a surety, all one needs to do is wear a hangdog expression.
   Fairy godmothers in the guise of touts will pop out of nowhere and fake a surety. An old lady tout, dressed in a cheap colourful flowery polyester saree, offered to give a surety worth Rs 10,000 for double the amount. “Everybody knows me here. Everybody,” she emphasises and calls out to advocates, plainclothes policeman, hotel owner, canteen boys and passerby to make her point. All respond and some even discuss cases with her.
   “Give me Rs 20,000 and your surety will be ready by 10 AM. Don’t worry. I know the persons here. See that person? He is a magistrate’s driver,” she points out. Now what a driver can possibly do, is anybody’s guess. “Do not worry. We have connections,” says Kamu Maa, better known as Amma.
   But Amma has a competitor. A meek-looking bespectacled person who too provides surety but only if one can produce a ration card and a proof of land ownership. Without the proof, “you have to pay double the surety,” he says.
   The two almost came to blows over clients with both accusing each other of fleecing ghiraks (costumers).
   As of October 2005, Maharashtra had 25,526 prisoners, out which 16,371 were undertrials — 15,547 males and 824 females. Mumbai, on the other hand, has 3,702 prisoners, out of which 3,492 are undertrials (3,140 males and 352 females).
   Jails are stuffed to capacity and bails routinely delayed. In 2004, Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dhananjay Chandrachud of the Bombay High Court had expressed shock that more than 100 undertrials had spent more than 50% of their maximum possible sentence of seven-year imprisonment behind bars.
   Rules for procuring bail were subsequently changed. Undertrials, liable to be punished for up to three years and unable to avail of bail, could now be released on personal bond.
   And for those liable for up to seven-year punishment, personal bonds would be accepted a year after the bail order.
   Video-conferencing for convicts was implemented as there were not enough police escorts. They present themselves to the judges within the jail premise itself. But so far, only Arthur Road, Byculla and Thane jails have the facility.
   The first floor of Mumbai’s Metropolitan Court has spanking new videoconferencing rooms. After the judge leaves, a boredlooking clerk and two others entertain themselves by punning on names like Narayan, Sandeep Kale and Abdul Ajeeb Ansari.
   Has video-conferencing made a difference? “It may have reduced judges’ workload but has not speeded trials,” says an activist.
   Concerned lawyers argue that presence of the accused at the trial is vital as it offers an opportunity for the defendant to complain about ill-treatment or make bail petitions, or ask for medical tests and legal counsel. Something that video-conferencing doesn’t provide.
   Now comes the real problem. Most undertrials do not know about their rights. “What has been done to educate those who really need to know about the reformist measures,” asks a lawyer. TNN

Deadly Service

Deadly Service

Between the noose and the stool

A suicidal person better feel the blues before 9 pm. Ketan Tanna on what happens after that

   Some enterprising depressed discover helplines. But they also resignedly discover that helpline volunteers switch off at 9 pm sharp. While it is fairly easy to find help on the ways and means of killing oneself on the surreal world wide web, in real-time, it is just not advisable to feel low and suicidal late in the evening. You won’t have anybody to talk you out of it. So God bless if you get the death wish at, say, 9.02 pm.
   As a former volunteer with a helpline, there have been times when this reporter has heard the phone ring loudly just when he has locked the door after switching off the lights. In the stillness of the night, as one walks out of the passageway after clocking the mandatory three hours as a volunteer, the shrill rings make one falter. Could it be someone who really needs help? Is it someone really suicidal? Who could that be? A thousand thoughts flash through the mind as one turns and rushes back to the door, fumbles at times in the darkness, finds the right key, unlocks the door, and finally makes it to the phone. And the phone stops ringing.
   The guilt is complete. Could I have saved a life if I had known which bloody key to use first? Then begins the wait. According to helpline rules, one needs to close the door and be out by 9 pm. Yet, one hangs around for a few minutes more, hoping that the caller would ring back once more after checking the noose and the volunteer could convince the caller of the merits of sitting on a stool instead of standing. Helpline volunteers are trained to be sensitive listeners or “befrienders” as they prefer to be called. But at times, sensitivity turns into irritation and even amusement when one realises that some call for sex.
There are plenty of sex callers in Mumbai who often target female helpline volunteers. If it’s a girl who picks up their call, they give out some lurid details and then expectantly and patiently wait for some kind of feedback from the volunteer.
Sex callers span the whole spectrum. Old men, college boys, heterosexuals, gay men. Some of them start off by relating seemingly authentic sob stories and then gradually slip in some corny talk. Only then does the gullible volunteer realise that the caller is using the helpline to relieve himself.
Both female and male volunteers receive intensive training to handle sex calls. But some of the clever sex-starved trace the duty slots of their favourite volunteer and unfailingly manage to call them up.
A harrowed volunteer though keeps on going, seeking solace in the disputable fact that one has helped someone in need. There have been times when a caller has threatened to commit suicide immediately. This is when the volunteer is put to real test because one does not know if it a genuine caller. The volunteer has to quickly think of a way to make the caller hold on to his life. Good telephone connection helps. But they better call before 9 pm.

Press Enter

Press Enter

GAMES PCS PLAY

Parents will be shocked if they knew what raunchy things kids do inside computer games. Ketan Tanna reports

   Last year, the latest version of a popular computer game called the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) provided young boys the worldover a virtual chance to fulfil their adolescent fantasy. They could download a free patch (a set of software codes, usually created by a hacker) from the internet, which gave them access to hidden alleys where the player could pick up girls and have interactive sex with them by tapping keyboard buttons or clicking the mouse.
   Now, the ‘Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’, a PC game released in the last week of March, offers similar promise. The players can have topless females assisting them in their mission.
   The game has a a topless female torso mod hidden within its data files (many games allow players to create their own levels, characters and goals. These are then often released on the internet and called mods).
   Oblivion is a single-player game that takes place in Tamriel’s capital province, Cyrodiil. Oblivion is the latest in the series of games produced by the company over the past decade. Here, the player, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, is given the task of finding the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty as the previous emperor has been killed by an unknown assassin. With no true emperor, the gates to Oblivion (the equivalent of hell in the world of Tamriel) open, and demons begin to invade Cyrodiil. It is up to the player to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy Tamriel. What this means is that Oblivion lets you create as fined-tuned and personalised a character as you could possibly want. Some of the players prefer creating nude females who assist the player in his quest to find the heir. The image ‘femaleupperbodynude.nif ’ is currently being shipped with the game’s PC version.
“It is very easy. All you have to do is extract the file, edit, rename and presto! One gets to see the nipples and breasts of the females found in the fourth installment of the Elder Scrolls,” says Rohan Kulkarni, 15, who is in Standard 10 of a prestigious central Mumbai school. Chatrooms on Dalnet and Undernet have Indian teenagers exchanging information on how to create the hot babe in Oblivion. In Morrowind, Oblivion’s predecessor, a nudity mod was developed and released. But in the current version, anyone with a little computer skill could get the skin working in the game. The game has not yet been released in India but pirated copies are easily available for Rs 250 to Rs 300.
   Oblivion is not the only one that Mumbai boys have been enjoying. Pirated CD sellers on Mumbai’s DN Road say that sex games that sell the most in Mumbai include those based on English television serials like Sex and the City, Friends, Sims and Larry.
   A new sex game CD would cost Rs 150-300 while the older ones are available for Rs 75-100. However, following periodic raids, CD hawkers have disappeared from the Fort area and one can purchase a CD only from familiar hawkers who hang around in the various bylanes of Fort.
   More often than not, sex game CDs have a camouflage label and contain titles like C++ or Windows XP to hide the contents from parental prying.
   Sameer V, a D N Road vendor, says that many vendors have started libraries where with a small initial deposit, sex game CDs could be hired for a few days. TNN

