Tag: vrushali lad

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Achieve

Why this man wins photography awards every year

Photojournalist Mandar Deodhar talks about his best work and clicking NSG commandos during a snack break in the 26/11 operations.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

Mandar Deodhar (40) wins an award every year. The Principal Photographer with India Today magazine, a Sion resident, recently bagged the Picture Of The Year prize at the National Press Photo Contest by the Media Foundation of India (MFI), for his stunning capture of a man who rushed atop a roof to spray water onto the burning mass of shops in Sara-Sahara near Manish Market, in September this year. Mandar’s picture took overall top honours and secured a third prize in the Spot News category as well.

It’s safe to say that when it comes to an eye for detail and an unerring instinct for what makes a stunning picture, Mandar is one of the best in the business.

Speaking to The Metrognome, Mandar says, “Getting the perfect picture is a matter of luck and timing. Prior to this award (by the MFI), I have won five awards in Mumbai for my photographs. Each frame has had something to say – there’s a lot of emotion in the subject, a sense of urgency, and each picture told its own story.”

There’s an interesting back story to the picture that won Mandar the first prize and Rs 75,000 in the MFI contest (see left). “The fire took place at about 2.00 am. I was not on call at that time. In fact, I was at home and sleeping. At that time, I was deputed to cover the West Indies tour of India, so going to work the next morning, I stopped when I found that the JJ Flyover was blocked and there were still signs of fire.”

Mandar decided to snoop around a bit and found a tall building that overlooked the affected spot. “I was just taking random shots; the firemen were reluctant to douse the fire in that area because of the intense heat. Suddenly, a man grabbed a running fire hose and clambered over a roof. He was a shopkeeper trying to douse the flames and save whatever he could of the shops. I quickly captured him sitting on the roof with the fire hose in his hands.” Ordinarily, Mandar takes the time to get to know his subjects and the story before he starts clicking, but in cases like this one, there sometimes isn’t enough time. “You just have to trust your instinct and get your camera out,” he says. “You must judge in a split second that you are looking at a momentous situation, and that you need to photograph it before the moment passes.”

In his long career as a news photographer – he started freelancing for The Times of India supplement Dombivali-Kalyan + in 1997, then variously worked with Marathi daily Lokmat, Hindi daily Navbharat, the Bombay Times, Mid Day and now India Today since 2007 – he has great stories to tell of his experiences on the field and what he has learnt from his favourite photographs. But he is very fond of the 26/11 Nariman House pictures he took of  the commando operations, or specifically, of the moment a ceasefire was declared.

“I was one of three lucky photographers to be very near the Nariman House while the commando operation was in full swing,” he remembers. “There was gunfire all around, and we could see the terrorists in the building. But at around 2.00 pm, a ceasefire was announced, and a neighbouring wada pavwallah was summoned to feed the commandos. I took pictures of the battle-hardened commandos sitting on the staircase, with bullet holes in the walls around them, and relishing the wada pavs and the sudden break in activity.” That image won Mandar the award for Best Picture from the Press Club, Mumbai, last year.

Both times, Mandar was not even supposed to be on duty – during the 26/11 fracas, he was on sick leave but was summoned to work on Day 3. “In an area of conflict, your first instinct is to get the best picture you possibly can,” he says. “There is no time to think of your personal safety, whether you’ll get caught or thrashed or killed. Your instincts for self-preservation do kick in – for example, I never flash my camera in front of an angry mob; I walked past the Sara Sahara area before taking the picture of the shopkeeper on the roof, because the area is very notorious and the shops were illegal – but you have to be dedicated to your job first. I am alert enough to save myself if needed, but I won’t leave till I’ve got a picture.”

He adds that good judgement comes with experience. “You understand how to click unobtrusively, which angles would serve your shot best, how to be sensitive when taking pictures of accident scenes and riots. Fortunately, I have never yet had to face a hostile crowd or somebody threatening to break my camera,” he grins.

