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‘Make men a part of women empowerment’

He says men’s engagement with women’s issues can bring about empowerment. Harish Sadani is truly an activist for all seasons.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

An ad in the Indian Express caught Harish Sadani’s eye in 1991. The Mahim resident was intrigued by the ad, an appeal that read, ‘Wanted: Men who believe that wives are not for battering. If you are a man wanting to stop or prevent violence against women, please write to Box No. _____’.

“I responded to that ad, and so did 205 others,” Harish remembers. We are at a bus stop outside Dadar station, but the unceasing traffic does not once break into his thoughts. “The ad had been put there by the Express’ journalist CY Gopinath. He analysed all the letters he received, and all of the letters were personal perceptions of the issue of violence against women and how it must stop. Of these 205 men, 99 were from Mumbai. He called all 99 Mumbai men for a meeting in early 1992.”

That meeting, and the fact that the same issue had been haunting Harish for a long time already, was to change the course of his life. “I was volunteering with a women’s rights organisation, but their manner of ‘punishing’ men who harassed their wives through public humiliation, was not something I agreed with. So this meeting came at the right time. About 25 men came for the meeting, and one of them was a 14-year-old school boy!” The meeting largely focused on the men’s opinions about how to end violence against women, and was the start of many more meetings.

“We would meet periodically to address the felt needs of men, what needed to be done to address the issue in a different, non-threatening way. We spoke to lawyers, doctors and psychiatrists, did research for a year. Then we came together and formed Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA) in 1993; there were about nine of us who started it.”

Harish has been MAVA’s secretary from its inception, and is the only person with a Masters in Social Work (MSW) degree from TISS, Mumbai. “What motivated me was that if I could take on the mantle of responsibility, I could be a part of a large movement for the future,” he explains. Today, Harish has won recognition for his efforts in promoting gender equality, and was the recipient of the Ashoka Changemakers award two years ago.

A ‘sissy’ writes to Smita Patil

Harish was brought up in a Mumbai chawl, an ecosystem where everybody’s homes look into your own and where nothing is really ever private. “I was witness to a lot of domestic violence, both in my joint family and in neighbours’ houses,” he remembers. “I would think about it for long, wondering why men hit women at all. My early life was shaped by my paternal aunts, who taught me that there was no shame in doing ‘women’s work’.” So he braved taunts and jibes of being a ‘sissy’ from friends and neighbours when he stood in line at the ration shop to get kerosene, or when he helped the women with their chores at home.

“I was already questioning gender roles in society. In my teens, I was very influenced by Smita Patil’s films, because she played very strong characters. I got her address from the magazine Madhuri, and began writing to her.” The legendary actress was initially taken aback by the young man’s several questions on gender issues, and what she felt about them. “She once wrote to me saying, ‘Your letters are the only fan letters I have to think deeply about before replying to,’” he grins. “She had a huge influence on my life. In fact, I decided to study MSW after watching her in Umbartha, because she also does the same course in the film!”

Involve, don’t isolate men

Throughout his journey as an activist, Harish has been insistent on one ideology – that men need to be a part of the solution. “It is one thing to identify them as perpetrators of violence, but it is wrong to exclude them. Men are not born violent, they are conditioned by patriarchal society to be masculine’ and they are trapped in this image. We must question this image and break out of it.”

MAVA started their work with street plays, counselling and awareness programmes on domestic violence. “But we did our first big job in 1995, when a student Dipti Khanna became the victim of an acid attack. Private donors gave us Rs 75,000 in two months for her plastic surgeries, but the most touching contribution came from prisoners of Nashik Central Jail, who contributed Rs 12,000 of their hard-earned money for Dipti,” Harish smiles, adding that this gesture built a lot of credibility for MAVA.

“We have always taken a stand on issues, be it the Bhanwari Devi case or the series of attacks on women arising from jilted love,” he says. “In 1996, we started the magazine Purush Spandana, a men’s-only magazine that we bring out in Diwali every year. Besides this, we have started various youth initiatives in colleges, Yuva Maitri, plus a helpline for the youth.” Harish has upscaled his efforts in Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Bhandara, Buldhana and Nagpur as well. “We are encouraged by young boys wanting to engage with gender equality,” he says. “Their involvement and work is a throwback to the time we started MAVA, and when we took ownership of the same issues 20 years ago.”

