Connector’s Corner

Every so often, I get an email from readers, friends, publicists, random passers-by, etc about something, someone or some event that they would like you, the reader, to know about.

Mostly, these appeals are never mentioned because

A) If I could write on demand on a given topic, I’d have a job in PR or a newspaper somewhere.

B) I don’t like to shill.

C) I have something else planned for that day.

Sometimes, though, it’ll be a charity or a worthwhile cause that doesn’t necessarily want money but does want your participation or wants to up its profile and then I’m in a bind because

E) I sound read awful when I’m in earnest so I don’t want to write about it

F) But I do want to help out (coz I’m a softy).

So here’s my solution: if you have something you’d like to share with the people who read IndieQuill, send me an email using the contact form above and unless you’re Nigerian bankers or something, I’ll put it up here.

Please don’t send me advertisements for products you’d like to sell. I don’t mind spreading the word for a new website/ service / etc, but it has to be either free or the proceeds must go to charity. Or no deal. Thanks!

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scroll down for updates!

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What is India Helps?

India Helps is a group of like-minded citizens, formed in the aftermath of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai. It was born when Kiran Manral, a blogger, entrepreneur and former journalist, conceived the idea of a direct-help effort that would put donors in touch with victims and their families. As news of her brainchild spread over the internet, several bloggers from Mumbai joined in to pledge their support and resources and thus we grew into a grassroots organisation where the only qualification needed to participate is the desire to help.

We come from all walks of life, and our core team, based in Mumbai, consists of professionals (lawyers, architects, educators, entrepreneurs, market researchers, corporate communicators) and homemakers. What binds us as a team is our desire to directly help fellow Indians in need. The events of November 26, 2008, served as a catalyst to assemble us as a grassroots, hands-on citizens’ action force, but we have already begun to extend our efforts beyond the pale of the recent tragedy.

What do we do?

The current priority of India Helps is to help the families of the victims of the 26/11 terror attacks get functional again. However, we want to do more than just pass on cheques to the families, (although those are very welcome in most cases). Specifically, we wish to hand-hold the families by providing resources (rehabilitative care, children’s education, employment opportunities and contacts, medical aid) and immediate funding (rent and groceries, in cases of loss of breadwinner’s life) till they find their bearings again.

How do we do it?

We approach families directly as we learn about them. Information about those in need of assistance is sought from police contact lists, the media and is even passed on by well-wishers who know about our efforts. The response to our efforts so far has been heartening. Victims’ families have welcomed us graciously, for the most part, and we have been contacted by several persons in India and abroad who wish to specifically contribute to the families of those who have been affected by the current or earlier man-made tragedies.

We are usually the first point of contact for families affected by the tragedy. After an initial meeting and a needs assessment, a report is posted on the India Helps blog and information about aid required is made available. Donors (individuals, families, philanthropists and corporates) can then choose a case they wish to assist and contact us or the family directly. Every member of India Helps has alternate sources of income and all work done toward this effort is entirely voluntary and free of charge. All monies and material goods received are channeled directly to the intended recipients and administrative costs are borne by the team members themselves. In the event that a particular family’s need is urgent in nature, we pitch in to contribute toward expenses such as monthly groceries, doctor’s fees and educational aid.

How can you help?

• You can join India Helps as a team member and be part of our hands-on effort at helping affected families. Your time and energy are always welcome and you don’t have to be a blogger to be a part of our team.
  
• You can provide specific help in terms of financial aid, employment opportunities, sponsorship of children’s education, monthly groceries and rent until alternative means of income are worked out, assistance with compensation paperwork and/or the commitment to adopt a destitute family until it can function independently.
• You can provide voluntary help in terms of professional expertise, such as therapists for post-trauma counselling, legal and medical aid, occupational training, contacts with non-profit and governmental organisations, and so on.
• You can spread the word about India Helps and be a “connector” who puts interested donors in touch with our team. Forward this email, send your family and friends the link to our blog, talk about us at your workplace and even point us to families you may think require attention.

Upcoming India Helps event:
Watch out for our banners and runners at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon on Sunday, January 18th, 2009. We will be distributing information and answering questions, so do say hello when you see our logo (on our blog header). We’d love to meet you and talk about how we can combine efforts.

Call us at India Helps: (office) 022-26838872.

Read about us at: http://indiahelps.blogspot.com/

Email us at: indiahelps@gmail.com

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Verve is an art, culture and fashion publication based in Mumbai, India, and the latest issue of our magazine is just out on stands. We’ve spent the last couple of months facing up to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks that shook our city in November; our January number, in consequence, marks a departure from our usual methods of operation: it’s a response to the attacks, by way of features, essays, art, fiction and poetry.

In keeping with Verve’s decade-long focus on highlighting the thought currents and concerns of the best of Indian design and fashion, we’ve also included a space for some of India’s young designers to respond through their medium. Nachiket Barve, Anand Kabra, Anuj Sharma and Jenjum Gadi, four young and upcoming designers, have all created pieces that reflect their feelings about the attacks specially for the magazine.