Lagan Nu Custard

Lagan Nu Custard

The cupids of
Cusrowbaug

Elderly Parsis are contriving to make their 40-something singles fall in love, marry and hopefully procreate. Ketan Tanna follows their strategies

   Kety Daruwala is unable to contain herself. After all, she is reminiscing the paper dance game that she and other members of the Ahmedabad Parsi Panchayat organised for the youth, during a get-together for marriageble boys and girls in January.
   “The paper dance is a game where we let a boy and a girl stand together and move their feet on a spread newspaper accompanied by rhythmic music. The idea is that neither the girl nor the boy should move out of the paper. Slowly, we keep on folding the paper bit by bit, and often the girl or the boy has to balance their feet in the air. Finally, the girl is forced to keep her feet on the boy’s feet and naturally the boy will not allow the girl to fall. The boy often lifts the girl in the air and brings her closer to him. More often than not, they lose their shyness. The intimacy that follows is heartwarming. We keep this game for the last and often it is a deal-maker,” says the 58-year-old bank officer who moonlights as a matchmaker in Ahmedabad.
   On January 26 and 27, Kety ‘aunty’ and members of the Ahmedabad Parsi Panchayat organised the get-together of Parsis in the age group of 25-plus (By Parsi marriage standards, even 40 is young). Around 75 ‘girls’ and 200 ‘boys’ landed up at the venue, the swanky Goyal Water World Resort near Ahmedabad.
   All expenses were borne by the generous Panchayat.
   “We spent over Rs 3 lakh for what I think was one of the biggest national meets of eligible Parsi youngsters. Gifts alone cost us over Rs 50,000 (Parsis are finicky about the gifts they get, informs Keki aunty, cheerfully) not to mention the cost of printing and advertisements in the papers. As the initial response was not too good, we resent the invites. This worked out well because 10 couples found their match because of the meet.”
   Participants came from all over the country. Nearly two-thirds from Mumbai, a fair majority from Gujarat and a few from Jamshedpur and elsewhere. “Initially, we sent four-five boys’ biodata to each girl. But girls in the Parsi community are so choosy. Ten of them just sent the biodata back. We had to use all our persuasive skills to ask the girls and even boys not to have very high standards and compromise on some points,” says aunty, sagely.
   It is these very exacting standards — qualified, good-looking, an independent home and a rising career graph, to name a few — that have nearly killed early marriages. Then there is the problem of numbers. According to the 2001 census — India’s Parsi population had fallen to 69,601 from 76,382 a decade earlier. Here too, there are persons who feel it cannot be called a decline as many Parsis have migrated. “But to me that is whisking away the problem. We need to be pragmatic and come up with solutions,” says Minu R Shroff, chairman, Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP).
   Indeed, a sense of pragmatism, especially among the elders, is spurring them to play cupid and at times facilitators of the “go forth and multiply” maxim.
   Two years ago, Minu Shroff casually suggested to fellow Parsi, Dr Anahita Pandole, a fertility expert, that free advice and treatment could be given to childless Parsi couples. “Initially, I was skeptical. But in the past two years, 90 Parsi couples have consulted us. We give free counselling, fertility drugs and even IVF treatment to deserving cases. Twenty-nine ladies have conceived so far and 11 have delivered. We have had a triplet and three pairs of twins as well. The feeling is fantastic,” says Pandole.
   The triplet’s mother, 38-year-old Khorshed Bulsara, had been trying hard for babies. It was her chance meeting with Pandole that changed her life and that of her husband Khushro who works with the Bombay Stock Exchange. “The clinic was our last hope. What the elders are doing is magnificent. Parsi families are normally nuclear and the younger generation needs guidance,” says Bulsara.
   Naturally, the birth of triplets and three sets of twins have evoked a feeling of elation.
   “Even the birth of Parsi twins is like a national celebration for our community,” says Dr Shernaz Cama, honourary director at Parjor, a Unesco-assisted Parsi Zoroastrian Project.
   The BPP meantime continues to do ‘its bit’ for the younger generation. As Shroff says, “Every Parsi baby at his or her birth gets Rs 500 and a certificate. Then we give educational grants or loans at highly subsidised rates for housing. Sometimes, we sponsor candidates for international youth congress meets, which gives them a chance to mingle. We also have various gatherings. You must understand that we are not in the primary business of getting eligible Parsis to marry. Local anjums take care of that. But at BPP, we try to address the larger issue of giving a shape and a vision to growth of a community that must now adapt to the changing circumstances.” TNN

MIDDLE GROUND

MIDDLE GROUND

Pretty eunuchs and a secret trade

Scores of eunuchs will meet in a school. And behind closed doors, they will sell their lovely wards to the best bidders. Ketan Tanna finds a keyhole

