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Midnight at Marine Drive

A whole ecosystem springs up at Marine Drive in the hours when Mumbai sleeps, and a day begins for others.
Shama Arif Patelby Shama Arif Patel

1 am.

While it’s time for most of us to call it a day, the day begins for many at this hour. Right here at Marine Drive.

The day begins for a flower girl who gets a smile on her face after seeing the couples sitting hand in hand, for now she knows that it’s her time to earn her living. The day begins for her right then!

The day begins for an artist who hits Marine Drive at 11 pm every day. After keeping his belongings aside, he makes himself comfortable. Laying on the stretch, facing the sea, staring at the sky, he closes his eyes to let his exhaustion settle down. He takes drawing classes for children during the day and makes live sketches for people at night. After a good 45 minutes’ nap, he calls it a morning. Grooming himself and carrying drawing sheets in his hand, he gets going to earn his share of money.

A mimicry artist is thrilled to see a potential audience by the sea. He spots a group of people and begins an impromptu show right there. While some shower genuine praises at him, the others take this as their chance to mock him. While some offer him money, the others, like me, pray for his dream to come true. His hope begins right there!

It’s a new day for a chaiwallah who rides up and down several times carrying chai along with other eatables, making his bicycle a mobile basic grocery store. And this store manager marine-drive-seem to know exact need of the crowd visiting this place because this need becomes responsible for his family’s daily living.

The strength of tel-maalish (oil massage) men doubles as they seek to work their hand’s magic and release the tension in a lot of people sitting on that pavement! The onlookers may feel that people getting the maalish are stressed and tired with working hard and they remain completely ignorant to the life of that massager who is capable of relieving the stress despite his own stressful life. That maalish session which he executes with his whole heart becomes his blessing and earnings for the next 24 hours.

SONY DSCIt’s daybreak for those innocent street children and their mother, who roam around in search of food and money with a hope to get blessed with someone’s leftover snacks that becomes their only meal for the entire day. It’s a new day for another group of homeless children who walk around with naughty smiles and a twinkle in their eyes, accepting anything and everything that’s offered to them by people around – from a half-filled water bottle to the left over chana-chor garam.

Then, amidst these people are those who are filled with complains and whine about how nothing is going right in their life! People who are so engrossed in their problematic world that they become ignorant to these needs around them. And despite not having any of those fancy luxuries, these mid-nighters seem happy and content compared to those people who visit Marine Drive just to release their stress!

Would you trade your life to live someone else’s life? Would you be happy living the life of that flower girl or the artist or that stand-up comedian or those street dwellers? You may not want to live their life but you become a part of their life always. ‘You’ become a part of their new beginning every single day! And how wonderful would it be, if you offered a smile to these mid-nighters and gave them a happy start to their day!

We all are dependent beings trying to live independent lives. The kind of person you choose to become not only affects your life but also affects the life of people around you and that’s when you become the indirect support of many who begin their day at midnight. Life has many facets to it and each human being, I guess, is given a part to play. Make sure you play your part well, because now you know that you are touching lives every second just by playing your part in this life.

Shama Patel is a marriage and family counsellor by education, a writer by passion and a celebrity co-coordinator by choice. She also works part time for a telecomm company as a media and communication manager. In her free time, she loves to read, write and sketch. She gets enthralled by everything that nature has to offer. 

 (Pictures courtesy blog.jilllenafordart.com, www.lonelyplanet.com, www.hg2magazine.com)

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Become

Touring India today

Entrepreneurs Harsh Sonawala and Abbas Slatewala talk about going from being travel junkies to running their own travel start up.
by Swaraj Dhanjal

We all know how big a pain it is to plan one’s travels! And if the trip happens to be to a foreign locale, the task becomes even more tedious. Some people might take refuge in the service of major tour operators, but don’t we all know how it feels to be part of a herd, moving together in packs and doing things which are pre-planned by the tour operator?

Now imagine the plight of foreign tourists when they think about travelling to a diverse and complex country like India! The good news is that they need not spend sleepless nights any more, as two Mumbaikars have teamed up to solve their travel woes. ‘India Someday’ is a travel start up by Harsh Sonawala (28) and Abbas Slatewala (29) that offers customised India tours to foreign tourists.