 

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‘It scares me when people retweet my cartoons’

We chat with DNA’s chief cartoonist Manjul on cartooning in today’s times, the journalism space, and coming to work without a clue.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

In the early 1990s, a class 11 boy went to the Dainik Jagran offices in Kanpur and applied for a cartoonist’s job. “I had no idea that nobody is there at newspaper offices at 12 noon. There were just a few features guys there and I met the features editor. She asked me to leave my work there and they would get back to me.”

He returned the very next day for a reply. “I was determined to be a newspaper cartoonist when I was in class 8. But the editor told me she couldn’t employ me. She had shown my work to one of the artists at the newspaper, who felt that my ‘lines had no power’ and stuff like that – which may have been true, because I was very young, and my drawing used to be terrible when I was younger. I was disappointed, but to my good luck, I bumped into Rajani Gupta (one of the owners) on my way out, and I had met her only the previous day for the first time. I told her that I hadn’t got the job, but she got it for me,” he grins.

Now, over two decades later, he is the chief cartoonist at Daily News & Analysis (DNA), a position he has held since the paper’s inception in Mumbai in 2005. Manjul, the only part of his name he is willing to give (even his visiting card reads ‘Manjul, Chief cartoonist’), says he was hired because DNA’s owners wanted to ‘revive the dying art of cartooning’. “I feel that DNA has done journalism a big service by carrying cartoons daily,” the 40-year-old says, explaining that in 2005, the city’s newspapers, even the The Times of India, did not have cartoons in their pages. “Only Mid Day had cartoons by Ponnappa and Morparia. DNA introduced cartoons under ‘Nobody’s business’ in its DNA Money edition. It was a great chance for me to be part of the biggest product launch since independence and have a dedicated cartoon slot in the paper’s pages,” he says with quiet pride.

Drawing on life

Manjul’s parents were unhappy with his chosen vocation, but that didn’t stop him from working at a newspaper. “I was studying Science. They thought I was ruining my future, a very middle-class concern. My father would say that I would make more money selling potatoes! Later, I ‘ruined’ my brother’s career – he followed me into journalism!” he laughs.

He didn’t have a background in drawing – “I think I got it from my mother, whose drawing was very good” – and at his first job, he quickly learnt that repetition honed his skill. “We didn’t have computers in those days, so if there was any redoing to be done, you had to do the cartoon all over again. But on paper or on the screen, I find that drawing again and again only makes the cartoon better,” he explains.

Though thrilled with the chance to work with a behemoth like Dainik Jagran , he realised that he didn’t want to be stuck doing comic strips. “I wanted to do serious political cartoons. Soon I moved to a daily newspaper for a while, before going to a newly-launched paper in Lucknow in 1992.” He loved his time in a new city, learning from and mingling with several senior journalists.

“I understood that you can’t become a cartoonist just by drawing well. You must assess what you are trying to say, and your reader must instantly grasp your meaning.” But he had to quit the job in 1996. “I was offered a bribe for not drawing against chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. I ignored it for a while, till one day my editor told me not to draw a cartoon against him, when I decided to move to Delhi.”

Computers and cartoons

He was probably among the first cartoonists in the country to draw on a computer. “Dainik Jagran got a computer before everyone else. I familiarised myself with it, working on an extremely slow vector drawing software. But you couldn’t control everything on it, and drawing by hand was faster,” he laughs. “Later in Lucknow, when the paper became a colour paper, I used my skills to draw by hand, scan the drawing and colour it by hand again.

When I first told the processing team that we could do the colouring work at the office, they didn’t believe me. I persisted, saying that they could make separate CMYK plates, and when they tried it, the colours came out well,” he explains.

 English press, ahoy!

Manjul was lucky to get a break into the mainstream English press when he bagged a cartoonist’s job at The Financial Express in 1996, where Prabhu Chawla was the editor. “It was a big deal to come from the Hindi press and get a job with a big English paper. A year later, I moved to India Today after he (Chawla) moved there. They were technically the most advanced, and I got the chance to use a stylus there for the first time.”

