*Friends in small places: Allaudin

Taak-tak, taak-tak... the afternoon sound in the quiet college lobby comes from the post office. If I step in, I will find the lanky Allaudin bent over stacks of letters, thumping the stamp in his hand first on the ink pad and then on the letters one by one. He will then proceed to toss them into the sorting frame. 

I can smell the place now – of new paper and post office glue. Later in the afternoon, Allaudin can be seen making the rounds of the campus on his old Atlas bicycle dropping off our letters from his worn canvas bag. He doesn’t drop all in the letter boxes but stops when he sees someone whose letters he knows are in his bag -  I see him tilt his bike and rest his right leg on the road to stop. 

The climb to our house is steep, he must get down and walk his cycle. I spot him and run, ‘Allaudin Uncle, hamara letter hai?’ ‘Papa ka hai’, he hands me a clutch of Inland letters, postcards, envelopes and newsletters – they come every day. I look for stamps.  I wait for the SPAN magazine to look at the glossy pictures first and then read some. Sometimes there are letters addressed to me, ‘Miss’ they say. Once as I waited to buy stamps, the men at the counters were talking of Allaudin, of his Ramzaan rozas. It was the first time I had heard of someone going without water the entire day. I craned my neck and stood on toes to look at Allaudin sitting inside. Taak-tak, taak-tak...his hands were stamping the letters.  

Today, October 9 is World Post Day.


*The title, ‘Friends in small places’ is from a Ruskin Bond collection ‘inspired by people who have left a lasting impression on him’. 

My reading list in the Times of India, Bangalore today.
There's no direct link but it’s on page 8 if you want to read it in the epaper.

Margins to mainstream

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Margins to mainstream

Shefali Tripathi Mehta, August 2, 2015, DHNS

A friend posted an update about a milkman’s daughter getting 93 per cent marks in Class 12 board exams and someone responded by saying, “What does the parents’ profession have to do with their children’s marks?” 

A great deal, really.

The country was still not done lauding the amazing feat of the brothers, Raju (18) and Brajesh (19), sons of a daily wage worker, who made it to the prestigious IITs with ranks 167 and 410 respectively, when the details of how they were continually harassed for going to school and college, and dreaming of more, began appearing in the media. Belonging to a lower class, the boys faced blatant discrimination, not unknown in this country, but prevailed. Such stories of those who defy the odds of social alienation and economic deprivation are few and far between. Thousands of first-generation learners, that is, those whose parents have received little or no formal education, still sieve through the harsh social realities and retreat to the margins.

For generations we have seen children from families with limited means and the repressed follow their parents’ profession naturally. As naturally as slipping into their shoes, as it were. I don’t seem to have registered with much surprise in my childhood when the little boys who tagged along with their father, the dhobi, to collect clothes for washing, started coming in his place, or when the grocer in the 8x12 shop, the burly Uncle who seemed to have been permanently installed behind the big jars of boiled sugar treats, made way for his son; or when I opened the door for the old, bent sweeper and in walked her daughter to wash the toilets? These children too must’ve wished for a different future, but when the daily struggle is to feed and clothe the body, how much further could they have gone?  

But the proverbial winds of change are a-blowing. There is more public acceptance and sensitisation towards equality in society; role models and success stories for these children to emulate are real and believable; and many more of the generation that did not get education themselves realise its importance and are keen to have their kids educated.

Of courage

Our house-help’s children study in the same private college that our daughter attended. This is the story of every urban household. She, like thousands of her generation — maids, drivers, dhobis, security guards — work hard to provide the best they can to their children so the children do not get sucked into a life of manual work like them. These hardworking men and women take on extra work so they may be able to afford a private school/ college education, tuitions, transportation, good clothes and shoes, mobile phones and computers for their children. 

The obstacles these children face are not something we cannot guess. A large percentage of the very poor are unable to complete even the first five years of primary education. The cost of putting kids into school is high. Poverty pulls them back continually so they can do something ‘useful’. When a child as young as nine can earn, how easy is it to let them to not contribute to a meagre family income? 

