Sonia Faleiro

The siren call of Bombay attracts the rich and poor throughout Southasia, including large numbers of women from Nepal and Bangladesh. While some are dragged under by the vicious subculture of manipulation and forced labour, others discover fulfilment.

"In a petal strewn alley, up a narrow rank of rusting metal stairs, is the one room bedroom, bathroom and kitchen of activist Indira Paudal. Two bamboo mats are beds; a wall cupboard holds clothes, paperwork, photographs. A kerosene stove warms water for lemon tea. A single window overlooking suburban Thane’s envied greenery eases the claustrophobia. Through this, Paudal, 32, who emigrated from Nepal two months ago leaving her two children and parents behind in their five-bedroom home, watches a street slowly flood, hears the comforting clang of temple bells, and like the persistent buzz of mosquitoes, conversations in languages she doesn’t understand.

Paudal is among an estimated 3 Lakh Nepali women in Mumbai. While the majority are housewives who accompany their husbands as they move to the city following the push and pull of political and economic realities, many are employed, in sectors ranging from non profit, sex work, domestic work, and in small businesses. However, like the city’s estimated 2 Lakh Bangladeshi women, at least half have been trafficked, and may spend years navigating for space in their life over which they can exercise control.

Even those living the immigrant dream are faced with obstacles, of being women and migrants. According to the International Labour Organization’s Migration Branch specialist Gloria Moreno, “While migration provides productive labour, and is an economic lifeline for millions of women, the plight of unprotected female migrants (is) … evidence of (mounting) abuse.” This abuse is manifold because the Nepali and Bangladeshi communities in India work primarily in the unregulated sector. Says social anthropologist Rahul Srivastava: “Migrant women are preferred to men, because they are cheaper and can be exploited more. In sweatshops, behind sewing machines and as cheap domestic labour, they are easily manipulated by the power and brutality of the economy, and in the process also become victims of local political hate.” As their numbers increase, and the diversity of their lives vary, the women of both communities are helping change Mumbai’s migrant face. In the process, contributing to its successes, and concerns.

The latter is particularly true of women in the sex trade. While estimates are difficult, activists agree that upto 50 per cent of Mumbai’s 100,000 sex workers are Nepali. According to Paudal, who works for NGO Saathi, “they form the majority of the female Nepali community in Mumbai.” Triveni Acharya, President, Rescue Foundation, says that 5,000-6,000 Nepali women are trafficked into Maharashtra every year. The majority are sold to brothels for Rs 25,000 to Rs I Lakh upwards depending on their physical attributes and age. Although most girls fall into the 14-17 age group, a few are as young as six or as old as 40. Thereafter, for upto three years, they receive no money except tips from customers, and it is only after the brothel manager or pimp is convinced that the girl’s debt has been paid off, that she receives a cut of her earnings, which are approximately Rs 150 for less than an hour, Rs 300 for an hour and Rs 600-Rs 800 for the night. Popular girls may service upto 15 customers a night.

And every year upto 10,000 female children go missing from Bangladesh, believed to be trafficked to India, Pakistan, and the Gulf. “Bangladeshi sex workers were never taken into account, because they passed themselves off as Bengali. But deception is harder now, and they outnumber their Nepali counterparts in Mumbai by a ratio of 60 per cent to 40 per cent,” says Acharya.

Explains Arun Joshi (name changed on request), an Investigating Officer who participates in brothel raids: “During the first two-three weeks of her arrival, the girl is broken mentally and physically. Beaten, raped, threatened, and mocked that she can never escape. Once she submits, her life follows a strict routine. In time, she gets used to it; she’s happy with the money she receives, and forgets all thoughts of returning to her home. When she’s old enough, there’s only one job she can do. Become like the woman who had forced her into sex work. So she returns to her hometown, impresses the young girls with stories of Mumbai’s prosperity, and beguiles them into running away. After they do, they find themselves trafficked into the brothel she has set up for herself.”

Bangladesh’s border with West Bengal and in particular its sea route, and Nepal’s border with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, enables this selling, buying and transportation of women with impunity. Says Acharya, “Poverty, illiteracy and landlessness are the primary reasons which pushes women into sex work. Many come from disturbed families, as well. For example, a Bangladeshi Muslim who marries a second time is likely to desert his first family if he cannot support both. Similarly, in Nepal there is a gender bias with girls given very little importance. In both places impoverished village girls and their families hear a fairy tale: In Mumbai no one goes hungry.”