PHOTOGRAPH BY Prashant Nakwe

Vikhroli, a quaint lushgreen suburb of northeast Mumbai, is respectably boring. But on May 10, scores of eunuchs will descend with artificial braids or menacing bald heads, all their faces lit with low-end makeup. They will come to attend the eunuch’s conference or Akhil Bharatiya Hijda Sammelan to be held in a municipal school near Vikhroli Park Site. It is a meet that has been going on for several years, though its periodicity is erratic.
   By itself, it would be just another conference of a marginalised community. But behind the closed doors of the meeting, a whole underground culture will ebb and flow.
   “For nine days, there will be a lot of song and dance between long spells of gambling sessions where the stakes will range from a few hundreds to a few thousands. On the last day, there will be the real surprise element. For that is when there will be buying and selling of chelas (disciples) by various gurus of the community,” says Salma Khan, a eunuchturned-social worker with Dai organisation, who has done an unthinkable thing. She has filed a non-cognisable complaint with the Surya Nagar Police station, Vikhroli Park Site, with a copy to most of the influential people in the country. The non-cognisable complaint number 925106, dated April 17, 2006, says, among other things, that “nothing will be done for the betterment of the community, but almost all Hijdas will be playing cards, disturbing the peaceful life of persons in the nearby areas.” The complainant is asking the police to withdraw the permission given to the organisers.
   In the complaint, she has not recorded what will happen on the tenth day of the meet. The high drama of trade during which pretty eunuchs will be exchanged between various groups. Meeting coordinator Kokila denies the charges. “We assemble to pay homage to our departed elders and distribute food in their memory. There is nothing more to it,” she says.
   On that day, all the leading community gurus will assemble in the hall and a thali will be kept in front. Then the gurus and their assistants will call the ones that they think can earn them a good amount. When the deal is struck, the agreed amount is kept in a thali with a red cloth draped over it. The thali is passed to the eunuch chieftain who agrees to let go of her chela. The chela then joins the bidder’s community to endure a whole life as a prostitute, extorter or in any other role that will make her earn a good return on the investment for the head eunuch who bought her.
   The eunuch community follows the guru-chela tradition and has mainly three sources of income. Those who dance and sing at the birth of a child or at weddings are called badhai, those who are into prostitution are called dhandawali and those who beg are called mangti. Depending on her abilities, the chela could earn anywhere between couple of hundreds to thousands of rupees per day. Usually, the guru eunuch who owns her takes around 50% of the chela’s earnings, or even more. The guru and her bunch of chelas stay together and the guru takes care of the food and household expenses, just like a family. Often when the guru dies, the favourite chela gets the head’s assets.
   But the tradition of human sale is a common truth among the comity of eunuchs. “What the chela does not know is that a long and horrible life lies ahead of her. Blinded by glamour and wealth, the chela is only too glad to be sold. She does not know that if she does not bring adequate returns or falls ill, then she will be discarded quickly,” says Salma.
   Forty-year-old Maharani served her master for well over 20 years giving away more than half her daily earnings. But last year, she was diagnosed HIV+ and since then, has been discarded. When a person is discarded in the eunuch community, it essentially means that she is on her own and is often stopped from earning in the Mumbai territory.
   Maharani is not the only HIV+ eunuch who is on the streets. According to surveys, about half of Mumbai’s eunuch population is HIV+. Within the clan, they are simply called “pojeetive”. The pojeetives often survive by begging because they are not allowed to operate in the other two trades. Once a eunuch has been discarded, she cannot carry on trade anywhere. If she does, swift retribution follows, say the HIV+ eunuchs, with resignation.
   “When they die, nobody claims their body. They are burnt in anonymity. They die a talcum-powder death,” says Salma, alluding to the white ashes as she rattles off the names of those found dead and whose bodies were unclaimed. Pooja was found dead at Sion station, Santoshi near Dombivali station and Nazrana near Andheri station. All the three were labelled as unclaimed bodies by the police and burnt.
   “They are used just like green trees. When the tree is green, everyone enjoys the shade and the fruits it offers. Once the tree becomes barren, it is just discarded or cut down,” says Salma.
   Territories are marked within the city and the whole of Mumbai has seven eunuch clans — Lalanwala, Lashkarwala, Dongriwala, Punawala, Blockwala, Chaklewala and Bhendibazarwala. They are tightly knit and are each clan is headed by a Nayak. Five of the seven Nayaks stay at building number six in Lucky Chawl area near Khatau Mill Compound in Byculla. The building is guarded by undoubtedly male toughies.
   Below the Nayaks are the gurus who in turn have hundreds of chelas or disciples.
   Often the gurus or leaders live in comfort. While they do not have cars or an evidently affluent lifestyle, many have kilos of gold, silver and cash.
   Though they live in a parallel world, they are a formidable economic block. In fact, one of the issues that may be discussed during the impending May 10 meet is a new threat to their survival. Apparently, opportunistic males are masquerading as eunuchs to scavenge on the formidable wealth on Mumbai’s streets. TNN

WAR ROOM: Salma (centre, in the white dupatta) is gathering the support of eunuchs to fight human transaction during the shady meet

