Dharavi- not just about slumdogs

Everybody’s been talking about Slumdog Millionaire reaching the Oscars and going gaga over the film and its exceptional direction, story and music. But the life of the real ‘slumdogs’ (no offense intended) isn’t so easy. They have to fight for basic amenities such as proper space to live and water for daily use.

My colleague and I had gone to Dharavi for a story on water scarcity and we unveiled some rather interesting facts. An NGO called SHED helped us in getting through the place and making some contacts with the residents. We went to Sion and the ‘little’ world of Dharavi was waiting for us. Finding the place called Social Nagar was not very difficult as a policeman helped us with the directions. The NGO person was waiting for us and after meeting her, the world of reality hit us.

In her office were two women, who had come to give her a ‘report’ of happenings in their area. To combat their problems, these women have formed Mahila Samitis in their area and they have a monthly discussion and meeting. The major problem in Dharavi which is more serious than water scarcity is the contamination of water. Getting a legal connection of water is difficult and one has to wait for months and visit the BMC office for umpteen number of times and to add to it pay a heavy amount of 35,000 Rs. Therefore, the business of illegal connections is flourishing. They give a connection for just 4000 bucks! So who will opt for the legal one? ask the residents.
The illegal connections also come with a risk of contamination. The clean water and the sewage water pipes run parallel and the illegal connection is inserted to any pipe. So there is a high chance of mixing of water and contamination. Some people are aware of boiling water but some only strain it with a cloth. A resident doctor told us that around 4000 people are affected due to water daily!

I have to mention this. While we were passing through the narrow gullies jumping of gutters to avoid slipping, we saw a well. Well, you must be thinking, what is so different about a well? But let me tell you that this well was not the normal water-only well. It had scary looking fish which has moustaches (something which looked like them), remains of watermelon and dozens of other vegetables, plastic bags and other garbage. A woman came there with a bucket and started filling the same water. She said that they use this water for washing clothes and utensils (thank god, not for drinking!).

The narrow gullies, some houses clean some dirty, 12 people staying in a house of 300 sq ft, people struggling for earning livelihood….is a common scene here. What new did Slumdog show? It could have projected the ‘never say die’ spirit of the Mumbai slums. People of all castes and creed stay in harmony here. There are problems, fine but they know how to tackle it and how to survive. A westerner will never see beyond the filth in the slums… we have to show them what a country like ours is made up of. A trip to Dharavi made me realize that we are a strong bunch of people struggling for positive portrayal of our country in the Western world.

(-- Seen in the photo above is a woman drawing water from the well filled with garbage and fish.)

There’s something ‘fishy’ in this gene….

I stumbled upon a report in the edition of a leading newspaper (dated 15th January), that a new algal gene of an alga called Chlamydomonas had been cloned in the Kalina campus of the Mumbai University. As health and science journalism enthusiast, I jumped at the idea of doing a follow-up of the story.

I picked up the phone to call the university and fix an appointment with the researchers involved in the cloning. The idea was to focus on the bio-fuel aspect of the alga. Like all government institutions, my call was transferred to all possible extensions. And to my surprise, I found out that there is no Biology Department in the Kalina campus. When asked about Life sciences department, the guy said ‘Ha, life sciences toh hai madam’. Further, they couldn’t get hold of the professor incharge of the research. ‘Arey madam, ye naam ka toh koi nahi hai yaha pe’, was the answer I got.

Luck was absent that day, in my case. Finally, I got through one of the PhD student who was a part of the whole research. He was reluctant to say anything. He told me to call back and then disappeared into thin air (because he was not there when I called back). A girl picked up the phone and said, ‘I am from the Physics department and have come here to take a test tube.’ Gosh… their Physics department doesn’t have test tubes! I called back after an hour and she was still there, accusing me for calling back.

I have to do something now, I felt, so I told my colleague to call up disguised as a university student asking about the research. And as I thought, she was given the information about where the researcher was. Now things are getting interesting, I thought. So I called up again and got hold of another researcher. ‘Rudeness’ could be another name for her. She told me that I should improve my manners and if I want to know more about the research I should read today’s newspaper for the same. When asked about meeting she said, ‘We are very busy and can not meet.’ If the research was so secretive and if they wanted to refrain from giving any information to press, they should have said it clearly and in a better way.