Last February, Fatima Ali, 21, whose husband and family of four survive on 15 acres of petulant land, was cajoled by a friend into traveling to Mumbai for a better job. Ali travelled by boat to India, then train and bus, reaching her destination a week later. Deposited at what she soon discovered was a brothel, she was told by her friend, “I’ll be back shortly. Rest.” She never returned. For 15 days, Ali was mutilated with cigarettes, beaten, and threatened with rape by the brothel’s pimp. The beatings were meant to abort her month-old fetus. On the 16th day, acting on a tip off, members of the Rescue Foundation and the police raided the brothel, freeing Ali. She now works as a chef in a women’s hostel. Her daughter Khushi was born healthy, and is a year old. Her husband remarried, and wishes no contact with her. Ali, a dark eyed beauty with hair falling to her waist, a baggy blue and white salwar kameez shrouding the dozens of burn scabs on her legs, shrugs: “I’ll never return. I was hungry. There was no work. There’s still no work, and I’ll remain hungry.”

It isn’t only sex workers who are trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh. Lalitpur, Katmandu, Chitwan, Jhapa, and Lamjung are five of the 20 regions to which female trafficking into forced labour or domestic work has been traced. It’s more difficult to trace the source areas in Bangladesh because the majority of Bangladeshi immigrants enter India illegally from border towns, tourist centers, or by boat. Having committed the crime, they are cagey about divulging details which will implicate them. But migrants traditionally tend to live in settlements of their own and this is true also on Mumbai. Settlements of Nepali and Bangladeshi sex workers are prevalent in the red light area of Kamatipura’s Shuklaji Street, Turbhe Store’s Tekri, and Bhiwandi’s Hanuman Tekri. Other Bangladeshi workers are prominent in Ghatkopar and Mira Road, while Thane, Vashi and Borivali West have numerous Nepali settlements. “It’s never the girl’s idea to enter illegally,” says Saxena. “Greed is instilled in her. Whether it’s greed of a job, because her family is desperately poor; greed of travel, greed for a marriage proposal which a young, male trafficker, who is proficient at this, dangles in front of her. 100 per cent, not one of the girls knows what awaits them.”

Neither did the family of Rafia Khan, 14, who moved from a village near Chittagong to West Bengal, and then Mumbai three years ago where she is now a domestic worker. “There wasn’t enough food in our village,” she explains. The Khans live in a construction of knitted palm leaves, with layers of plastic sheet and sacking for a roof in the Suresh Nagar slum of Andheri West. Khan’s father, Shahnawaz is unemployed, but spends Rs 22 on half a quarter of country liquor every Sunday. The women of the family—wife Najia, and daughters Rafia and Shabana, 11—are domestic workers in the building neighbouring their slum, collectively earning Rs 2,800 a month for working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. In a fortnight, Khan says, she is to return home to marry, severing the remaining tenuous links with her childhood. Shahnawaz, who rarely communicates with his wife and children but to beat them, has married twice, and Khan hopes that her marriage won’t tempt him into a third. “The fathers get frustrated from remaining unemployed,” explains Shobha Kale, National Domestic Workers Movement. “They want alcohol to feel better, but don’t have any money. So they beat their children, and extract money from them.”

As the monsoons engulf Mumbai, its easiest targets remain slums like Suresh Nagar. Perpetually wet, and cold, with no access to water to drink or bathe, and their hunger never satiated, the Khans are contemplating resettling in their village after Rafia’s marriage. She says, “My mother doesn’t want to return to Mumbai. She says we’ll work in houses over there, and my father wants to open a ration shop.” “Of course,’ she mulls, “He never gives us any money he earns.”

Across the city, South Mumbai’s Reay Road is a string of hutments inhabited by Bangladeshi migrant families. With no identification, they aren’t entitled to ration cards despite their poverty; and have to hire a gas cylinder for Rs 350 a month. Until last year, Hameeda Sheikh, 38, worked as a steel polisher in a factory, earning Rs 50 a month. After a hot steel container fell on her foot, corroding it to the bone, Sheikh was fired, and has since lived on the earnings of her eldest daughter who pipes beads on blouses for Rs 1.50 per blouse. Khan doesn’t have the option of returning home. Her wounds have shackled her to a life of poverty in a city she believed would sever the burden. Sheikh and Khan knew that survival in their hometown was impossibility. They also believed the heavily circulated stories of the opportunities Mumbai proffers. But in a city already teeming with the hungry, they quickly found themselves as disadvantaged as before.