GUNS & POSES

GUNS & POSES

All the Srinagar’s hunks

Shooting takes a new meaning for these Kashmiris. Ketan Tanna reports

   Kashmir is a lovely word for a lovelier place. But like all things beautiful, this one too is cursed. A reason why its highly presentable people are gradually flowing out of the state. Some of these gorgeous types have managed to reach Mumbai and its glitz. A bunch of Kashmiri hunks is firing up the entertainment industry and the advertising scene. The common thread that runs through most of their individual careers is that they had few options while growing up in Kashmir and face cuts that fit Mumbai’s glamour needs.
   Mohammad Iqbal Khan, 26, is the current heartthrob of impressionable girls all over the country. This television star who hit instant stardom after his character Aangad became as popular as the serial Kaisa Ye Pyar Hai. Khan had worked in forgettable movies with creative names like Bullet — Ek Dhamaka, Vasna Ki Aag, Fun2shh and Dudes — in a past life. He also worked in ad films and music videos and remained on the fringes until he joined Ekta Kapoor’s soap factory and Aangad became a household name.
   Iqbal has recently entered Kaavyanjali, a serial with great TRP ratings.
   But before he reached Mumbai as yet another struggler, he had seen enough strife in his homeland. Growing up in Srinagar, Khan remembers the frequent hartals, shootings and all-pervasive violence. His father, a retired IAS officer, saw no future for his son in Srinagar. So after his third grade, he was packed off to a boarding in Shimla.
   “In retrospect, dad made a good decision. If you live in Srinagar, you realise the enormity of a stark future. Fortunately, things are improving but when an area is disturbed, normalcy in day-to-day life is rare.”
   School gave way to Delhi College of Arts (he did not graduate though) where Iqbal modelled. Then Mumbai beckoned.
   Like Khan, Muzamil Akhtar, 22, too started his modelling career in Delhi. The native of Srinagar had an easier time than Khan in finding his first break. He entered a modelling contest that a leading agency had sponsored. But thereon, he had a tough time setting himself up in India’s rude capital of Delhi. Landlords in Delhi would not just give him a rented accommodation.
   “I must have seen some nine flats in New Delhi. First they would have no problem. But once they knew that I was a Kashmiri Muslim, they would back out. However, my elder brother and I were determined to make a name. Fortunately, our parents backed us and later a friend asked us to stay with him,” says Akhtar who incidentally represented Kashmir in cricket matches.
   The son of a political science professor, Akhtar says they it would have been tough to find a career in Srinagar. “I did not see much of a future. The only dream that Kashmiri youths have is to either get a government job or become an engineer or a doctor. But I wanted a different life and by god’s grace, I have come a long way,” says Akhtar who has since shifted base to Mumbai. In Mumbai he did not face any accommodation problems nor did landlords dump him when they found out his origins. He has since featured in advertisement campaigns like TVS Scooty, Indian Bank, Blue Star AC and also has various print and media campaigns to his credit.
   Muzamil Akhtar has his namesake in Muzamil Ibrahim, also 22. The winner of the 2004 Gladrags Manhunt Contest in 2004 can be seen in top advertisements. Son of a military goods supplier, Ibrahim said that they had no role models in Srinagar. “The violence and bitter winter conspired to keep us indoors.” Srinagar for him brings memories of student days where he would come home and often make exaggerated stories to his elder brother about the blood and gore he saw on his way home.
   Ibrahim moved out to Jamia Milia University in New Delhi, where he entered the Galdrags contest, which in turn brought him to Mumbai. So successful is Ibrahim today that he recently brought a two-bedroom flat in Versova and a Ford Ikon car.
   Ibrahim though thinks that there is more to the success of Kashmiris in the entertainment world than just looks. “In Kashmir, good-looking persons are all around. Even the shikarawala is good-looking. It does not mean that all can become actors or models. Kashmiri youth still live in a nutshell. They should be ready to open up and accept challenges.”
   Challenge is what brought 28-year-old Siddharth to Mumbai. The star of the hit television serial K Street Pali Hill on Star Plus, Siddharth is the son of a Kashmiri mother and Punjabi father. He had to leave his Srinagar home in 1989 when he was a school student. “The situation was so bad that we just left overnight. It was tough for our family. Our property was usurped and later my father had major health problems,” he recollects.
   Later, economic necessity drove him to work as a travel agent in New Delhi. However, when his Mumbai-based uncle asked him to try his luck in the city, Siddharth shifted bag and baggage and since has acted in successful serials. However, working non-stop — shooting for three serials in one day — and round the clock affected his health so much that he collapsed recently. Though now is a lot better.
   But the pressures of Kashmir do not stop once these men reach Mumbai. Both the Muzamils, Akhtar and Ibrahim, for instance, are from a conservative background. As Ibrahim says, “Our religion says do not look at women, but here we are surrounded by glamorous women all the time,” For the record, he insists that he does not smoke or drink, does his namaaz five times a day and parties only out of professional necessity and yes, looks at women but without lust in his mind.
   Success of the Kashmiris has inspired others to try their luck. “Ekta was telling me recently about how many Kashmiris are applying for audition,” says Khan. TNN

‘I did not see much of a future (in Srinagar),’ says Akhtar (Left)

‘In Kashmir, even the shikarawala looks good. It does not mean that all can become actors or models,’ says Ibrahim (Top)

ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Paupers of Parliament

This may sound like a poor joke, but Ketan Tanna did stumble upon some MPs who are honest

   An honest member of Parliament, to a common man, would seem like an amusing oxymoron. MPs have always been gawked at for their swagger, upwardly mobile living standards and, of course, sprawling bungalows in Lutyen’s Delhi. Strangely though, there are some MPs in this country of cynics and self-proclaimed fatalists who are as financially strapped as their constituency. Difficult as it is to believe, these MPs are also reasonably comfortable with their middle-class and even lower middle-class status. They catch buses, travel by trains and own less gold and property than a police constable.
All of them have a common thread. They unobtrusively go about their business of public service, and nothing much else. And they are so poor that even sniffy opposition members feel kind enough to give it to them. A more solid testimony of their lack of streetsmart would be impossible to find.
   In Gujarat, for instance, where a fair majority of MPs lives in air-conditioned zones of Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mansukh Vasava continues to live in a small house at Rajpipla. He built this place from the compensation he got in 1986 as one of the Karjan Dam-affected families of tribal-dominated Rajpipla and Bharuch districts of south Gujarat. This project-affected person today is representing Bharuch in the Lok Sabha for the third consecutive term.
   Despite being an MP, his lifestyle resembles that of his constituency members. He lives like a tribal and travels in Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation buses. When it is time for him to attend Parliament in New Delhi, he takes a bus to Vadodara to catch a Delhi-bound train. “I have been elected to work for the welfare of adivasis and the downtrodden. That is what I have been doing,” says the incredulously unassuming Vasava. The MP, who lives in a joint family, has accounts in two nationalised banks of Rajpipla, with fixed deposits worth Rs 73,000
   and Rs 30,000.
   But on second thoughts, he is not all that poor. He owns an Armada van. He though uses it only to touch base with his electorate.
   In the mandatory declaration of assets and
   properties, which all aspiring MPs have to file before elections, Vasava revealed that he has Rs 15,000 as cash and his wife Saraswati Rs 5,000. That was before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
   Many though would say that paper declarations can be obviously misleading. In Bihar, for instance, gangster Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, a four-time MP from Purnea, claims he has no car of his own. But improbably, he has been accused of masterminding many kidnapping cases. Maybe he took the bus.
   In Vasava’s case though, his political opponents have never passed a single adverse remark. In fact, Hasmukh Patel, a senior member of rival Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, describes him as a “low-profile and dedicated worker”.
   In Ahmedabad, Vasava has his unique match in Pravin Rashtrapal, a Congress member of Rajya Sabha. His lone source of income is his pension and interest from his fixed deposit of Rs 7 lakh, which he received as post-retirement benefit. Rashtrapal, who served the Central government for more than three decades and was even elected to Lok Sabha, continues to live in a two-bedroom flat in Ahmedabad’s old-world Shahpur area.
   He drives his ancient Maruti 800 to commute within Ahmedabad. Often even climbing the city transport bus. And like Vasava, he takes the Gujarat State Road Transport buses
whenever he visits his constituency, Patan, in north Gujarat. He has a share in ancestral property at Dehgam, and has been given a plot of land in Gandhinagar at a concessional rate by virtue of being an MP. The market value of which is Rs 1.32 lakh.
   This story gets even curiouser. This MP’s wife has gold ornaments weighing around 40 tolas or 400 grams. And, he has a single bank deposit of Rs 54,000. No wonder Kashiram Rana, former Union textile minister and a senior BJP leader, describes Rashtrapal as “simple, unassuming and a bold trade unionist”.
   In Maharashtra, finding such radical MPs is a tough call. Respective chiefs of various political parties openly chuckled when asked to name a second-time MP who was honest and lived frugally. “By the time they are in the second term, they are not poor,” a senior functionary of the BJP said, knowingly. Subhash Desai of Shiv Sena did not even get back, nor did Congress’ Gurudas Kamath.
   After much digging, two MPs of Maharashtra emerged as relatively honest.
   This is not to say that the rest are
rolling in wealth. It is just that information about them was hard to come by. The Shiv Sena MP from Osmanabad, Kalpana Narhire, continues to live a spartan life in her small house. Narhire’s worldly goods are listed in three pages of the affidavit filed with the election commission. Her possession includes a truck and Ikon car valued at Rs 4.2 lakh, and bought with a loan of Rs 2.95 lakh. Her jewellery is worth Rs 45,000. Her land and apartment are valued at Rs 3.9 lakh.
   The Opposition Congress MLA from Tuljapur, Madhukarrao Chavan, concedes that Narhire lives a simple life. “I cannot say much about her work. She is lucky though,” he says, tongue-in-cheek.
   A BJP MP from Chandrapur, Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, too has a grudging admirer in Bhadrawati Opposition Congress MLA, Sanjay Deotale. “He has a decent image. His background is very simple and I have not heard anything about him making money.”
   Lal Muni Choubey of BJP, who is representing Buxar constituency for the past five terms, appears to be the poorest. In the name of property, he has a small plot of land in Phulwari near
   Patna and nothing else.
(With inputs by Anil Pathak in Ahmedabad, Faizan Ahmad in Patna and Ashish Tripathi in Lucknow)