In all, I feel that something is definitely ‘fishy’ in their genes… ;-)

It’s all about LOVE!

"If you have it [Love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have".

Love…the word has so many meanings (subjective to each person, of course). People say that love is life and that love is god, making all these terms very clichéd. But the search for the perfect definition of this mesmerizing word is still on.

I have fallen in love many times in life… (now people, don’t get me wrong)…with my mother, father, brother, friends, cousins and many other people I meet daily. I fall in love with my mother again when she cooks my favourite dish or caresses my cheek when she is proud of me. I fall in love with my father once again when he pats my back for something good done or when he sits besides me when I have fever. I fall in love with my younger brother again when he becomes my partner in the various crimes I do or when he just clears the tears falling over my cheeks when I am unhappy. I fall in love again with my soulmate cum best friend again when he unexpectedly gifts me something or when he is there with me when I am low. I fall in love with them again.

There is a philosophy to love, a science behind it and chemistry too…. (In our body hormones ofcourse!) One sight of ‘him’ makes all these mix, stir, stir and come out as a great recipe of love and adoration. Life is a reason to love and love is ‘the’ reason to live. Love has taught me many lessons. Most important of them all is to love someone without limits and not expect anything in return. If your love is true, you will definitely get what you deserve.

So people, look at love with a new perspective and love will heal all your wounds!

(Psst: Wish you all a 'lovely' 2009! -Vish)

Katta and cutting chai...

Katta- this word is a part of every Puneite’s life. ‘Kattyashivay college mhanje sugandhashivay phool.’ (A college without a Katta is like a flower without scent). Okay, for those who do not know what this Katta is let me define it for you. Katta is a place in a college where collegians chill out, chat, tease each other, bitch about professors and fellow students, get ‘ideas’ for their projects, line-maro on a girl or a guy and do other such ‘productive’ things. The frequency of a student spending time on this Katta could differ from student to student. Some people are padeek on the Katta the whole day and some find an hour or so for it. Time on the Katta is best enjoyed with friends having a good sense of humour, lots of bekaar time and loads of faltoo topics to debate on.

Pune is also known as the ‘Oxford of the East’ (a very clichéd phrase) and you can spot dozens of the species called ‘college students’ hanging around their colleges. A Katta could be a non-college one also i.e. not in the college but somewhere near the college. It is a meeting spot of chuddy-buddies, lovers, enemies (to remove khunnas- tapori style) and also a place where the cutting chai is best enjoyed. Anna’s cutting chai, to be specific. The ‘Anna’ is found everywhere- in colleges, office canteens and in Udipi hotels and I have met many such Annas in my life. And the common dialogue with the Anna, “Anna chai do’, ‘Anna wada garam chahiye’ and ‘Anna paisa kal doonga’.

Katta (The word Katta is repeated too many times and also to make it sound cool, I am referring to it as ‘K’ from now on) sees the rise (!) of many talents. Singers wail here, dancers dance, poets churn out poetry and artists decorate their very own K. The singers get listeners here, dancers get audience and the poets get recognition. Poor K has to bear it all! The K makes a great venue for debaters and ‘orators’ to debate and discuss hot topics and also for the ‘intellectual’ types to hold their intelli-seminars. K essentially should have some kind of a tree around it, so that the K-padeeks can enjoy some cool breeze and if it is a fruiting tree (such as peru or chikoo), eat some fruits when hungry.

My tryst with the Katta is of seven long years- from 11th Std to final year of my post-graduation, I have basked in the glory of the K. I was a very studious (a phenomenon misunderstood by many, looking at my glasses) person and therefore had only an hour or so to spend on the K everyday. In Modern College, where I did my 11th to BSc study, the K was sometimes my classroom and sometimes the corridors, as it was a small college. I had a great bunch of friends so the place didn’t matter. But while in Ranade Institute, where I studied journalism, I had a two hour break between my foreign language lecture and my journalism lecture, so my frequency on the K increased. Also, if our journo lectures were cancelled (which happened most of the times) we would be padeek on the K and do stupid stuff like cracking PJs and harass serious members of the group when studying. My ‘Japanese’ group and I enjoyed some really beautiful moments of fun, timepass and actual work related talks on this K, which had a Christmas tree look-alike tree.