Not everyone is as unlucky. Sheeta Dhuri, a Nepali acrobat with the Great Royal Circus, is content with her new life. Married to an Indian acrobat, Dhuri’s hair is parted with vermillion, and she is a doting mother to one-year-old Pooja. Like many Nepali immigrants, Dhuri entered India via Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, on the insistence of her friend, initially leaving behind her parents and brother who worked the fields for a living. “My parents didn’t want me to leave,” she says. “But I put my foot down. I told them I’d return after two years, but I never returned!” Dhuri travelled to Gujarat, and then to Maharashtra, where she was joined by her family. When the circus came to town, she saw an opportunity to escape a life of drudgery. She now performs five acts in three shows daily, earning approximately Rs 8,000 a month. Although she receives a fortnight of paid leave annually, Dhuri chooses not to visit her family, maintaining contact through phone calls. “This is better than home,” she says. “Once my performances are over, I don’t have to worry. At home, there’s always something else to do. And here someone is always looking out for my child. My family doesn’t have the time.” Nevertheless, Dhuri says her daughter will not follow in her footsteps. “Just because the parents did it, doesn’t mean the children should follow,” she says, firmly. “Children should be educated.”

Whatever their work, Mumbai’s immigrants maintain strong links with their community. This is particularly true of those who work from home, are unable to speak Hindi or Marathi, and as a result, find acclimatizing difficult. With 6 Nepali newspapers and 21 cultural and political organisations, it isn’t hard for Nepalis like Geeta Sharma, 21—who ventures out of her house only with her husband, Raj, a chef in a Chinese restaurant—to occupy herself. The Sahitya Nepali Mahasangh is the largest cultural organisation for the community. Its celebrations, which most prominently include women, are Teej in August-September; Durga Puja in October—celebrated over a period of 10 days in Tunga Village; Sports Day with quizzes and athletic events in December-January, and Notebook Mitran on July 2, at the Marathi Sahitya Sangh during which Mumbai’s Nepali students are given free notebooks.

Says Shanta T. Sharma, a teacher at Dahisar’s Brihanmumbai Corporation School: “It’s hard for new migrants, particularly housewives who aren’t educated, to communicate with their Indian neighbours. So we wait for festivals like Teej, and sing songs about our new lives in Nepali. And if there’s something that’s bothering us, whether it’s our husband or mother in law, that’s included in the lyrics as well!”

Mumbai’s Nepali and Bangladeshi women immigrants vary from those who live mild lives of unremarkable domesticity, as with Geeta Sharma; to those whose experiences have been so dark, that even once rescued they cannot bare to talk of the past, and will not hope for a future. But somewhere between the world of the weary, pancaked women of Hanuman Tekri and the bustling housewives of Thane’s leafy green colonies, swaying nostalgically to Nepali film music as they stir a bowl of chatamari, are women like Bindu Chandrakant Adhikari, who has enjoyed two worlds, and now readies to settle down for ever, in one.

Adhikari moved to Thane’s Wagle Estate from Pokhra district in 1991 as a 16-year-old bride. She had heard great things about Bombay, she says, about the shops, and how much money a man could earn by washing tables at a restaurant or guarding a building through the night. “I heard you didn’t have to be educated!” she says. Unable to speak Hindi, Adhikari spent her first month in Mumbai familiarizing herself with the city through the chinks in her blinds. “I didn’t like it first,” she recalls, smiling. “I saw all the Nepali men working, and all the Nepali women sitting at home, cooking all day. I thought, ‘I have hands and legs; I can work as well.” She opened a vegetable shop in her house with wholesale market finds worth Rs 500. Within months, business was flourishing, and her husband didn’t have to work as a security guard. In a year, Adhikari’s vegetable shop had metamorphosed into a record and video store, and until recently sold albums of Lok Dohori as far as Rajkhot, Nasik, and Poona.