In Joy and in coma

BEDSIDE STORY

In joy and in coma

These are moving stories of men and women who have sacrificed all pleasures to care for their disabled spouses for years. Ketan Tanna reports

   Forty-three-year-old Megha Desai has stood by her 51-year-old husband Rasik’s bed for 11 years now. There is no fixed pattern to their life. Lights of their Andheri bungalow are switched on and off even in the middle of the night. Megha is used to being woken up by Rasik at all hours, sometimes for catherisation to empty his bladder (a catheter is thin, soft tube inserted into the body, which is needed to drain urine several times a day). Some other times, to dispose of the adult diapers that Rasik wears to pass his stools. The affluent Desais, who are into a large real estate business, could have easily kept nurses and ward boys permanently if they wanted, but Megha feels that they hamper privacy and lack personal touch.
   Rasik was shot at in his office by unknown assailants on July 24, 1995. The bullet pierced his spinal cord, paralysing him chest down. Now the only functioning part of his limbs is his left hand.
   Although Megha was shaken by the incident, she refused to give up on life. Her two kids were nine and 13 years old at that time. “I let Rasik cry as much as he wanted to. But I was determined that my family would not be shattered.” That she also had her husband’s unattended business to look after, besides very little support from in-laws did not frighten her enough.
   “I love my husband and my children. There was never an option to give up on my life. I turned to god every day. My mother and my sister supported me to an extent. But I had to fight the battle myself to save my family,” says Megha.
   Today the Desai family has sailed through its worst decade, and even managed to grow its business. The elder son is now married and the family goes out together to movies, malls, picnics and on long drives. Rasik, of course, has to be lifted by two persons to his car. Sometimes Megha faces caustic comments from total strangers like “oh, look at her. She is all decked up while her husband is in a wheelchair”. Megha ignores them and walks on, makeup intact.
   While Megha bore two kids and lived an ideal married life for years till a bullet changed it forever, Meena Shah, now 32, was 18 and barely through with her marriage rites when tragedy struck. A month into her marriage, her husband Sanjay had to be rushed to the Bombay Hospital with severe stomach ache. He was diagnosed with colon cancer.
   A colostomy, doctors said, was the only way out for Sanjay. Colostomy is a surgical procedure that brings the end of the large intestine through the abdominal wall. Stools moving through the intestine drain into a bag attached to the abdomen. For the past 15 years, Meena has been securing the drainage bag for stool and then washing it.
   Life has been financially tough for her as Sanjay has always been in and out of hospitals. Sanjay would, in happier times, assist his brother in his electrical appliances shop. Today Meena survives on the money she gets from giving tuitions, although recently she was forced to take aid from the Cancer Patients Aid Association.
   Meena is clear that she would stay with Sanjay as long as he is alive and only then would move on. “I love him and therefore I am with him.” When asked whether her husband would have put his life on hold were she to fall so seriously ill, she becomes silent. “It is not relevant. I did what I thought I should do.”
   Interestingly, one can find women who choose to live with their disabled husbands for love or convention, but it is very hard to find too many men who feel any obligation to stick on. Ramesh Dhondiram Kumbhar, 42, is one such rare man, who is still with his 37-year-old wife, Hemlata, at their Santa Cruz hutment.
   In 2002, 10 years into marriage, Hemlata started having trouble swallowing food. Doctors dignosed throat cancer and removed her voice box, which left a hole on Hemlata’s neck. Ramesh today communicates with his wife through signs and says he can read her lips. “I am her voice,” he says. The emaciated Hemlata is dependent on Cancer Patients Aid Association for her basic medicines and nutrition, as Ramesh, who used to wash cars earlier but is unemployed now, cannot support her. “God, in his wisdom, has put us through this test. I like my wife and I will care for her,” he says, his wife’s hollow face lighting up on hearing that.
   Several couples exhibit great powers of endurance even as the medical expenses of long disabilities impoverish them and eat into their resources. But some of them, despite the love that burns in their heart, succumb to pragmatism.
   Tarkeshwar Prasad Chandravanshi, who runs a tea stall in Patna, was once a shopkeeper. His wife Kanchan went into a coma while delivering their third child at a private nursing home. Tarkeshwar’s pleas for ‘mercy killing’ of his wife have time and again been rejected by courts. “She is better off dead than alive because living such a ‘life’ is no use to her.” TNN

Still born

Sometimes, families give up

For the slightly built, sallow skinned Aruna Shanbag, a day begins and ends on a metal bed at Mumbai’s KEM Hospital. She has been on it for 33 years.
   On November 27, 1973, Aruna, a nurse of this very hospital, was cornered by a man, who tightened a leather leash around her neck, thereby cutting off the oxygen supply to her brain. He went on to brutally rape her.
   Aruna was discovered the next morning by a ward boy. The damage had been done and it would be of little consolation for Aruna to know that her assailant was arrested, tried and later released. Since then, Aruna has been on the hospital bed, her body shrivelling up with the strain of breathing for so many years. Her family members, including her fiance, who was a doctor, visited her for years, but then eventually gave up. To the hospital’s credit, she is still taken care of, bathed and fed like a child.
   Nanavati Hospital has a patient, who has spent 18 years staring blankly at the ceiling of the general ward. Things went tragically wrong for her in 1988, when during her child’s delivery, she suffered brain damage. Gamadevi never recovered and still does not speak or recognise anyone, including her son Vinay, who is now 18. Gamadevi’s husband, Ram Pal, visits his wife when he can. The Nanavati hospital staff also takes care of her on humanitarian grounds.
(Inputs by Dipak Mishra, Shailvee Sharda, Radha Sharma and Shreya Ray)