Thank you K, for being the best part of my college life and giving me such wonderful memories and I am sure that many others also thank K for their college memories.

Taxidermy- an art unheard....

Taxidermy- yeah, the name sounds cool… but I had no idea what it meant. I was assigned to do a story on the subject. (I asked Anjali, my then boss to repeat the word atleast thrice and I was like ‘yeh kya hai bhai?’). Lekin mera bharosemand saathi ‘Google’ is always there with me in trying times like these. I googled the word ‘taxidermy’ (nothing to do with taxis, ok!) and came to know that it is a science of stuffing dead animals in order to preserve their skin. Sounds interesting, right? I hopped at the idea of doing something different. But the task was to find taxidermy practitioners in Mumbai.

A rival newspaper article had mentioned the name of Prof Santosh Gaikwad, a professor in the Bombay Veterinary College. The next day, I went to meet him in his college which for me was quite a scary place. There were animals all around- lots of dogs, cats. I met Prof Gaikwad, who told me about his art in details. He started practicing this art as a hobby and now he has got permission of the Forest Department to stuff a dead leopard and a tiger. He started with stuffing small animals like fish and cocks. (No animal is killed for the purpose, he uses dead animals). This art is a combination of physiology, sculpture and painting. The body parts of the dead animal are carefully removed and the fat on the skin is also removed. All this has to be done very fast as the body starts decomposing. Then a sculpture of the body structure is done and the skin is put on it using chemical treatment. The entire process requires a lot of patience (rarely found in people like me :) and the sculpture has to be kept in an airtight container to avoid decaying. He showed me the photographs of his ‘creations’.

The next task was to find out one more taxidermy practitioner in the city. And I managed to found one! (Which was an exclusive because all other newspapers had carried only Prof Gaikwad). I called up museums in the city asking for taxidermy practitioners and came across Mr Dilip Ranade of Prince of Wales Museum. He used to practice the art, but doesn’t anymore. I went to meet him at the museum. A museum, according to many people, is a very boring place to go but for me it is quite interesting to know about what olden people were like and how they dressed and stuff like that. Mr Ranade is a GD Art from JJ College and initially worked as an illustrator in the museum. He also showed me his lovely drawings. As a taxidermist, he has stuffed small squirrels and gigantic animals such as rhinos and elephants! In the museum, there was a scene of some flamingos in their natural habitat. He told me that the Britishers actually went to their habitat and killed the flamingos as per their requirement- two males, two females, four juveniles. I was really disgusted when I heard this! How cruel can someone get. He also added that taxidermy was a ‘cruel art’. Now it isn’t because the animals which are stuffed nowadays are already dead. (and hunting is also banned).

The basic aim of taxidermy today, is to preserve skin of animals of the endangered animals so that we can at least show the stuffed animal to our future generations. Taxidermy is indeed an interesting art which needs a lot of knowledge, practice and dedication. I love to do articles on such interesting subjects as I get a lot to learn.

Dial xxxx to get entertained… ;)

As a journalist, I always need to speak to people (sometimes even if I don’t want to) - may be by meeting them or by having a telephonic conversation. Btw, this new era of calling people and getting their comments is called ‘telephonic journalism’. (As we journos are getting tech savvy, newer methods are also coming up ;). So, getting back to the original topic (as I tend to fluctuate very easily), I have come across three hilarious ‘tele-talks’ till now. They are listed below in chronological order (to remain unbiased :) –