Fifteen years have passed. Despite her financial success, and prominence in the Nepali community, Adhikari recently sold her shop, and bought a house in Nepal’s Chitawan where she will now live with her husband and four daughters. She explains, “I’ve worked with Nepali women in Mumbai for years, encouraging them to learn Hindi, to receive an education, to do something with their lives. I’ve travelled across Maharashtra, even Gujarat meeting women in trouble. Then I thought, ‘why should I remain here when women at home need my help even more?’ That’s why I’m going. I don’t think I’ll ever come back. Bombay has shown me the possibilities.”

An edited version of this appears in Himal Southasian, August 2006.
Photo of Bindu Chandrakant Adhikari, Sonia Faleiro.

"Chamunda Nagar in the suburbs of Bhandup has been in the news for reports of child malnutrition. Sonia Faleiro goes beyond the headlines to find that at the root of that are crushed, underfed, overworked mothers.
The hiss, whistle and screech of the local train may give suburban Mumbai’s Bhandup East the flavour of a town, but the wet, green fields and small temples, one of which forbids ‘untouchables’ from entering, suggest quieter ambitions.

On June 9, the suburb became the focus of nationwide attention when an ngo collective, Bal Hakk Abhiyan (BHA), took 11 children living in slums from the ages of 8 months to 9 years to the local Rajawadi Hospital for treatment for malnutrition. Seven were admitted; four were administered medication, patted on their fragile backs and sent back to their homes of plastic sheets, mud floors and palm-leaf walls. Their mothers — as gaunt as the children, their feet cracked and swollen from trawling rain-soaked streets and picking rags for hours at a stretch, their hair scant and their skin coarse — were advised to feed the children balanced meals, give them clean drinking water, and to bathe them regularly.

An avalanche of media attention followed, accompanied by a rising chorus of horror. Children were starving in Maharashtra, India’s most prosperous state — and not among the tribes of Melghat and Dahanu this time, but in Mumbai, its urban core. Two weeks later, Bhandup’s Chamunda Nagar slum received a facelift. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (bmc) did a routine cleanup, and, now, ddt is being sprayed every day to eradicate mosquitoes. The slum-dwellers were promised electricity and water. But in the spaces between the whistles of the train, and the turning of its screeching wheels, a familiar sound can be heard — the cries of mothers and their children for food.

Aarti Salve, an activist with Social Action for Literacy and Health (SALAH) has been working in Bhandup East for two years. In 2005, worried at the regularity with which the children here were falling sick, she participated in a project under the aegis of salah to measure the prevalence of malnourishment in Bhandup. Over 63 percent of the 218 randomly sampled children aged 0-15 years were found to be malnourished, 11 percent had chronic malnutrition, and 27 percent had below-normal weight and height. Salve began writing to government officials about malnutrition in Bhandup, six months before the spurt in media coverage on the subject in June. She did not receive any response.

The slum settlements of Bhandup East aren’t any different from others that now engulf Mumbai. Every day, 500 migrant families come to the city, settling in areas like Andheri’s Ambedkar Nagar, Dharavi, Wadala’s slum pockets and South Mumbai’s Reay Road, all of which share the same basic features — makeshift houses, many on the banks of sewers; no electricity; not one tap for a settlement of 100 families; and no sanitation. The air is layered with mosquitoes, thick with the stench of coagulating filth, and the ground marshy with sewage. Hungry children, overworked mothers, underweight pregnant women, fathers who have turned to gambling, alcohol and gutka. The locations may be different, separated by many miles, but the faces are the same. “This isn’t a Bhandup problem,” says Madhukant Pathare, Mumbai Convener, BHA. “It is a city-wide problem, one which the government chooses to ignore, because acknowledging it means acknowledging the failure of our urban policies.”

And yet it is Bhandup’s Chamunda Nagar, Shyam Nagar, Govind Nagar and Kamal Nagar that have become the focus of attention, because of the diligence of BHAs working in these areas. However there are limits to what ngos can and will do, and corruption in government agencies flourishes. This is one of the reasons why slum-dwellers who have government ration-cards are also starving.