The Desais go through their routine

No shelter

No shelter
from the storm

If you’re 40, you have crossed the hill! At least, that’s what medical insurance companies feel, says Ketan Tanna

hey say life begins at 40, but for the health insurance industry in India, life starts ending when one touches 40. How else does one explain why so many people in their 40s are finding it increasingly difficult to get decent medical insurance policies? If they are fortunate enough to get one, it is ridden with ifs, buts, riders and exclusions– insurance lingo for no payment in case of a particular problem or disease.
   Take the case of Ashish Narottam, a 41 year-old healthy Gujarati businessman in Mumbai. Married with two kids, Ashish wanted an ordinary mediclaim policy coverage of Rs 5 lakhs. He thought he would have to do the usual—sign a form, give a doctor’s reference, and make a declaration. Not quite, he found out. When Ashish contacted an agent of New India Assurance, the agent handed him a thick wad of forms among which was one for a series of comprehensive medical tests. The tests included: Complete blood count, glycosylated haemoglobin test, serum cholesterol, x-ray chest, eye checkup, medical checkup (general), sonography (full abdomen and pelvis) and electrocardiogram.
   Ashish was zapped! But the agent was upfront that without an all-clear health test, there would be no policy. A nervous Ashish then wondered what would happen just in case his blood pressure was a wee bit on the higher side. “Oh! then, the policy would exclude all ailments that could be a result of BP,” the agent informed him, cheerfully. Protests were met with a calm counterquestion: “Don’t blame New India Assurance, look around and you will see other companies doing the same.”
   The agent is right. Look at United India Insurance, another subsidiary of the government-owned General Insurance. Till June 2006, a “basic health package” consisting of the above-mentioned tests were a must for people between 40 and 50 years. After protests by agents, the company revised the age group to 45 years. Those who are above 50, of course, need extra tests, including a stress test and x-ray of both knees. This essentially means that those who have not taken any medical policy before they touch 40 are going to pay a stiff price.
   The story gets worse. In July this year, Oriental Insurance told its mediclaim agents that their commission rates for clients between the ages of 40 and 60 years would be reduced by 15-10 %. As for those who are above 60, the agents would not earn any commission either on renewals or on fresh policies. This essentially meant that agents would have no incentive at all to sell mediclaim policies to senior citizens.
“When we took up this issue with the company, they said there was a high claim ratio (meaning m o re persons were asking for insurance money). When we asked for statistics, they refused to give us any details,” says Anil Ganacharya, ex-development officer at United India Insurance and general secretary of the General Insurance Agents Association.
   Senior officers at the insurance companies declined to comment on the hardships being faced by persons over 40 in getting mediclaim policies. C S Rao, chairman at Hyderabad’s Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), the industry regulator, defended the various steps taken by insurers, saying that insurance was based on good faith and trust. “If some mandatory tests are now required for person above 40, it is for the good of the individual. The policy-holder should not have a misconception that he or she will be reimbursed in any case of all eventualities. It is better that the policy-holders satisfy the parameters of the mediclaim policy requirements so that when there is real need, the process of payment is smooth,” says Rao.
   On the decision to do away with commission in the case of customers above 60, Rao says that one group (senior citizens) cannot be subsidized by others. “In any case, the insurance companies are trying to reduce the intermediary cost. Senior citizens can approach the companies directly. It is a competitive era that we live in. In a way, even the agents are also being motivated to look for younger policy holders,” says Rao
   So there you have it. There are, of course, private companies, but they have their limitations, especially with regard to those between 40 and 50 years. Here too senior citizens are not exactly welcome.
   What can one do in such limiting circumstances? Start early as far as health insurance policies are concerned. Renewing health policies is comparatively easier than getting a fresh one. Also, if an agent refused to offer you a policy, or seems disinterested, approach the companies directly. If they refuse, insist that they give you the refusal in writing. There is always the option to write to the insurance ombudsman which has offices in different states. You can also explore other policies which are similar to Mediclaim like Good Health from Oriental or Health Plus of The New India Assurance.

HEALTH IS WEALTH

Start Early
Insure whatever amount you can afford to pay at the time
If Insurance agent is indifferent, approach the company directly
If the companies refuse, insist that the rejection be given in writing
Do not be afraid of approaching an insurance ombudsman
Explore health plus polices where pre-existing illnesses are covered with higher premiums.

Brother Tongue

Ketan Tanna updates the underworld lexicon in the Times of India (‘Bhais speak differently now’, 9 Sep, 2007):

A crore, which the underworld famously called “khoka”, is now “bada rupiya” while “peti” (one lakh) has become “chota rupiya”. Encounter cop Sachin Vaze says that “supari” (contract killing), once the most feared word in the film and real estate circles, is today called “nariyal dena” as a tribute to the tradition of breaking a coconut to inaugurate a venture.

Needless to say, this is not a structured transformation. Old usages still linger but these new expressions are catching on. In the past, cops, especially the constable, were called “pandu” without affection. Later they were called “bidi”, without affection, of course. But now they are called “badal”. It’s used as by gangsters as a warming to their men that the clouds have come and they should scoot.

AK-47 has become “Lambi” (referring to its length). Pistol is “Magazine” and bullets are “dane” (grains). A 6mm pistol is still called “chakri” and if one has to bring a 9mm variant then he is asked to bring “nine number ki chappal”. An ordinary revolver is called file. Cash is still known as “kagaz” (paper) but now it is also called “patte” or “lottery” Gold which was called “pila” (yellow) is now also called “jaundice”, according to the police, and silver is called “barf” (snow).
To eliminate a person, the underworld continues to use the “de de” (give it to him) or “baja de”. But when a contract killing gets postponed, the term now used is “shaadi multavi ho gayi hai” (marriage has been postponed). When a gangster is on the run, he becomes “11 number ki bus” (11 refers to the two legs).
A police officer says that the foot soldiers of the underworld used to come from UP and Bihar and they had created the first lexicon. Now, with most gangs disbanded and the aura of the underworld decimated, even the literary talents of the mafia seem to have become diminished.

Freedom from mother-tongue

Freedom from mother-tongue
30 Sep 2007, 0319 hrs IST,Ketan Tanna

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Freedom_from_mother-tongue/rssarticleshow/2415514.cms
It is not just the Malayalee who has the problem. Most Indians speak English with the peculiar sounds of their mother tongues. ‘When’ often sounds like ‘ven’ and ‘vine’ becomes ‘wine’. We also tend to speak fast without stretching the vowel sounds. In Orissa and other parts of eastern India, b is freely used for w and v, while across the South, prize sounds like price, and rise sounds like rice. Gujaratis and Rajasthanis make ‘wis’ out of wish and their ’shirts’ are ’sirts’. And a marriage hall is, poignantly or prophetically, “marriage hole”. Maharashtrians threaten to become ‘voilent’ and not violent. And those from MP and UP have a perpetual problem with starting a word with ’s’ even if they have been to the ‘eskool’. There is, however, a cure. And increasingly, Indians are seeking this cure.