We’ve also been heartened to see our early readers look at and respond to the work of renowned Indian women artists like Dhruvi Acharya, Aditi Singh, Faiza Butt, Mekhala Bahl, and Shilpa Gupta and others.

Our other features include essays and features that contextualise and respond to the attacks from different perspectives. Some of our writers include Bachi Karkaria, CP Surendran, (policewoman) Kanchan Battacharya, Farzana Versey, Annie Zaidi, Raghu Karnad and Madhu Jain.

The issue also picks up on the trails of the heroes and survivors of those hours; meets with some of the news reporters covering the attacks, and analyses the narratives of social media responses to the tragedy. We also explore the different ways in which citizens are dealing with its aftermath, and feature Mumbai priests from different faiths offering a prayer for their city.

The magazine is out on stands right now. You can also check out verveonline.com.

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For those of you who missed it, Sujatha’s excellent Blogpourri ran a post on volunteerism in these times of trouble.

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Over the weekend, the long expected “Why does white man make poor Indian movie?” Slumdog Millionaire backlash began to gather steam with help from no lesser an individual than Amitabh Bachchan himself. People unacquainted with Bollywood cinema will know him as the man young Jamal idolized so much, he waded through the poop of millions to get to him.

As the feeding frenzy begins, here’s a post on the movie by the amazing Anuradha Bakshi of the Delhi-based Project Why. I can confidently say it’s way better than anything else you’re likely to read on the subject. You can show your support here.

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statement-on-mangalore-assault: As of now, the Statement has been signed by about 300 individuals and groups. We will continue to take endorsements even after the Statement is released tonight.

We represent a cross-section of women’s rights activists, human rights activists, home-makers, writers, film and media persons, health professionals, lawyers, academics (ranging from student to vice chancellor), scientists, social workers and others.

We are deeply anguished and angered by the spate of violent attacks on the human rights and civil liberties of people all over the country. The criminal assault on young women by the Sri Rama Sene in Mangalore last week is the most recent episode in a profoundly disturbing trend. No civilised and democratic society can condone such an assault in the name of religion, tradition and culture. Indeed, no religion, and no one with any kind of religious faith, would ever support such a barbaric act.

We strongly believe that the State and Union Governments must act promptly against all forms of criminal violence.  All citizens, and especially those who serve the Government as policy makers, administrators and law enforcers, must actively and continuously uphold the Indian Constitution and its values, in letter and spirit.

Sumi Krishna, Bangalore; Ammu Joseph, Bangalore; Soma KP, New Delhi; Joy Ranadive, Ahmedabad; U.Vindhya, Hyderabad and about 300 others.

OrangeJammies adds: I’ll be honest here: I don’t know how effective signing statements and petitions is, other than making people (often erroneously) believe that they have a voice and it works. But in the absence of any other plausible action I can take in the case of the recent Mangalore assault on women, I’ll add my name for what it’s worth. And register my protest alongside fellow citizens who feel as I do. If you are in agreement, please do the same here:

http://youngfeminists.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/another-statement-you-can-add-your-names

I now know I can’t read about Afghan women’s stories and heave a sigh of relief that it isn’t me. Because it very well could be, if this trend is allowed to continue. Let’s please save the last semblance of individual freedom that is our constitutional right.
Thank you.

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Chyetanya Kunte Vs. Barkha Dutt & NDTV

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As a card-carrying member of the consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women, I bring you word of The Pink Chaddi Campaign – It’s on, baby!

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A First Person Account of an Attack in Bangalore’s Brigade Road

A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming out of our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around.

Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding, hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one of their legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with the registration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire’s toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill.

Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest.

And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone – a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up.

Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood.

A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A ‘cheetah’ biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly.

The carnage continues for over 20 minutes.

Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true “sons of the Kannadiga soil”, and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don’t ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital.

Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. The policeman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to be precise) over the evening. No, it doesn’t matter that I didn’t have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn’t mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!!

This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims.

One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town’s most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit. That voice had no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken.

And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt.

We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector of police who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a “neutral” point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a ‘drunken brawl’, while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful.

Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one Ravi Mallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property off Brigade Road which he has converted into a “gaming” (you know what that means, don’t you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava (22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross in Vyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then.

Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lock up for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory?) bail. The car, purportedly belonging to an MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of “irrelevance to the case”.The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause.

The goons meanwhile, as an after thought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint: the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and not in the FIR? Questions.. questions..).

Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, are lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don’t know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps.

But here is the point.

We stood up.

We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be in the larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable.

It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt, nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try.

Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don’t let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit – at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder.

If are up to it, start right now.

Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment.

It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time we turn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.

My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up.I refuse to let Bangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.

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FOR THOSE IN BANGALORE – Bang JAM!