Leela Sanjay Chauhan, 40, holds six-month-old Tara in her arms, who is so tiny she looks like a premature, newborn baby. Neither Leela, nor Tara and her siblings — Sonu, 8, Sheetal, 6, and 3-year-old Komal who was diagnosed as malnourished — have eaten all day. Leela’s husband Sanjay is a beggar, making about Rs 50 a day. Leela works as a rag-picker from 10am to 7pm, earning Rs 5 for a kilo of pickings. On a good day, she gathers 15 kilos, going as far as Thane district and Kanjurmarg. While Tara remains in her arms, her other children play by the sewer; when they’re hungry they beg for food from the neighbouring buildings. Yesterday, the six Chauhans shared two chapattis and a bowl of stale vegetables. And this, even though Leela has a ration card — a government sponsored shield from hunger which entitles her to one kilogramme of wheat for Rs 2, and a kilogram of rice at Rs 3. “I haven’t received rations for a year,” she says. “When I go to the ration shop — there are two in Bhandup East — I’m told the rations haven’t arrived from the state office. When I go to the office I’m told the rations were sent to the shop. Then I stopped going, because it meant time away from work.”

On June 12, Kirit Somaiya, former area mp from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), filed a petition with the States Human Rights Commission, against the mismanagement of ration supplies. On June 22, the area’s rationing inspector was suspended, and the two ration shops closed. “What’s the point of shutting the shops? The slum dwellers still need rations. It’s the implementation that must change,” says Pathare. Leena Joshi who works with the ngo Rationing Kriti Samiti agrees. “We lack political and economic will to make the necessary changes,” she says. “Those in the ruling parties are apathetic because they personally never have to deal with the pds (Public Distribution System).”

Like many activists, Joshi wasn’t surprised by the Bhandup’s hungry, pointing out that the ration-card system keeps them so. “Many of the poorest people don’t even get cards because they don’t have documentation. And the government ensures that only Below Poverty Line (bpl) families rather than all poor people get free rations. Therefore, because we’ve drawn a faulty and unscientific poverty line, many poor people have to buy food at open-market prices. In the ration shops, the grain sold is adulterated and under-weighed; people don’t get their full quota; kerosene is diverted to the black market; and shopkeepers create bogus cards to keep this charade going. At every opportunity they tell cardholders that their quota hasn’t arrived.”

As a result, families like the Chauhans are a common sight in Mumbai, living a shadowy life on the margins of other people’s prosperity. On June 12, BHA took 17 more malnourished children to the hospital for treatment, but they were refused admittance because, according to BHA, they would have had to acknowledge the prevalence of malnutrition in the city — something they had failed to do so far.

Among the children turned away was Sanjay, an 11-month-old baby, who is suffering from tb. His mother Anita buys medicines worth Rs 62 every fortnight, but cannot feed him more than once a day. “During monsoons we can’t work for three-four days at a stretch, so how much he eats depends on what we’ve managed to save in the days before — rice, maybe dal. Today he ate two pieces chapattis (just about a quarter of one chapatti),” she says. Anita has sent her elder son, 6-year-old Aniket, to her mother’s house in Akola district, to recover from a bout of typhoid. Explains Salve, “When you’re starved, your resistance decreases and this leads to numerous infections like TB, typhoid, pneumonia, malaria, and even skin diseases like scabies.”

Besides the failure of the corruption-riddled ration-card system, slums are rife with problems which compound the misery of their inhabitants. They have large families and the kind of work available usually involves manual labour or rag picking. Getting even one balanced meal a day is a struggle. The poverty of the slum-dwellers is also the reason behind high death rates in the slums. Jayanta Mukesh Khara, Chauhans’ neighbour, lost her 15-year-old daughter to jaundice. “After last year’s floods our houses were soaked, and almost all the women and children fell ill. She had fever and was coughing for two months. I would buy her tablets for Rs 1 or Rs 2, but she died. As we carried her away someone saw the colour of her skin and said it was jaundice,” she says.

Another neighbour, Sevanta, carries a photograph of her dead daughter in her sari blouse. The 18-year-old died while crossing the train tracks to collect water from the tap closest to this illegal settlement. Every year about six people from the slum die while crossing the tracks. The only other option is a bi-weekly, expensive Rs 40 rickshaw ride to Bhandup village to fill 6-7 gallons of water from the municipality tap. They have to make do with this water for drinking, cooking and bathing. “Our houses are filthy, we can’t bathe and our children don’t have clean water. During the monsoons we have to stand all night because water floods the house,” says Khara. “I’ve been living here for years and every night I have lain awake worrying.”