In the last few years, it is not just BPO employees who have been learning to speak correctly but also scores of housewives businessmen, senior citizens, middle level executives and many more who cannot be described. They are taking the help of voice trainers to get rid of various flaws in how they speak English.

Forty-eight-year-old Vijaya Sailopal, a Punjabi housewife who lives in Mumbai, and mother of two, is an affluent upper middle class social worker who volunteers with a non governmental organization. Her job profile entails holding various meetings and events where she needs to communicate with a small audience. Nobody has told her, but very often Sailopal was conscious of her Punjabi accent.

She enrolled in a voice training class conducted by Anil Mani, who is a professional voice-over artiste. Her classes lasted seven weeks and came at a price tag of Rs 7,000. It has been two years since she attended the classes and she says it’s worth it because it gave her confidence a tremendous boost.

Pratap Sharma who is a veteran in this field says that an 86-year-old Parsi woman, Jeannie Naoroji, landed at his classes. At her age, Naoroji’s aim was to speak to small groups and audiences effectively. All kinds of people are coming to him these days, he says, to improve the way they speak in English.

There are scores of middle level and even senior corporate chieftains who attend classes because even though they have achieved a lot in life, their accents always worked to their disadvantage. Dr Sadhana Nayak, a Dadar-based voice and phonetics specialist, says that 42-year-old Murli Nair (name changed), a graduate from IIT and IIM and a regional head in a pharmaceutical company, came to him to cure his heavy Malayalee accent. “He was ribbed about it throughout his student days. His 10-year-old daughter studying in an English school often corrected his pronunciation. He was professionally on the rise and looking for a high level position in another firm. He felt his accent came in the way. During the break between jobs he came for accent training.”

Then there was the case of Mahesh Iyer, a 49-year-old Dubai- based professional working with an oil major. “He felt very self-conscious during presentations and meetings as he was often asked to repeat himself. Also he had developed an inferiority complex due to his accent. In fact, he said he was better than most of them at his work but they communicated with greater confidence than him,” says Dr Nayak. His vacation was spent correcting his pronunciation and his diction.

With the boom in the economy and the rising aspirations of Indians, there has been a steep rise in the number of people enrolling in such classes. Each one has a different purpose for enrolling. Some want to get rid of their accents, some want to modulate their voices and some want to make a career as voice artists. Not surprisingly, Mumbai’s voice trainers are raking in a lot. “I have seen a 100% rise since last year in the number of executives coming for accent neutralisation or modification training and almost a 300% rise in the number of enquiries I get on my website,” says Nayak.

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Two countries and a daughter

Page 20, The Times Of India, Mumbai

TROUBLED LEGACY

Two countries and a daughter

Ketan Tanna finds the story of Jinnah House as complicated as its owner

Nothing about Mohammed Ali Jinnah was simple—not his politics, not his personal life, and certainly not the property he left behind. To whom does the white colonial estate called Jinnah House on Malabar Hill belong? To India, Pakistan or his 88-year-old daughter Dina who lives in Manhattan and who recently moved the Bombay High Court asking that she be allowed to enjoy the rest of her days in what she says is her patrimony? The Indian government has contested her claim just as it has consistently stonewalled Pakistan’s request for the mansion to be turned over to it for a consulate in Mumbai. It has resolutely held that since Jinnah willed the property to his sister Fatima, the daughter has no claim, and that with the death of the Fatima, the property has become part of the state’s wealth under evacuee law.

Excellent lawyer that he was, Jinnah left behind a meticulous will signed on May 30, 1939. At this point in time, Pakistan was a dream, but in his personal life there had already been a painful partition. According to historian Stanley Wolpert’s Jinnah of Pakistan, so furious was Jinnah with Dina for flouting him and marrying a Christian-Parsi, Neville Wadia, that could not bring himself to use her name in his will. He did, however, set apart Rs 2,00,000 for her, which he said would bring in Rs 1,000 every month at a six per cent interest rate. His deliberate factoring in of interest, despite it being proscribed by Islam, was typical of his agnostic and financially keen mind. To his sister Fatima he left his beloved house and its contents, his cars and a lifetime income of Rs 2,000 a month which,would be paid for from his other properties. To his three other sisters, Rahemat, Mariam and Shareen, and brother Ahmed, he left Rs 100 a month. His will made it clear that after his daughter’s death, the remainder of the Rs 2,00,000 corpus was to be equally divided between her children and in case she did not have children it would revert to his residuary estate and be divided between Alighar (sic) University, Islamic College in Peshawar and the Sindh Madressa in Karachi. Finally, he left Rs 50,000 to Bombay University, Rs 25,000 to Mumbai’s Anjuman-i-Islam School and the same amount to Delhi’s Arabic College.

But where there is a will there is a dispute. One disputatious theory, advocated by a 70-something Pakistani businessman in Karachi is that the bungalow belongs to Dina Wadia “morally and ethically” according to the tenets of Khoja law. Businessman Mohammed A Z Dossa, says his father Haji Bhai Esmail Dossa was a family friend and client of Jinnah. He says his father clearly told him that Jinnah had bequeathed his Mount Pleasant Road house to his wife Ruttie in lieu of the Rs 1,25,000 he had promised her as mehr when he married her on April 19, 1918. If this were really the case—there is no written proof—the house would be Dina’s inheritance and not Jinnah’s to will in the first place. But will it he did. Dina Wadia’s lawyer in Mumbai, Shrikanth Doijode confirmed that the ownership of the house before it was acquired by the government was in the name of Jinnah. And a retired judge of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed, confirmed over the telephone that the Sindh High Court had indeed ratified Jinnah’s will.

So is Dossa’s a fanciful claim with only memory to back it? Dossa says that an entry copied by his father from the marriage register of the Khoja Isanasheri Mosque in Dongri gives minute details of the marriage between Mohamad Alibhai Jinnah and Rattanbai (Ruttie). He points out that the “gift of Rs, 125,000 is equivalent to the valuation of the house in municipal records as per the rate in 1918″. However, while the log records give details of the nikah, it does not mention that the house had been handed over as mehr in lieu of the cash. Also, the secretary of the Dongri masjid, Barkat Uniya, said that they did not have Jinnah’s marriage records as the marriage was a private ceremony.