(Pictures courtesy MFI and Mandar Deodhar)

Categories
Read

The most-read magazine in Maharashtra

…is a government publication! Lokrajya, over 60 years old, is the country’s only government magazine with a 3,05,000 print run.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

A magazine prepared and printed in Mumbai, finds resonance all over the state. It is sold out within a few days of hitting the stands, and has a staggering on-stands sale of about 50,000, higher than the glossiest magazines devoted to other topics. It has a stunning subscriber base of 3,05,000 people all over Maharashtra, apart from a strong online presence. And despite its huge popularity, it is priced at a modest Rs 10 per issue, and is produced on a non-profit basis.

The magazine is titled ‘Lokrajya’, and is a Government of Maharashtra Information and Public Relations (PR) production. The entire team working on the magazine, however, mention at the start of the interview that none of their names are to be made public. “We are only doing our jobs,” they say, before an official launches into an explanation of the magazine and how it came to be so popular.

“It was started 64 years ago, as a weekly, to cater to the strong reading culture of the state,” he explains. “Three generations have come up reading Lokrajya; it is not a gazette but it is a government mouthpiece. However, we maintain the highest editorial and production qualities for each issue. The cover is very scrupulously done, and we are very meticulous about minimising errors.” The magazine is backed by a team of in-house editors, and there are edit meetings held before production of each issue begins. “We try and gauge what people would be interested in reading, what is most current at the moment. We also bring out special issues that have always been well-received – our special issue on Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birth centenary even went into a reprint!”

He mentions that the magazine’s readers, and indeed its targeted niche, are not based in Mumbai. “A very small percentage of people in Mumbai are reading it. Our base is in the other cities and towns, and especially in the villages. Our most ardent readers are UPSC students, government servants, gram and zilla panchayat workers, rural schools and colleges, tribal students and economically backward students. We feature stories and interviews that are of especial interest to these groups.”

Lokrajya is printed in Marathi, Hindi, Urdu and English, though it used to be printed in Sindhi also. “It was too taxing to print it as a weekly, so it was later made a monthly,” the official explains. “Since the periodicity is monthly, we can pack more news and features in each issue.” says Director General Pramod Nalavade. He adds, “You should see our distribution process. With such huge bundles of magazines going out to distributors and to post offices all over the state, the magazine is almost a small industry in itself!”

 

Categories
Patrakar types

An open letter to Dr Satyapal Singh

We all agree that nobody should attack a public servant, whatever the provocation. But is anyone disciplining the police force?
by Vrushali Lad

I don’t advocate violence. I hate fights on the streets. It makes me sick when people beat each other up over trivial matters in the train. I feel frightened by how easily people are raising their fists, or even guns, on those who have irritated them in some way.

But all of that is nothing to the irritation I feel when I see the Men in Khaki make complete dirtbags of themselves, especially when they are supposed to assist the public. The Mumbai police commissioner has issued a circular that outlines the harshest punishments to those who attack cops in the city. Those who assault a cop may lose their jobs, the freedom to go out of the country, their driving licenses, their passports, and most importantly, their reputation. (Read about the circular here)

In the case of such incidents as the Azad Maidan violence, when rioters beat up policemen and molested policewomen, and even in such cases where cops get beaten up by gangs of thieves who the cops attempted to capture, I feel for the police force. They are overworked, underpaid, and generally not protected by the administration when they face such issues on the field.

But, Dr Satyapal Singh, please answer this: However underpaid, understaffed and unprotected your police force is, does it take your men too much effort to cultivate some basic manners? I cite a few incidents that I have personally witnessed, and which will help you see what I mean:

–  My house was burgled two years ago. It was a case of forced entry, and the thieves took advantage of the fact that my cupboard keys were lying in plain view. The constable’s (who came for the panchnama) first comment to me was: “You are educated people. How can you leave your cupboard keys lying around when nowadays there are so many burglaries taking place?”

– The fingerprint ‘expert’, while doing nothing useful, kept extolling the virtues of the thieves, who he said had not left a single fingerprint behind. “Very clever this thief is,” he chuckled to my face.