Like Khara, Kaushalya Sunil Saroj suffers sleepless nights. This June, her youngest son Badal, 4, was diagnosed with Grade-3 malnutrition and tb. Badal receives a daily meal under the government-run anganwadi scheme. “Sometimes the food smells bad,” says Kaushalya. According to government figures, in all, there are 150 anganwadis in Bhandup East and West, running under the Integrated Child Development Scheme. An anganwadi is supposed to run creches, provide supplementary food for children and pregnant women, and conduct immunisation drives. According to Salve, when questioned about the poor quality of food they provide to the children, those who run anganwadis say, “Talk to the state government. It’s their contractors who send the food.” Kaushalya has been instructed by the doctor to feed Badal milk and give him an egg every day. Watching him cram a soft-boiled egg in his mouth, she says, “Once the rain starts, the food will stop.”

It is women like Saroj, Khara and Chauhan, who suffer the worst effects of lack of opportunities to earn a livelihood, and the resulting poverty. With little or no education, they enter the irregular and unregulated occupational sector at an early age, performing physically strenuous tasks like domestic work, rag-picking and manual labour, and, in addition, have to cook and clean at home. Many suffer from anaemia, and are saddled with the responsibilities of a young marriage and multiple pregnancies, all the while having to face the daily hazards involved in living in a slum.

“There is no bathroom for women. It’s shameful that we have to go to the fields, near a gutter. Men keep passing; we get tense, and stand up. My stomach is such, I have to eat, and then run to the toilet. Do I feel embarrassed or ashamed? If I did, and waited till dark, I would fall sick,” says Saroj. In a medical camp conducted by BHA this March, over 90 percent of the women in the four slums were found to be suffering from vaginal infections. Sexual harassment is particularly severe for those who work as domestic helps in homes or in the construction sector (“the middle men won’t take no for an answer,” says one woman). Miscarriages happen because the mothers are malnourished. Unable to afford a hospital delivery, the women hire a dai for Rs 40. Apart from the physical complications that arise, getting a birth certificate afterwards is an added complication. The Sarojs live next to the sewer. The sewer was cleaned before the monsoons, but instead of being carried away, the muck was dumped on the banks, attracting hoards of mosquitoes and multiplying the threat of malaria.

This is where Badal and the settlement’s other children play under the watering eyes of their desperate mothers. “Members of the outreach programme for polio immunisation refuse women in the four slums were found to be suffering from vaginal infections. Sexual harassment is particularly severe for those who work as domestic helps in homes or in the construction sector (“the middle men won’t take no for an answer,” says one woman). Miscarriages result due to poor maternal nutrition.

Unable to afford a hospital delivery, the women hire a dai for Rs 40. Apart from the physical complications that arise, getting a birth certificate afterwards is an added complication. The Sarojs live next to the sewer. Prior to the monsoons, the sewer was cleaned, but instead of transporting the garbage it was dumped on the banks, attracting hoards of mosquitoes and multiplying the threat of malaria. This is where Badal and the settlement’s other children play under the watering eyes of their desperate mothers. “Members of the outreach programme for polio immunisation refuse to enter the slum because it’s so filthy. We bring the babies out,” says Salve.

Dr Romesh Poddar, who has conducted studies on the effects of malnutrition on women in slum areas, says the result of such physical and emotional stress includes severe constipation, a prolapsed uterus, menstrual problems, headaches, depression and lower-back ache.

He explains, “The worst impact of poverty, lack of education and lower social status is always felt by the woman. She’s seen as a child producing machine, however frail she may be, and however poor her family’s ability to provide nutrition to the child. Most of these children die between the ages of six months and two years.” The BHA states that only after an urban renewal committee is set up to investigate the number of Mumbai’s malnourished will the Maharashtra government be able to remedy the problem.

Rehabilitation of these families, and assistance through an effective pds and Employment Guarantee Scheme, should be the long-term plan of the committee. After the ‘malnourishment story’ received coverage in the press, the government has introduced 10 more anganwadis in Bhandup East, and supplied 30 kg of wheat for every person with a ration card. Since this is the same government whose immediate response to sick, malnourished seeking hospitalisation was to send them away and deny that there was a problem, it is unlikely that those working for it are willing or capable of fixing a system they are a part of.

There seems little doubt, therefore, that the hungry faces of Bhandup East will continue to be a reminder of India’s most prosperous city’s inability to feed its countless poor."

Tehelka, August 5, 2006.
Photos: Sonia Faleiro. 