The only difference between using a paper and a stylus was the hand-eye synchronisation with the latter. “But the stylus saves a lot of time,” he says.

Throughout all of this, he was learning just how impactful his job could be. “Observation is a big part of a cartoonist’s job. I still struggle every day, it’s never easy. I come to work with no ideas. Often I find that five cartoonists are saying the same thing, in slightly different ways. The best cartoons make fun of somebody without him realising that you are making fun of him.”

Working and networking

Journalists, whether reporters or cartoonists, must work for their readers. “A journalist is only as good or bad as their editor,” he says. Another consideration is the reach and speed of social networking in disseminating information. “Every time people retweet my cartoon, it scares me. It puts additional pressure on me to top my last effort,” he says. “But I must point out that social networking gives people a reference point. To understand a cartoon, you must be aware of the background information. Social networking has actually made my job easier, it makes so much information available that you are never out of ideas,” he explains.

He feels that Facebook and Twitter help him gauge readers’ thought processes, but he doesn’t want to be addicted. “So many editors are constantly tweeting. When do they read their papers, when do they prepare their editions? Also, so many print journalists tweet some really interesting things, but their published stories are rubbish. You can’t take social networking so seriously,” he says.

His story today

He says that the exposure with Hindi newspapers is tremendous, with higher circulation and readership, but he has been happier with editors in the English press. “An editor’s job is to pull you back when your cartoon is too harsh, and I welcome that. Freedom of expression comes with certain boundaries.”

He adds, “Cartoons are art. Art ceases to exist when something is created just to irritate somebody. Cartooning is not about insulting or unnecessarily provoking somebody. Bad cartoons are those that insult, that are created just to prove that you can draw whatever you please,” he says.

Manjul has also written opinion pieces, but only when he is unable to convey the depth of his feeling in cartoons, like after Mario Miranda died. “Also, I wrote a piece when I visited Jaitapur. If I don’t draw a cartoon, I become uneasy. But I regret not travelling more in India, not knowing a lot of things. Right now, this is too exciting for me, so I am not going to take a vacation till 2015,” he grins.

 

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The shoe stopper

Chondamma Cariappa’s blog, The Sole Sisters, lets you find and drool over the prettiest shoes in the country and abroad.
by Ritika Bhandari

This shoe blog will have you go ‘One, two, buckle my shoe…three, four, preen and post’. Adding a fun twist to the old nursery rhyme is a unique blog for the sole which loves shoes, and is aptly titled ‘The Sole Sisters’.

Advertisers are always in search of inspiration, and Chondamma Cariappa was no different. But instead of a commercial, she started a blog titled ‘The Sole Sisters’. The 32-year old Creative Director with Bates Advertising, Mumbai, took a cue from her personal Facebook album ‘Fetish’ and decided to give women all over the world a new pair of shoes to drool on every day.

Chondamma says, “Each time I travelled, I put up pictures of shoes I had bought from various parts of the world. This led to discussions and comments from friends. So I thought, ‘Why not start a blog for women who are passionate about shoes?’ That’s how the idea for The Sole Sisters was born.”

A shoe lover, the Bandra resident talks about how the space constraint in Mumbai doesn’t allow her to keep too many pairs of shoes. Originally from Bangalore, she moved to Mumbai six years ago and owns 50 pairs of shoes.

Her blog prologue reads, “You walk in wearing a nice pair of shoes and somewhere in the room a woman wonders, ‘Where did she get them from?’ and ‘Is she thinner than me?’  Sole Sisters is a blog dedicated to answering one of those two questions.” And Chondamma answers them with pictures of shoes sent in by readers and contributors from across the globe.

From wedges to high heels to knitted ballerinas, the blog features all kinds of lovely shoes. Till date, more than 400 contributors have sent in their photographs and 70 per cent of these are from India. But she says that the international demographic, as well as posts from small Indian towns intrigue her. “Initially, it started with friends and colleagues sharing their pictures. Soon, the word spread and we started getting emails from women all over asking us to feature their shoes,” she says.