The great idea
Harsh (2)Harsh (in pic on left), who has tried his hands at many crafts like advertising, film editing and eCommerce before starting India Someday, was always a traveller at heart. “I would pick one State and travel across it for like one month, mostly alone,” he says. On one of his travels, he met Abbas (28), also a hard-core travel junkie, in 2008. A common love for trekking and travelling brought them together. They planned a trip to Bhutan and got along a few friends, too. “All our friends loved the trip, the way it was planned and the overall execution!” exclaims Harsh. “Also, I was unofficially helping a lot of friends plan their travels, so all of this got me thinking that it was a good business model.”

Starting out
They started off by creating a structured process for the work they were already doing – assisting their friends with trips. One of the first things that they decided was to call themselves ‘Travel consultants’ and not tour operators. “We assist people in planning trips; the clients play an important part in the planning. We don’t simply hand them an already cooked plan as a trip,” says Abbas.

Having the process set up was just the first step. Next, they needed partners, so they began with hotels. “Getting hotels to acknowledge us was a big challenge,” remembers Harsh. Building relationships with hotels proved to be a tough ask; some hotels, initially, just wouldn’t work without upfront payments.

What so special?
The USP of India Someday is that trips are all entirely customised, and the process is completely transparent, with a clear picture of services offered and the complete fee provided. “We even give people the option to book their own tickets if they want to,” says Abbas. The duo also does not recommend places or hotels to their Lauren and Kai used India Someday's servicesclients unless they have been to those places personally. “The biggest differentiating factor is that we are travel enthusiasts running a travel company and so our perspective matches that of our customers,” says Harsh.

Marketing the company
When asked about marketing India Someday, Harsh said that they haven’t spent a single rupee on marketing. “Our first customer was a friend’s friend,” he says. After that they set up a Facebook page and things just began to snowball!

The first year saw most of the customers coming in from their friends’ references. A unique and innovative step that they took was to give prospective clients the contact details of past customers so that they could get in touch with them and check about the service personally. “This helped us build a lot of trust with our clients,” says Abbas.

The decision to stay away from advertising was a conscious one. “We are a team of four and we don’t think that we would be able to handle all the traffic generated by any advertising,” foreigners travelling in indiasays Harsh. They say that they don’t need advertising right now as word of mouth has worked wonders for them thus far.

Harsh and Abbas, however, won’t just stay limited to word of mouth and are planning for international PR by hiring a few interns in France and Germany, countries which provide the bulk of their clients. They also plan to hire a few more interns to handle the increasing number of customers.

Going from strength to strength
Their three-year-old company has witnessed double digit growth, starting from 40 trips in 2010 to 100 and around 200 trips in 2011 and 2012 respectively. The company earned around $300,000 last year, a remarkable feat for a small start up.

The journey, however, had its fair share of problems. “We wish we could have expanded quicker but the nature of our business model doesn’t allow us to do that. And if we try to change the business model, try to become more formal, cut times, then we won’t be India Someday,” says Abbas. Finding good employees is another major challenge for them.
On the brighter side, meeting their clients and receiving positive feedback from them is very encouraging. “We recently met a large Columbian family and every member had liked something or the other about the trip,” says Abbas. It is always good to receive feedback and advice from clients, they add.

Many valuable lessons have also been learnt in these three years. “Partnerships are tough,” exclaims Harsh. He says they have learnt a lot about running a business in a partnership. “Finding the middle path is important, as is respecting each other’s thoughts,” adds Abbas.

What’s next?
EmilyIndia Someday recently got itself a new office and the duo has been spending a lot of time planning the firm’s future plans. “We are targeting 350 trips in this financial year,” says Abbas. “We will be marketing ourselves and also hire new people,” adds Harsh.

The biggest trick up their sleeves, however, is their plans to start a travel consultancy for Indian tourists as well. “We are looking at Asia for this, as both of us have travelled a lot across Asia and it is also comparatively cheaper than the West,” explains Harsh.