Mumbai sheriff, Vijaypat Singhania, last seen crouching under a hot air balloon as it drifted into the blue yonder, wants to convert one of Mumbai's few green spaces into a plot for the world's tallest building. If let loose, he also promises a park, a zoo, and night safari.

"Everyone was jealous of me. I was going to spend an entire week eating pie. Apple pie, lemon pie, chocolate pie, pecan pie, and anything else the good people of the South had to offer. It seemed a patriotic thing to do. Every good American loves pie. Mark Twain included five kinds of pie in the list of things he missed most about America while abroad. Jack Kerouac sang its praises, too, claiming it was nutritious and delicious, and helped him think big thoughts. Even Harriet Beecher Stowe agreed, calling it "an English institution which, planted on American soil, forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of genera and species."

 

1. "Madam, Please don't flash us." (Group of cameramen to photographer).

2. "Humne Vivek kiya, Ajay kiya, Vishal kiya. Abhi aur teen baki hain." ("I did Vivek Oberoi, Ajay Devgan, Vishal Bhardwaj. I have three left." Lady journalist to cameraman friend.)

3. "Sabse pehle namaste." (Vivek Oberoi in response to the question, 'Tell us something about your character in Omkara.')

4. "He's a fabulous actor. (About Ajay Devgan). He's a fabulous director (About Vishal Bhardwaj). This year Saif (Ali Khan) will win the National award. This year Ajay (Devgan) will win the National award." (Kareena Kapoor, who reached at 9 p.m. for a 4 p.m press meet, on her cast members and director).

5. "Saar Please, This is very important to us." (Then, turning angrily to print interviewer, 'How long will you take? So unfair!' TV journalist to Vishal Bhardwaj).

6. "Most of the women here are too fat". (Male lit-blogger with a beady eye for the ladies, between mouthfuls of chicken tikka, spiced mushrooms, asparagus tartlets, paneer kebabs, cola, capuccino, and peppermint tea).

7. "What will you give me in return?" (Bipasha Basu to lady journalist who asked if she could touch Basu's leg warmers).

8. "The wine glasses are for juice. The Bacardi bottles are for decoration." (Bartender to up-in-arms journalists fed up of cola).

9. "Did your role in Omkara expose you to your dark, inner side? The side you have kept well hidden?" (Journalist to Saif Ali Khan).

10. "Saar! Saar! Do your Pyare Mohan face!" (Photographers to Vivek Oberoi).

Photo, Sonia Faleiro. For photos, scroll down to Vivek's Shoes, Bipasha, and her socks, Ajay, Saif and Kareena.  

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Ankle warmers do the trick on a chilly July afternoon.
Photo, SF. 

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Vivek's shoes sure are cool. On a 12-year-old.
Photo, SF. 

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All photos, SF. 
What you don't see: The stampede, fisticuffs and arguments that broke out between journalists and their camera crew during the press conference. The big stars are elusive, and it's only during a publicity blitz for a new film that most of the media has access to them, and as a result, they are desperate to get interesting sound bites. Considering the questions they come up with ("Kareena is Shahid Kapoor your dream guy?"), it's no wonder film interviews are a scream.

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The original Marlboro Man.
All photos, SF.

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All photos, SF. 

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If you still don't know where to look, The Zig points us to the Indian version of PK Blogs, called In Blogs. They're both exactly the same, except that the latter's Slap The Block logo, which I intend to upload here after breakfast, is rather spiffy. For those who want to be in the thick of 2006: The Rising, there's also a Blogger's Collective on Google Groups.

Update: Está aquí!

New York magazine isn't ecstatic about Lady in the Water, which releases in India next Friday:
"Given the twerpy messianism of Lady in the Water, it’s pretty clear that M. Night Shyamalan regards himself as a sacred vessel. His new movie is like Splash reworked by a grandiose Sunday-school teacher."

Update: But Manohla Dargis, over at the NYT, likes it. Kinda.
"It was just around the time when the giant eagle swooped out of the greater Philadelphia night to rescue a creature called a narf, shivering and nearly naked next to a swimming pool shaped like a collapsed heart, that I realized M. Night Shyamalan had lost his creative marbles. Since Mr. Shyamalan’s marbles are bigger than those of most people, or so it would seem from the evidence of a new book titled “The Man Who Heard Voices” (and how!), this loss might have been a calamity, save for the fact that “Lady in the Water” is one of the more watchable films of the summer. A folly, true, but watchable."