Despite the overwhelming response, she only has herself and her friend Parveez Shaikh handling the blog – Parveez handles the PR and marketing for her. But how does one get an entry into the featured posts? Chondamma says, “We give high points to pictures which are shot interestingly or artistically. Having said that, sometimes a great or funky pair of shoes shot in a simple way also makes for a great picture.”

The Sole Sisters blog is definitely growing in popularity with the presence of a Facebook page, and the tags ensure that contributors help to spread the word. “Also, while travelling in India or abroad, when we come across anyone wearing nice shoes, we take pictures right then and there, or just give them our visiting card,” says Chondamma.

There is a website in the pipeline, which will feature sections like shoe reviews, discussions and online shopping, among other things. The first step in this direction has taken place with the launch of the Neon footwear collection by a local designer through The Sole Sisters blog.

Chondamma says that the best part about running the blog are the mails of appreciation she receives from women she has not even met. And yet they connect, not over coffee or clothes but shoes.

Simply put, her blog underlines the fact that a combination of a good pair of boots and a nicely shot, clear picture, can get your favourite pair envious likes, shares and comments. After all, isn’t Cinderella proof enough that a pair of shoes can change a person’s life?

The blog is at http://thesolesisters.blogspot.in

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The man who loves to play

Devendra Desai is a 66-year-old, toy-crazy man! No child can be left without a game or toy if he’s around.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Devendra Desai runs a decrepit paper firm, and you wouldn’t even notice the little place if you were to walk past it. But several people stop and read what he’s painted on the wall leading to his office at Fort – Children Toy Foundation – with a list of what the place does. Intrigued by the words, several people walk in and ask what it’s all about.

“That board has been really lucky for us,” chuckles Devendra (66), who has been running the Foundation since 1982. “So many people have come in and asked for details, so many more have donated toys. I even got my first overseas donor through this board.”

But what really goes on inside? What appears to be just a hole in the wall at first, houses some of the most astonishing games and puzzles. Every available surface is stacked high with board games, most of them with names most people haven’t even heard of, while he’s put up paper charts of mathematical puzzles on one of the overhead cabinets. During the course of our conversation, it becomes clear just how priceless some of the games in his collection are, especially ‘Chess 64’ (pictured), a customised game (that he created with a friend, Arun Mehta) which has an astounding 64 games rolled inside one pack of playing cards. “We tried to market this game, but it didn’t take off because you needed a lot of time to explain it. But I am thinking of bringing it out again,” he muses.

“Even as a child, I had decided that I wouldn’t do the usual ‘study-get a job-get married’ routine,” Devendra remembers. “I bet my older sister, when I was 16 years old, that I would never marry. I had been an avid chess player, and I loved puzzles and mathematical problems. I started solving chess problems regularly – in those days, there used to be a space titled ‘Ramji’s Crossword Corner’ in The Times of India, which featured chess problems, and I loved to crack those.”

But it was a chance meeting with Manilal Dund, who was running the Chacha Nehru Toy Library in Bandra in the 1970s that set the course for Devendra’s life. “I had been helping in the family paper business, but I was more interested in social work. I had put in time at Vinoba Bhave’s ashram, I had even been part of the Cow Slaughter Satyagraha in 1981. But this fellow came to see me about an order for paper. While talking, he told me about this toy library that he was running, and I told him that I was interested in working with him,” Devendra says. The obsession with games had already gripped him, however – he even used to play on the local train. “I used to play Naughty Packs (a variation on Brainvita) on the train. When others would peep into my game and suggest ways to crack it, I would ask them to participate. Sometimes, I even sold packs on the train.”

In 1982, Devendra had found others who shared his passion for games and his vision for a toy library for children, and he started the Children Toy Foundation (CTF) that year. Manilal Dund was also a part of this team. “The idea was to make toys accessible to children who did not have access to them. Every child has the right to play, and the CTF was founded on this belief,” he says. “I would go to schools, asking them for a room to spare for toys. But several schools did not have enough space for their own classrooms, so that idea fizzled out.”

Meanwhile, Devendra would find new games and test them, coming up with variations of one game to maximise its utility. “There was a boy, a street dweller, who used to peep in and watch me while I played games at my office. His presence disturbed me, so I told him to come to play any time between four and six pm. Later, he started bringing his friends as well. At one time, there would be about 30 children inside the office, and about 20 more on the pavement outside, all of them playing games!” he laughs.