Both Abbas and Harsh, after having worked for different corporates, seem to have found their calling in entrepreneurship. “I never had a problem working for someone, but I hated being just a cog in the wheel,” says Harsh. Abbas feels that, “All entrepreneurs will eventually end up doing something because it either makes business sense or because they are passionate about it!”

Check out India Someday at http://www.indiasomeday.com/

(Pictures courtesy Harsh Sonawala, blogs.wsj.com, www.indiasomeday.com )

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Big story

Revenue loss of Rs 25,000 crore to Maharashtra?

An RTI query reveals that Maharashtra loses a staggering Rs 25,000 crore per year through corruption on land lease deals.
Shailesh Gandhiby Shailesh Gandhi

[Background: Four months after the Maharashtra State Government revised its rates for leased plots in the city, 149 occupants of such plots in Mumbai’s suburbs have begun receiving notices asking them to either start paying the revised annual lease rent – running into several hundred times what they have been paying so far – or a onetime occupancy fee (ie one-fifth of the plot’s Ready Reckoner value). They will have until the end of 2013 to choose either option. Some of these names include actor Shahrukh Khan and industrialists Azim Premji and Ratan Tata. Till now, they had been paying nominal rents up to Rs 2,500 per year.]

Would you believe that Maharashtra loses over Rs 25,000 crore annually because of carelessness/corruption, and this has not been exposed so far?

The recent scams which have been unearthed give me a feeling that we may actually be quite well off with enough resources. If the lakhs of crores of public resources being given away and snatched away by the few were to come to the public exchequer, we could be quite comfortable as a nation. I have been pursuing one such scam in Maharashtra in which I believe a few thousand crores of public money is being lost to benefit a few.

Maharashtra’s debt is about Rs 2.7 lakh crore, and we pay the interest for this. A State owns many resources on behalf of citizens. One of these resources is land. Governments sell some of the lands and give some on lease. The idea behind giving certain lands on lease is to basically have an inflation-proof investment and sometimes, to encourage  certain activities. Hence it offers lands on lease. It wishes to retain the land so that it may basically ensure that its revenue matches with the growth in inflation.

A lease is legal transaction which primarily lays down the area which is leased, purpose for which the land is to be used, period of lease, lease rent and certain other conditions. When the lease expires, it may be renewed with the lessor increasing the lease rent as per the market price which reflect the inflation in the intervening period.

When any individual or institution gives land or a property on lease and the lease expires, a fresh lease is drawn up at the prevailing market rates if the lessee wants to continue. This simple principle has not been followed in Mumbai and possibly in the State of Maharashtra. I have been told that this is true all over the country.  Some leases are renewed, while some are allowed to continue occupying the land at the old rates. What are the reasons for such irrational actions?

This may be due to carelessness or corruption.

From 2005 onwards

I had discovered this in 2005 and drawn the attention of the Chief Secretary to this in a letter titled ‘Arbitrariness and huge loss of public money in public lands given on lease’. I have now got the scanned copy of the file relating to this which has over 600 pages over the years, and has ended on a bizarre note. The Supreme Court in the 2G case has said, “In conclusion, we hold that the State is the legal owner of the natural resources as a trustee of the people and although it is empowered to distribute the same, the process of distribution must be guided by the constitutional principles including the doctrine of equality and larger public good.” The poorest man who may be starving is an equal and rightful owner of this land, and it is necessary that the appropriate revenue is obtained for him.

I looked at the list of leases of lands given by the two Collectors of Mumbai (obtained in RTI) and decided to calculate the worth of the lands where lease deeds have expired and unauthorised occupiers are allowed to continue.

Let me first share the route the Maharashtra Government has decided to adopt after eight years of confabulations: The Government has decided to offer the lands to the lessees at about 20 to 30 per cent of the value! I am shocked at this irrational action of the Government and think it is about time, citizens defend their revenue by telling the Government they will not accept this approach. The detailed calculations are given in the attached two excel spreadsheets. In the case of the information about leases provided by the Mumbai collector, in 103 cases there is no mention of the lease date and period of lease. Despite a specific query by me using RTI, the PIO has said they will need two to three months to provide this information!