Tele-talk no. 1: These wannabe singing sensations are a real pain to one’s ears. One chance and they can do anything to make their voice heard (literary!). I was doing an article on the occasion of Navratri and Dandiya. The topic was ‘will Falguni Pathak have a successor or will she reign as a Dandiya Queen forever’. I never liked the topic, though. So I had to call some to-be-singing sensations of reality shows. I was talking to one such ever-enthusiastic participant DD (name withheld without request), who said ‘Bas Falguni ji ko retire hone dijiye, agala Dandiya King toh main hi hoo’. When asked for his favourite Dandiya song he started singing a song from the movie ‘Pyaasa’- not the classic Guru Dutt one, it didn’t have anything related to Dandiya, but the super duper flop movie (wrongly) starring Aftab Shivdasani and Yukta Mookhey. The song is such a pain in itself and listening to the wannabe DD sing it gala-fadke for good 5 minutes was a real earache!

Tele-talk no. 2: This was when I was given a one day deadline to finish a story on ‘World Disability Day’. I had to talk to NGO spokespersons and ask them whether they were organizing any event for the same. I googled (see, I told you we are getting tech savvy!) some NGOs working with the specially challenged. Then, I called NGO xyz, a lady picked up the phone. Her voice sounded that she was in a hurry to finish off her work and go home to catch up with some pending house work. I asked her whether they were planning any event for tomorrow i.e. World Disability Day, she said without even hearing me properly- ‘Arey, yeh kya hai? Aisa kaise kar sakte hai aap? Why didn’t you call me earlier, on such a short notice how can I organize something for the WDD?’ I explained to her that I didn’t want her to organize anything but was just asking if they had any plans to do so and I hung up. I knew journalism has a lot of power, but it also has the power of organizing events to publish reports, that I didn’t know. ;)

Tele-talk no. 3: Another ‘Day’- Human Rights Day. The same old thing to do- call up NGOS and find out any events on this day and also what do they think about Human Rights and blah blah blah…. I called up an ‘international’ NGO’s board-line in Delhi. (I think, I had got a wrong number...). For the first few seconds there was pin-drop silence and suddenly it started- ‘Baar baar phone karte ho tum, kyu mujhe tang karte rehte ho… Kyu mujhe hamesha phone karke pareshan karte ho. Kal bhi phone kiya tha na tumne? Kyu, kyu, kyu?’ And behold, now comes the climax- ‘Arey itne bhi nahi samjhe, April fool banaya tumhe…ha ha ha.’ For two minutes, I didn’t get what had happened. I tried to regain consciousness and then hung up. I definitely has dialed a wrong number with this bhayanak caller tune. But I didn’t mind the dumb joke as I was bored that day and I laughed my heart out at this one. Funneee..I must say…

Think as an Indian first…

Terror attacks…terror attacks and only terror attacks- this is the only thing that on every Mumbaikar’s mind. But some still feel that regionalism will help fight terrorism. How, that I can’t tell. On 27th November, just a night after the whole gruesome act started, I got a message from an acquaintance of mine which said, ‘Where is Raj Thackeray hiding? Why isn’t he bringing his MNS goondas to fight terrorism? Why should the NSG troops fight to save lives of the Marathi manoos?’ and related stuff. I felt bad and angry after reading the message. Let me be clear that I am not a follower of Raj Thackeray. The thing which bothered me so much was ‘why bring the unwanted regionalism into the picture, when the life of thousands of Indians is at stake?’ Mind you, I said INDIANS and not Maharashtrians or Gujaratis or Punjabis. The message read that why should NSG commandos save life of Mumbaikars when they are not Marathi. The point is, what about the three top cops- Karkare, Salsakar and Kamte- they were all Marathi. Almost 90% of the Mumbai Police is Marathi. But while saving lives of so many people did they ask them ‘Are you a Marathi, I will save your life only if you are a Maharashtrian.’

One should fight such battles dealing with the whole country as an Indian and nothing else. MNS has donated 400+ bottles of blood towards the victims of the attacks. I am not trying to praise them or something. It’s just that when they did something bad, it was widely reported and it was correct but when they did something good, not even a 100 word story appeared.I feel enough is enough. Everybody loves their region and religion but how far should we go?

Every Indian should make a point of thinking as an Indian first and then as a Marathi, Bengali or Malayali.