– At the police station, while getting my FIR written, a woman from a neighbouring slum came in crying and said that her husband had taken her child away from her and locked her out of the house, furious that she had gone to Tirupati without his permission. Do you know what your duty officer did, Dr Singh? He didn’t write a complaint. He didn’t call the husband to the police station. No, sir. He said to the woman, “Has he been fighting with you for long?” When she said ‘yes’, he said, “You had gone to Tirupati. Why didn’t you ask God to grant your husband some sense?” The woman left the police station shortly after this.

– When a call centre employee was rude to my father over a disputed phone company bill, the duty officer at the police station deigned to call the call centre, but hung up after a brief conversation, because the girl who was rude to my dad refused to give her last name. The duty officer exclaimed, “I cannot talk to people who do not give out their father’s names.”

– My best friend went to court with his aunt to claim a gold chain that had been snatched from her a few months ago. Your officers refused to return the chain without a bribe of Rs 500. And the chain they gave her wasn’t even hers, it was somebody else’s.

– Two years later, my burglary case has still not being solved. Why? Because your men tell me that “jewellery and laptop thefts are difficult to crack.” Oh, but they insist that I go to court and classify the case.

Dr Singh, you are within your rights to protect your men. And I do agree that your men require protection. But can you really blame a person for assaulting your men, when harried by the theft of his car, or his mobile phone, or a domestic dispute, and instead of receiving help and commiseration, only gets unasked-for advice on how he was wrong and how he deserved what happened to him? It took me all of my self-control to not pick up a heavy object and hurl it in your constable’s face, when he kept saying that it was my fault that my house had been burgled. Only the fear of consequences stops more people from assaulting your men.

We’re human, too, Dr Singh. We get really furious when your men tell us how we got what we deserved. Does anybody deserve to be thrown out of their houses? Or to lose everything to thieves, everything they’ve worked for all their lives, because they left their home for a few hours to visit relatives? Or to have their mobile phones flicked from their pockets? What gives your men the right, then, to tell us that we were in the wrong when something like this happens to us? Or to demand a bribe to do their jobs?

Yes, you are within your rights to make my life a living hell if I assault a member of your force. In the meantime, Dr Singh, why don’t you also ensure that your men mend their boorish, often uncooperative ways? If you feel that taking away my driving licence, my job, my passport and everything that is a close part of who I am, will ‘discipline’ me, are you also issuing a circular to your men, stating how you will discipline them if they refuse to do their jobs, and not add to a complainant’s grief and fury by being wiseguys?

Respectfully yours,

Vrushali Lad,

A Mumbai citizen.

(Picture courtesy mid-day.com)

Categories
Hum log

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. 

 

Categories
Big story

A piece of Mumbai at the UN

Sailesh Mishra talks about representing India at the UN, and refusing to do Satyameva Jayate’s senior citizens episode in its original format.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

A slight and unassuming man, Sailesh Mishra (45) comes across as soft-spoken and pliable. But then he begins to describe how he got associated with the senior citizens episode on Aamir Khan’s TV show Satyameva Jayate. “I got a call from Aamir Khan Productions in September 2011. A woman called saying that she wanted to meet me for an episode they were shooting on senior citizens for the show. Since we get many such requests (at his Mira Road-based NGO Silver Innings), I asked them to send me a letter and then we’d see.

The letter was brought the very next day, while the director of the show explained the concept of the episode in detail. But I soon realised that they were planning an episode to show elderly people as sad, abused, dependent human beings. I immediately told the lady, ‘Please tell Mr Khan that if this is what you want to portray on the show, I don’t want to be a part of it.”

Sailesh has always been a champion of the “happier side of old age”, which was why he started his NGO, Silver Innings, in 2008, as a means to help create a “sustainable gerontology”. He explains, “We often berate those who we feel are not taking care of the elders in the family. But you must understand, most children are not bad, they don’t wilfully neglect their parents. It is just that there are not enough options created by the government and society when it comes to elder care. Unlike in the West, we don’t have such services as assisted help for the elderly, or a service to provide groceries, or cooked food, or do other chores. We don’t even have enough NGOs that work for the causes of the elderly.”