Devendra started his first toy library at Prarthana Samaj, near his place of residence, in 1984. “It was featured on TV, and the next day, there was a line of parents wanting to take toys home for their children.” The model was simple – children could borrow toys for a certain time, then return it and play with something else. “But I wanted to reach more children, and for this, I needed a van to take the toys to areas where children could play with our toys. Luckily for me, a journalist from the Economic Times came to interview me, and I said to him, ‘You journalists are useless. I need a van, but you have no idea how to help me.’ He put in the details of the CTF and our requirement in the ‘Good Samaritan’ section of the paper, and very soon, a kind donor responded to the write up and helped us with a van in 1998.”

The media and donors alike have been very kind to the FoundationCTF, Devendra says, helping him in direct and indirect ways to get funding and whatever else he needed to keep the Foundation growing. “Till date, we have helped set up over 292 toy libraries all over India. So many more have started using our model. We started the Khelvigyan centre (that combines entertainment and education via games) in City of Los Angeles municipal school in 2001 where we have a permanent room of over 700 toys and games that pre-primary and primary children can play with twice a week free of cost, during school hours.”

It is to the CTF’s eternal credit that they have a permanent centre inside Arthur Road Jail, for the children of female inmates. Yerawada Jail wanted the same model, so CTF helped set up a centre there as well. Besides municipal schools all over the country, the CTF has also reached 12 remote villages in Allahabad, there about 7,000 children avail of the toys and games.

“It has been scientifically proved that play is integral to children’s overall development. We only hope that more schools will include a play hour with puzzles, toys and games in their curriculum, all over the country,” Devendra says. “Why only children, even adults should play. We have forgotten to play and hence, we have forgotten how well we can socialise with others over a game. There are so many games freely available in the market, but we must make the effort to go out and look for them. Slowly, people are realising the importance of toys in children’s development.”

As if on cue, Samita Shah, who lives in the area, stops by to drop off a brand new scooter. “It just needs to be assembled. My son had two scooters, so I decided to drop one off. All my friends also regularly donate toys to Mr Desai. I think his work is brilliant,” she smiles.

Devendra simply looks back at me and grins.

The Children Toy Foundation is at 76, Ali Building, Shahid Bhagat Singh road, Fort, Mumbai. 

 

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Dance that reconnects

Komal Lalpuria teaches folk dance to girls rescued from human trafficking. Dance helps them reconnect to the society they’ve forgotten.
by Beena Parmar | beena@themetrognome.in

Dance, when performed for oneself, is the most sublime of performing arts. But when wilfully used to create happiness for those less fortunate than one, it acquires a profounder dimension because it enriches the lives of both the learner and the teacher. This is brought home while watching students of Komal Lalpuria perform on stage.

“My entire body was shivering before I came on the stage. Then I saw Komal didi sitting in the front row, and my fear vanished. While I was dancing, I felt the stage and the world is mine”, said Rakhi (name changed), a beaming 13-year-old.

Rakhi’s smile is broader, her sense of achievement higher, because her back story is one of violence and severe trauma. One among several young girls, whose unfavourable social environment compels them to leave their homes in search of a better life for themselves and their families, Rakhi found herself, like so many before her and so many since, in the clutches of traffickers. If not for her subsequent rescue and time spent in rebuilding her life with Save The Children India’s Sahas Kendra, Rakhi’s story may well have been just a meaningless statistic.

But several young girls have been fortunate to not just get livelihood training by the Kendra, they are lucky to be given the chance to regain a semblance of faith and trust in relationships and society. And Komal has had a big role to play in this process. As a trained kathak dancer who went on to hone her skills by training under Shiamak Davar, Komal would have continued choreographing dances for private groups until the opportunity to do an even bigger good came knocking.

Dance with me!   

Komal was 14 when she completed her visharad from Kalangana University at Allahabad. Five years later, in 2007, having learned the basic level of dance from Shamak Davar’s Academy, she began to  choreograph dances for private groups comprising women and children.