Even if Jinnah did will the house to his sister—who was found dead under mysterious circumstances in 1967 in Karachi—Khoja/Shia law still favours Dina as the heir. Justice Wajihuddin is more circumspect—it is up to the Bom bay HC, he says, on how they interpret inheritance norms.

Another Jinnah story that Dossa, diehard romantic that he is, is determined to preserve is that despite the separation between Jinnah and his wife, they remained in love. He quotes a letter written by the ailing Ruttie, who knew she was dying of cancer, in which she tells J (as she called him) that their story “commenced with love and should also end with it”. When doctors at the Pasteur Institute in Paris said that they could do no more, Ruttie headed home. On board the S S Rajpuatana, she wrote to her husband: “Darling, when one has been as near to the realities of life (which, after all, is death) as I have been dearest, one only remembers the beautiful and tender moments and all the rest becomes a half-veiled mist of unrealities. I love you, I love you and had I loved you just a little less, I might have remained with you—only after one has created a very beautiful blossom, one does not drag it through the mire.”

In Mumbai, the doctors advised that she put up at the Taj Mahal Hotel so that in case of emergency they would be accessible. “She moved to the hotel and began to look for a cure through fakirs and swamis. But on the morning of February 20, 1929, she haemorrhaged and died in her sleep,” says Dossa, who has poured all this into his book, Chosen One.

In his book, Roses in December, Justice M C Chagla, recorded that the only time the emotionless Jinnah broke down in public was when Ruttie was being buried at the Khoja cemetery in Mazgaon. Years later, Hashim Raza, the then administrator of Karachi, said he saw the Qaid’s daughter Dina break down as her father’s spare body was lowered into a Karachi grave. TNN FAMILY AFFAIRS (Left) Dina at an UN function with a Pakistani official and Kurt Waldheim. (Right) Jinnah, Dina and Ruttie (from left to right

THE MOVIE MONGERS’ CLUB

THE MOVIE MONGERS’ CLUB

In this Saturday series, we cover unusual groups. This week, Ketan Tanna meets bloggers who are mad about movies

On September 18, when Anurag Kashyap came across a YouTube video of his film Paanch, which has yet to be released in the market, the first thing he did was write a quick blog on passionforcinema.com.
The words tumbled forth. “I woke up this morning and got a mail from someone I don’t even know…and I got so emotional. See how young I look…I sound like all those directors who say it’s a different film… I was blabbering all of that. But made me feel so good,” gushed Kashyap. Reactions to this disjointed outburst came fast and furious from India as well as non-resident India, and at last count more than 82 persons had posted their opinion of Paanch and what they thought of the Censor Board’s craven decision to spike it because “it glorifies violence”.
Kashyap, the scriptwriter of Satya, Kaun and Yuva, is not the only one who has bared his heart incoherently on the internet. Others from the film world such as Sudhir Mishra, Ramu Ramanathan, Shashank Ghosh, Pawan Kaul and Santosh Sivan are all part of a growing cyber group which calls itself passionforcinema.com or PFC. Apart from these famous names, the rank and file is made up of scores of regular Indians who eat, drink and sleep cinema even as they live out their stolid lives as software engineers, television journalists, accountants and doctors.
What started as a private blog by a Los Angeles-based Indian, Pankaj Sikka, who likes to go by the pseudonym Oz, has blossomed into an online community where geography is meaningless and chemistry is ignited by a potent compound of cinema and industry gossip. Launched in September 2006, PFC gets around 10,000 to 15,000 hits a day.
On a rainy evening, eight members of PFC gather at Cafe Mocha in Juhu to talk shop. The most talkative is Surendra Hiwarale, a bespectacled young man who has worked with Ram Gopal Varma on Ek Haseena Thi, Mr Ya Miss and Nishabd. Somen Mishra, a television journalist with a benign smile tries to moderate the discussion but gives up. Each member of the group has his own voluble take on what Indian cinema is and what it should be. Seated next to Mishra is Kartik Krishnan, an intense-looking software engineer with Accenture who hopes to one day be a full-time director. So far he has only made a one-minute film.
The conversation flows effortlessly and topics are tossed around and discarded. It’s very much like an internet chat room. On the website, there is activity round the clock because the Great Indian Diaspora has infested time zones all over the
world. “Everything is discussed from World Cup cricket to what’s happening in whose life,” says Mishra. The maverick Ram Gopal Varma is a favourite subject. “We all wonder what he will be up to next,” chuckles Bala. Another film-maker Ashish Shukla, says he used to be a die-hard fan of Sanjay Leela Bhansali until he joined PFC and found out to his disillusionment that “Black was a remake of an American film”.
To keep the site clean and spam free, volunteers act as editors. Currently under way is an online film competition called PFCOne. It is open to all. To participate one has to shoot a one-minute film and upload it. The winners get to work with the established members of the group. “The competition is being held to encourage those who don’t know anyone in Bollywood but still want to start somewhere. Mind you, the films will be judged by filmmakers,” says Mishra.
Over the last year this cinema-crazy bunch has become a small family, with the attendant side-effects of love and hate. One blogger insists on sending DVDs of films not available in India to Hiwarale. When some of the films refused to play on Hiwarale’s DVD, the blogger sent him a DVD player. Yet, more than material gifts, it is the opinion of fellow bloggers that is most sought after. Words of praise are framed and hung on the bedroom wall. But it’s not always about back scratching. Sometimes the knives come out. A blogger who is known by the handle R K lambasted Kashyap for his film Black Friday, saying that it lacked continuity and that K K Menon hardly looked like Rakesh Maria, the police officer who cracked the 1993 Mumbai blasts case. Kashyap, while acknowledging the lack of continuity, said they were severely crippled by financial and other constraints. “We lied to shoot the blast. We shot in the middle of a residential area, cops breathing down our necks.” But he defended his choice of KK for the role. “Only Maria himself would have looked more the part. I would say that to me his is the most brilliant performance in the film because the finest aspect of an investigating officer is his mind. The ability to slink into the background.”
And, of course, there was the little incident at the Black Friday party when director Sanjay Gupta walked menacingly towards the group of bloggers. One of them, Kartik Krishnan, had made some unflattering remarks about Gupta’s film Das Kahaniyan on another site. What happened at the party was described by Bala. “Kartik is looking at him….sex on the beach…Sanjay Gupta picks a bottle and walks towards our table. ‘Bhen**** kaun hai?’ Kartik and Sanjay Gupta are now face to face. Continues Bala, “Wish I had 36 cameras placed all around to capture that moment in a 360-degree freeze frame…Sanjay Gupta put the bottle down. Kartik surprisingly had no reaction on his face. He was just looking at Sanjay Gupta. We just moved our heads from one face to another.”
Later, Kartik found out that they had pulled a fast one on him. TNN

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