Sailesh’s NGO was registered with the United Nations’ Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) on Ageing convention held annually in New York, last year, owing to the efforts of Susan Somers of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA). “I got the opportunity of participating in the 3rd such OEWG held this year. On the opening day, the Indian ambassador gave a rosy picture of the current scenario of health care for the elderly in India. He even had the nerve to say, ‘Why do the elderly need rights? Their development is the responsibility of the society and their families. What can the government do?’”

To Sailesh’s huge amazement, he got the chance to make a statement on the floor of the House. “Only six people got a chance to speak that day, and I was the first,” he beams. “I gently but firmly refuted what the Indian ambassador had said, and I stressed the need for the government to be more proactive in implementing several schemes for the elderly in India. I didn’t see him for three days after that!” (Read Sailesh’s statement made on the floor of the House here.)

Of the member states, Costa Rica and Argentina were the most passionate about promoting the cause of gerontology, he says. “These two would even hold a briefing for NGOs every morning. But the EU and the US were extremely against the state having a stake in elders’ care, because they do not want to spend on it.”

An interesting dimension to this issue, he says, is that the Western countries, while reducing budgets assigned to social welfare, are aggressively studying the family concepts prevalent in south Asian countries, where parents and their children live together all their lives. “But by contrast, we in India are going towards the Western concept of nuclear families and even smaller units. Where does that leave our elders?”

But what he took away from his UN outing was the “inspiration” he felt after meeting people who had been working for the cause of elder care for decades. “Meeting such dedicated people tells you that you are on the right track, and that you still have so much to learn,” Sailesh says.

His own brush with the elderly

In 2004, Sailesh was working with the Dignity Foundation, a time that he says was when he “accidentally came into this field.” He says, “Through the Foundation, I was sent to Neral to help in the building of the elders’ township. I found that getting the architecture changed to be senior citizen-friendly was an uphill task. The architect just couldn’t understand why I wanted land gradients to be gentle, why appliances and cabinets needed to be at eye level, why the fittings and fixtures had to easy to use,” he remembers.

He stayed on as a resident at the township, monitoring its daily working and putting in work at the 24-hour dementia centre there. “I had varied experiences while dealing with sufferers of dementia. Many times, we didn’t know how to deal with them. That set me thinking. Nobody discussed this issue, and there was nothing written about it.” He started writing articles about his experiences, posting them on the Internet. “I think I would have found this cause at some point in my life,” he muses. “I come from a family of 100 people, and we all stayed at a waada at Palghar. But when I was very young, my mother told me, ‘Don’t join in the family business. Do something different with your life. Everybody works for themselves, you should work for others.’”

He finally started Silver Innings and found the inner peace he had been looking for. “I give talks at several places, hold a lot of workshops, travel all over the country. But I never talk about the NGO. That was not why I started it. The focus has to be on the issue, and it is my job to plant the idea in as many people’s minds as I can.”

Engaging the young to help the old

Sailesh is a passionate user of social networking to further his cause, the rationale of which has been questioned by many. “People ask, ‘How many senior citizens use social networking? How will you reach them on the Internet?’ But I am actually targeting the youth and the middle-aged persons in industry. If I can convert them, they will go home and talk to their parents, or devise ways to reach out to the elderly,” he says.

A major problem facing India’s elderly is that their numbers are only set to rise in the coming years. “How are we, as a country, going to accommodate these huge numbers of people? It is time, and it has to be done right away, that the government actively think up ways to utilise this mass of people’s life experience, their working knowledge and their skills. What is the sense in forcing a person to retire at 60 years of age, if he or she is able to work? Also, there is an urgent need for industry to provide services to this huge untapped population. You can have small businesses that deliver cooked meals to elders living alone, or get elders in an area registered with a trusted firm that supplies domestic helps, repair mechanics and others. There is also a need to modify our architecture and infrastructure to become more elder-friendly. Most importantly, we need more old age homes (there are just six in Mumbai) and all of them should be inside the city, not banished to the outskirts.”