A commerce student from NMIMS, Komal was “totally unaware” of the potentiality of her talent to transform her into a different level of consciousness, that of social commitment. “It all began when I attended a seminar for social responsibility at my college,” she remembers. “Archana Rao, coordinator of Save The Children India, presented various activities of the NGO where students could contribute to society. But despite  eagerness to participate in these activities, there was nothing connected to dance. I was dismayed.”

A few days later, Archana called Komal to enquire if she would train the girls at their shelter home. “They needed to perform for the annual day function. I agreed at once,” Komal says. However, training the girls was one thing, and getting them stage-ready in just three sessions, was another matter.  “It was a big challenge, and I was sceptical. But once I met the girls, the bonding was instant.  We decided to do a Rajasthani folk dance.”

But the task was not easy. “These girls were to perform on stage for the first time. From building their confidence, to taking care of their costumes and make-up was my job,” she says. The days flew by, and on March 20, 2008, the day of the function, the auditorium at NCPA was packed to capacity. It was a testing time for both Komal and the girls – for the girls, it would help them reconnect with the world. It had to go well.

“But once the girls began to perform, it was magic. They may have missed a step or two, but they kept the sprit of the dance intact. My tension gave way to tears of joy. Their performance got a standing ovation,” Komal smiles.

Buoyed by their success, Komal and Archana decided to continue the dance lessons. Till recently, Komal has been visiting the Kendra once a week and has trained at least 30 girls. “I teach them folk dances only, not Bollywood,” she emphasises. “I’ve designed the dance sessions to expand the girls’ cultural knowledge, and to help them develop self-confidence along with self-acceptance.” Archana adds to this: “Learning dance has brought a distinct change in their lives. I have noticed this change in their day-to-day activities. Dance helps them tap into emotions that are required to feel free of all restrictions and emote seamlessly.”

From 2009 to 2010, Komal also trained about 90 special needs students with the same NGO. The highlight of the project was that the students and their teachers performed a dance drama at The American School to a standing ovation.

A different bond

“I began with Gujarati folk dance and showed them where Gujarat is on the map ofIndia. I also informed them about the dress, food, lifestyles of its people and the festival of Navratri,” Komal explains, adding that the girls are often enthusiastic about learning different Indian customs. “Since the girls come from different states, it also becomes an interactive session for them to discuss and understand each other’s rituals.  This leads to further bonding,” she says.

But the girls are a little shy, and it takes a while for them to shed their inhibitions. “Each session begins with a little discussion and inputs from the students, and ends with one of the students summarising the on- hour lesson,” Komal says. But the girls enjoy the grooving sessions the most. “I begin by standing in the centre with about 20 students surrounding me. Then I do two or three steps, and call one of them to the centre to lead. This lets the girl understand how many steps she has picked up and builds each girl’s confidence since each of them has to come to the centre and perform.”

One of her students was so reluctant to dance, she would not even move her hands. “One day, after a month of learning, she surprised everyone – she came to the centre, started dancing and refused to stop. She had discovered the joys of dancing, and the joy of just being. It was a breakthrough.”

Once this connection happens, it is easy for the girls to realise their self-worth, take pride in being a woman, and also respect other women. “I am blessed with the talent with which I am helping them, though in a small way, to break the mental and physical bondages and step into a real life. Honestly, it is a stress busting session for me too,” Komal says.

She says that the experience has made her grateful for what life has given her. “If one wishes to contribute to a social cause, one does not need to possess a particular talent. Just give your time. Even a little talk is important to help someone restore their faith in life,” she says.

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‘I love working for the CM’

Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan’s chief PRO Satish Lalit talks about his job, his boss and dealing with the media daily.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

It must be wonderful being the public relations man for the most powerful man in Maharashtra. But Satish Lalit (52), chief PRO for Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, says he has his good and bad days. He was born 12 years after his boss, but they have a lot in common, apart from their long working hours and a love for reading and research; they even share a birthday, March 17. “I go to his house in the morning to wish him, and he wishes me in return!” laughs Satish. “Our job is a 24/7 one, and the CM works really long hours. He lets me go by 10.30 pm, while he works till 2 am every day.”