Save Our Blogs!
Visit www.pkblogs.com for access to India's banned blogs.

Update: The news channels have been all over the Banned Blogs story, but since I, uh, sometimes work, I haven't caught even one of their stories yet. CNN-IBN, a favourite of mine, is the most enthusiastic of all. I don't intend to sign their signature campaign, dramatically titled Bound Gagged Shackled, but it's here for those interested. Another new story here, and here, and a Big One at 10 p.m tonight.

Because I sure as hell can't.

I had no idea of the devoted relationship I share with my blog until this morning, at 7 a.m., when I couldn't access it. Now I obviously know what's on my blog. Let's be honest, I read it constantly, which is a bit sad because I do have comment moderation, so there are never any surprises. But I'm so used to staring blankly at it (before quickly scrolling down and clicking on People or Perez Hilton), that it was devastating to find it missing.

There's a void in my life, I wept, hopelessly clicking on my other favourite blogs. (The fact that none were accessible proves, sadly, that the Government of India isn't out to get me, and me alone, so I should stop feeling self-important.)

For those who jumped on the Missing Blog Bandwagon late, today's Times of India reports on its first page:

"Immediately after 7/11, the department of telecommunication (DOT) issued a fiat to 150-odd internet service providers to clamp down on a handful of sites, including a few popular blogs. The move has attracted severe flak for the government from the blogging community which has now gone into a funk. A DOT official did not name sites, but he cited Intelligence reports that confirmed how members of banned organisations were using certain blogs to transmit messages to members. And unlike emails that can be tracked, blogs cannot be tracked as easily. ... Specially, the DOT letter has asked ISPs to block sites like www.hinduunity.org and www.exposingtheleft.blogspot.com though it did not state why."

"Popular blogs?" Flattery will get them nowhere. I want my blog back.
"Gone into a funk" So true. Git my blog back.
Why is Department of Telecom in lower caps? And 150-odd? Is it so hard to say 'approximately'?
(These and other questions relating to the TOI and its delightful news channel Times Now, continue to give me sleepless nights).

For detailed information on the Ban Blogs Conspiracy read Shivam Vij's article here, and Manish Vij (no relation, I'm sure) has a list of the banned sites here.

Of course, if blogs have been used as communication devices between the 7/11 terrorists, that I can see why this may be viewed as a precaution. It is sad, though, because immediately after the blasts, mainstream media was awash with stories about how blogs had helped circulate news, via, among other sites, that superb brainchild of Peter Griffin, Mumbai Help.

Next week, I'm getting the first dog I have ever had in my life. She was born in Delhi, but is of decidedly Goan persuasion, which is why she is called Chorizo. Or Zo, for short. If one day I awaken to find her missing, and if I find out that she, along with many "popular" city dogs has been taken to the pound for Intelligence purposes, I shall be devastated. There's also the little matter of the dog food I've been accumulating for the past eight months, and which someone tells me doesn't taste as good to human beings.

By the way, publishing this now is a little like stuffing a note in a bottle and throwing it into the Indian Ocean, wondering whether it will reach the Pacific. If this does reach you, please let me know.

Update: Having managed to grab a foothold on Amit's blog via Bloglines, I feel the need to steal his many, excellent ideas to stay connected.
1. Sign into Bloglines, and subscribe to the missing blogs.
2. Visit this site, and use it, as I just did to see a blog in its entirety. (Rather than just the feed as with Bloglines).
3. Also read this article in DNA, and another in the Indian Express.

For up-to-date information on the seven Mumbai blasts, which took place in the city yesterday, and have so far killed 190 and injured 403, please visit Mumbai Help. Also see the forum, How Can We Help You?
For news, special reports, photographs, and video please visit:
NDTV
CNN-IBN
The Times of India
The Guardian
BBC News
Mid Day
Rediff
For photos, visit: Black Bombay on Flickr, and Terrorists Blow Up Bombay Trains on Ultrabrown.

My friend Chandrahas and I both have short stories in First Proof 2: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India, which is on shelves this month. His is called Dnyaneshwar Kulkarni Changes His Name, and you can read the first paragraph here. Mine is called Stupid, and you can read every paragraph in the book.

 
Photo taken today in Goregaon, on the road to Inorbit mall and Hypercity.