How I arrived at my calculations

There are also other Government agencies like BMC which  have similar lands in Mumbai. My calculation estimates that there is an annual loss of about Rs 1,550 crore by Mumbai Collector  and about Rs 1,200 crore due to the Suburban collector, i.e. a total revenue loss of Rs 2,750 crore each year. The Government now proposes to give away ownership rights to the lessees for Rs 2,248 plus Rs 1,841 crore one time!

Citizens must protest before the Government dispossess us of our land and legitimate revenue. If we can get the Government to auction the leases in Mumbai and all over Maharashtra we could have a revenue stream of over Rs 25,000 crore each year. Citizens and media need to make the Government get the appropriate revenue by fixing lease amounts at current rates. Also this is a revenue stream which is a partial hedge against inflation, saving future generations from having to pay ever higher taxes. The revenue loss in Mumbai is around Rs 2,500 crores, without taking into account lands given by other agencies. The geographical area of Maharashtra is about 700 times that of Mumbai. It is most likely that the revenue loss on this account will be over 10 times that in Mumbai, ie. about Rs 25,000 crore. Is it likely that for the entire nation this figure may be upwards of Rs 2 lakh crore.

Shailesh Gandhi was the Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, New Delhi and is a noted RTI activist.

(Pictures courtesy www.firstpost.com, www.stockpicturesforeveryone.com)
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Enough said

Two Muslims, two stories

One was a liberal academic, the other was a feted Hindi film actor, but their lives were really quite similar.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

The passing away of Dr Asghar Ali Engineer recently saddened me, to say the least. Though I had met the scholar and academic several times in New Delhi and also in Sringar, I had met him just once in Mumbai. I was determined to catch up with him in Mumbai, because I have been to that city just once in my life and I wanted to meet him during that visit.

This was in the winter of 2006. From Colaba, I made my way to Dr Engineer’s Santacruz office, and it was lunch time when I got there. We spoke over lunch; his lunch, he said, was home-cooked and prepared by his daughter-in-law, who is a Maharashtrian. It was a simple spread – not the expected kormas or kababs or biryani, but two plain rotis, curd, curry, aloo gobi sabzi and some khichdi.

He spoke frankly of present-day realities. “Today, the government has to prioritise justice and security. I must emphasise that no Muslim group or individual wants to take revenge, even after the Gujarat pogrom. I have been talking to people, and everyone realises and knows that confrontation policies do not work, only healthy co-existence does. I have been going to Gujarat and talking to Muslims. They have been saying that all they want is security, so that they can live in peace. They’re worried about their lives, their livelihood, their children…”

He also said, “Our focus should be on how to clear those myths about Muslims. I’m trying my best to clear these myths by holding asghar ali engineerworkshops for the police, for college and school students. It’s only through dialogue that many misconceptions about Muslims can be cleared.”

I have read some really excellent research he had done on the communal riots. That afternoon, as he detailed and traced the history and potential of communal politics, it became apparent that it had peaked in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid’s razing.

Dr Asghar Ali Engineer always spoke calmly, with all the facts at hand. Probably this was what helped him reach out to so many people.

nargis and sanjay duttWith Sanjay Dutt going to prison, I have been reading this essay by writer Khushwant Singh on Nargis Dutt, Sanjay’s mother. I quote, “Nargis Dutt was introduced to me through the then editor of Femina, Gulshan Ewing. I’d seen her film Mother India, and I had met her when they (the Dutts) were not doing too well, and she had almost retired from films. She told me that two of her children were studying at the Sanawar School, not far from my home in Kasauli, and she asked if she could stay at my Kasauli cottage during the Sanawar Founders’ Week. With that I’d quipped, ‘Only on one condition, and the condition is that I have your permission to tell everyone that Nargis slept in my bed!’

She had a great sense of humour and laughed heartily on hearing this. Years later, when we were both nominated to the Rajya Sabha and given seats next to each other and whenever anyone tried to introduce us, she would say, ‘You don’t have to introduce us. I have slept in his bed.’