It is Satish’s job to monitor what the media is writing and speaking about his boss, how to bring about (or decline requests for) media interactions with the CM, write press notes after Cabinet meetings, write speeches for the CM’s public appearances and rallies, and be ready to brief him on any subject at a moment’s notice.

Satish became chief PRO under the other Chavan – Ashok – who was the CM of the state till November 2010. So how did Prithviraj Chavan, who became CM right after Ashok Chavan and who had come from Delhi reportedly with no idea about the state’s style of working,  get around to learning the ropes in Maharashtra? Satish says, “For the first two weeks, we would be with him all through the day, helping him meet people he had never seen in his life, rapidly briefing him about every meeting and the subjects that would come up in them. But he is a really fast learner – he picked up names and issues really quickly,” Satish says.

But Chavan was in for several culture shocks; he was particularly peeved at how people simply waltzed in and out of his office without prior appointments. “He said to me, ‘In Delhi, if anybody had to meet me, they had to have an appointment. And even then, they would pass through three rings of security.’ But he soon understood that with a state of this size, and with all its issues, he would have to meet people at a moment’s notice.”

Satish says that for a job like his, trust between his boss and him is of the essence. “I also have to write well and quickly, because I issue daily press releases and compose the CM’s speeches. Plus, I have to be on excellent terms with the media, especially when asking them to rectify mistakes made, or while suggesting a news angle.”

Writing and research come easily to Satish – a former journalist with the Marathi newspapers Sakal, Kesari and Maharashtra Times, he joined the Maharashtra government in 1991 as a Class I gazetted officer. “I’ve worked in the state’s District Information offices and even in Goa, before I came back to head the news department in Mumbai in 2000,” he says. A fruitful stint with the Mantralaya DGIPR (Director General of Information and Public Relations) in two phases and intermediate postings to Kolhapur later, Ashok Chavan appointed him chief PRO in 2010.

“Luckily for me, Prithviraj Chavan retained our team when he joined office, so I’ve been with him since his first day as CM,” Satish says. His days revolve around briefings, meetings, writing articles for the CM, and reading and keeping tabs on TV news. “I go to Varsha (the CM’s residence at Malabar Hill) at 9 am for his morning media briefing. We discuss the press coverage for the day, any incorrect reportage and what to do about it. My day is structured around the CM’s schedule. The busiest days are Wednesdays, when Cabinet meetings happen. It is a big event for us,” he explains.

When writing press notes, he is careful to state only facts and figures. “Journalists keep hounding me for ‘who said what’ details, but I only state the decisions made, the financial burdens of those decisions and how they will be implemented. If I feel that the CM needs to hold a press conference, I advise him so and release the press notes later,” he explains.

In recent times, with so much media proliferation and every political reporter clamouring for a bit of news, Satish is subject to various harrowing and comical moments. “The worst is when an incorrect news is published. I have to ensure that the mistake is set right; one slip-up can have bad repercussions for the CM’s office. And mistakes are happening all the time, every day, because everybody is in such a hurry to put news out there.”

He recounts the time when the CM, glancing at the TV screen in his office, was stunned by a news flash claiming that he had left for Delhi on an urgent summons. “I immediately called the reporter and told him that the CM was sitting in his chair in front of me and that he was not going to Delhi soon. They took the item off air, but I had to field calls from other irate reporters demanding to know why I didn’t inform them of the CM’s trip,” Satish laughs. “But the CM never loses his temper, a rare quality for a person in his position.”

What many outside the Mantralaya and journalistic circles don’t know, is that Satish and his team were the heroic few to escape the recent Mantralaya fire via window ledges and drain pipes. Satish’s trekking hobby – he has seen more than 80 forts in Maharashtra – could have saved him that day. He laughs at the suggestion. “I was lucky to get out in time. Another minute, and I would have collapsed.” He is also an avid photographer, is the first government PRO to maintain a daily blog on the state’s workings, has published a book and is working on another, and has made five documentaries on Sindhudurg, where he comes from. “I have six more years of government service left. The media is expanding, and so is our work. Sometimes, I feel that this is a thankless job. But if you have a good person to work under, it becomes easier,” he smiles.

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