Sailesh Mishra can be contacted on silverinnings@gmail.com/sailesh@silverinnings.com. His NGO also runs an ageing centre, organises memory camps and runs an elder helpline, among other things.

 

 

Categories
Places

Monkey see, monkey do

Going to a tourist spot in the off-season? You deserve everything – rough roads and monkeys – coming your way.
by Vrushali Lad | vrushali@themetrognome.in

There’s fairly little you can tell me about the road less travelled. Or rather, about roads that are less travelled in the off-season. Nobody in their right minds would go to a monsoon tourist attraction spot at the height of summer. They wouldn’t take less cash along and spend an evening undergoing enforced tourism, because your guide decided to take you on a scenic route to the nearest ATM 30 kilometres away.

Plus, you wouldn’t go trekking on a mountain that is over 4,000 feet high and with increasingly difficult terrain in shoes whose soles let you know the presence of the smallest pebble underfoot. The Princess with the pea couldn’t have had a worse time of it on this trek than I did.

Anyhoo, and most importantly for those wishing to incorporate safety in their travel itinerary, ye hardy traveller would not mind roughing it up with the locals in a short jeep ride to Kasara from Shendigaon, Bhandardara. Note that I use the words ‘short’ and ‘roughing it up’ airily. If you were ever looking to travel cattle class, with a smelly local under each armpit and two more on your lap in a jeep always listing on your side of the vehicle, with frequent stops to let a few of the aforementioned locals scamper off the roof with their bags of cement and gas cylinders (I kid you not), please buy a ticket for Rs 30 and let everybody and everything pass you by. (Hot tip: Wear nose and ear plugs.)

Also, there is a fair chance of being attacked by monkeys on your trek. I was, atop Ratangad, when I was coming down a rickety metal ladder literally hanging in air 4,000 feet above sea level. Conceive my emotion when the husband and the guide kept urgently urging me to get down quickly, and on stealing a look at the gathering army very close to where I was a mere minute ago, one of the blasted animals was descending the ladder with me. You could knock me down with a monkey, it was that close. I made the trip down the ladder in relative safety, however, all the while trying to distract myself from the headlines racing through my head (‘Band of monkeys trips up stunning trekker’, OR ‘Braveheart tourist valiantly crosses monkey-infested mountain’).

Some tips if you’re headed that way:

– If you’re going in the off-season, you can get some of the rates knocked off on sightseeing and accomodation.

– If you’re going from Mumbai and must take the train, I suggest the Bhagalpur Express that starts at 7.30 am from Kurla that will drop you off at Igatpuri in two hours. Outside Igatpuri, an ST bus will take you to Shendigaon, if you’re stopping by at the MTDC or one of the actual resorts there.

– A better idea, which we discovered on the journey back, is to take the local to Kasara from Dadar or CST. From Kasara, take a jeep ride (Rs 30 per seat or more if you book all the front seats next to the driver) to Shendigaon.

– Carry sturdy shoes, a walking stick, loads of sunscreen and bottled water on your trek.

– The local version of haggling includes adding Rs 500 to everything. The trek cost us Rs 600. It’s worth it, but don’t add more to this sum, since the guide will probably have lunch with you and share your water and toffees and chikki. There are not many interesting points to see. Two days of stay was more than my constitution could stand.

– A good idea is to go to the place in the monsoon, when you carry out your trek next to and through gushing rivers, or when the dam is full and your car actually drives through the dam waters. But if that’s not your scene, try for winter. It does get seriously cold, though, so carry your winter woollies.

– And lastly, be safe. The roads are nothing to write home or anywhere else about, and don’t go about walking without a guide. There is wildlife in the region, such as cheetahs and wild hogs, and some birds too.

Do you have a hilarious travel account to relate? Write to thetraveller@themetrognome.in with your experience and we would love to feature your story. 

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