“…One thing that intrigued me was her (Nargis Dutt’s faith. Was she a Muslim or Hindu or both or nothing? She wore a bindi on her forehead, married a Brahmin, gave her children Hindu names and was often seen at Swami Muktanand’s ashram at Ganeshpuri. Nevertheless, she was buried with Muslim rites in a Muslim graveyard with her husband reciting the fateha. I can’t think of any Indian family which better exemplified the principle of Sarva Dharma Samabhav.”

Humra Quraishi is a senior journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.news24online.com, sitagita.com, www.hindu.com)

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Learn

Everything’s in a (road’s) name

Your elected representatives in the BMC are asking more questions about road renaming, rather than things like repairs and sanitation.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The monsoons should be upon us in the next month, and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is working hard to repair roads that are riddled with potholes and need general repairs. With more and more complaints coming from the citizens, it logically follows that the city’s elected representatives – its municipal councillors – will also take most of the complaints from their wards to the ward committee meetings.

Not necessarily.

A white paper released recently by NGO Praja Foundation recently reveals that of the questions raised by municipal councillors based on citizens’ complaints, the maximum numbers of questions pertained to renaming of roads and chowks in the city. The paper, titled White Paper On Report Of Working Of Ward Committees In The City Of Mumbai And Civic Problems Registered By Citizens, sheds light on the complaints by citizens against the quality and quantity of related questions asked by councillors in the BMC ward committee meetings. “The maximum number of questions asked by elected representatives in ward committee meetings during the year 2012 were on renaming of roads and chowks – a hefty 127 questions!” says the summary accompanying the paper.

The last such study was conducted by Praja in 2010, to similar results. “Some four years ago, when Praja Foundation had issued a White Paper on civic issues, we had found it shocking that of the plethora of problems facing the city of Mumbai, the maximum number of questions asked by the municipal councillors were on the renaming of roads,” the summary says. “In the calender year 2012, BMC received 29,852 complaints related to roads, potholes etc. The 227 elected representatives together asked 100 questions on roads, repairs, etc. However, the maximum number of questions asked by elected representatives in ward committee meetings during this year were on renaming of roads and chowks,” the paper adds.

“Unless municipal councillors learn to interpret data and raise valid, pertinent questions in the ward committee meetings, they are falling far short of the expectations the citizens elected them for. Should our elected representatives be taking the Corporation to task over the citizen’s complaints or should they be only asking the Municipal Commissioner to change names of roads and chowks?”

Incidentally, citizens have complained the most about roads in 2012 – there were 29,852 complaints received (as against 5,177 complaints in 2011). There were 16,194 complaints about drainage, 6,562 complaints against solid waste management and 6,215 water supply complaints.

(Pictures courtesy www.mid-day.com, mumbai-pushpa.blogspot.com) 

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Kharcha paani

Maha CM wants Chinese industries in State

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan throws the door open for Chinese investment in industry in Mumbai and Maharashtra’s economically backward areas.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Maharashtra State Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan is eyeing Chinese investment into Mumbai and Maharashtra. After previous visits from British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande, it was the turn of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to visit Mumbai yesterday.

During the visit, Chavan sought China’s help in creating various industrial corridors in Maharashtra. Apart from this, he solicited Chinese investment in the State’s economically backward areas to create employment opportunities. “The State’s textile policy is open and conducive to foreign investment,” Chavan is said to have told Li during their meeting in Mumbai. “Maharashtra is the second-largest producer of cotton in the country, and we have the technical expertise and machinery required for a major textile operation. China can invest in this ‘value chain’,” he said.

The State is also open to providing land at Chakan (near Pune) for Chinese industries. “If Chinese companies are sufficiently interested to set up factories here, we can create Special Investment Zones in the area for them. There are a few Chinese companies operational in Maharashtra, and they are doing well in building construction and vehicle manufacturing. We would like China to set up plants that manufacture heavy vehicles for India,” Chavan said.

Additionally, Chavan sought China’s know-how in providing basic services to citizens, such as water supply, solid waste management and drainage.

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