What happens when the academic achievement is low? The reason may be uninspired teaching. The Right to Education does not guarantee good education. In towns and cities, parents forgo the ‘free’ education in favour of unregulated, arbitrarily steep-priced private English medium schools not just because these are a symbol of upward mobility, but also because parents want nothing to stall their kids’ career prospects. 

What about higher education? How are these kids helped to deal with the bureaucratic operations of higher education about which the other kids learn from family and their networks? More than five lakh students appear for the IIT-JEE each year. Most of them begin preparations as early as 12 years of age. That’s a preparation of six years. This is true for other entrance exams for admission into professional courses too. Where do these kids get the resources, help and guidance for such preparations? 

In higher education, the medium of instruction is almost always English, a jump that many find daunting. Gandhi shared his experience of shifting from the vernacular to English. “Everything had to be learnt through English — Geometry, Algebra, Chemistry, Astronomy, History, Geography. ...If any boy spoke in the class in Gujarati, he was punished. It did not matter to the teacher if a boy spoke bad English which he could neither pronounce correctly nor understand fully... His own (the teacher’s) English was by no means without blemish... The result was chaos. We the boys had to learn many things by heart, though we could not understand them fully... I took four years to learn Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Chemistry and Astronomy, (that) I should have learnt easily in one year, if I had not to learn them through English but Gujarati. My grasp of the subjects would have been easier and clearer... What happened to me ...was common to the majority.” 

Parents with little or no formal education fail to provide educational, vocational or personal guidance to their children. As part of the company’s CSR, we were conducting a career workshop for girls at an orphanage — introducing a wide-range of careers to teenagers. We began by asking them of their career goals. Most girls were attending regular school and many were very bright. Some wrote beautiful poems and stories and some were remarkable artists. But when it came to careers, they chose teaching or becoming a nun, the only two professions they had seen at close quarters. A couple of them, drawn to what they saw at a beauty parlour on the way to school, said they wanted to work there. Who bridges this information gap and provides them career guidance? 

There is also the issue of environment and peers. Many first-generation learners live in environments that do not encourage them to continue their education. With economic hardship comes the need to help with domestic chores. Tai ma, who cleans homes, was deserted along with her three sons by her husband. She worked hard to put them through school. While two of her boys managed high school and found respectable jobs, one dropped out as he could not shake off the company of boys given to drinking and gambling in the slums they live. The absence of role models and influencers within the family and neighbourhood is an immense disadvantage. Raju and Brajesh’s success will inspire many youngsters in their neighbourhood and community. But most of these children do not have a believable idol to identify with or emulate.

Besides, there is the matter of social adjustments. This takes more courage and determination than we care to admit. My friend Kempanna, who comes from a very humble background and is currently a visual designer with an Indian multinational, tells me that he never hides the reality of his modest beginnings; the tough life of his mother who worked in homes; and the humiliation the family faced — everything that made him resolve to change it for the better for himself and his family, because he believes it gives others like him the courage to aspire big. 

Of discrimination

Workplace discrimination is just as much a reality today as it was at the time of Independence, 68 years ago. But in today’s fast-paced, continually evolving, performance-based work culture, it is the non-performers, the misfits alone that can be discriminated against. A world obsessed with quick-turnarounds cannot be bothered with the social and economic backgrounds of a ‘valuable resource’. 

This brings up the debatable issue of reservations. We may not have got rid of our caste discriminations completely, but modern India has come a long way from when the Communal Award was instituted in 1932 by the British Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald. Among other caste-based divisions it created, which not just Gandhi but Ambedkar too opposed, there was a provision for ‘reserved’ constituencies for the untouchables to contest from and for them alone to vote. Political representation is important, but the manner in which these have manifested into the clichéd ‘vote-bank’ politics to render much of our democratic process as well as reform and equality ineffectual, is shameful. Eight decades and much reservation reforms later, if reservations still need to be increased, there is something terribly wrong with this as a reform to uplift the repressed.

The need is for a level playing field for all; for extending financial support and quality education at the foundation level not based on caste but on economic condition. The ‘free and compulsory’ education under the RTE, envisaged to lead to a democratic and egalitarian society, is up to middle school. How far can a child go with middle school education? Also, when has the right to education guaranteed good education? We know the condition of government-run primary and middle schools. Much time and effort went into standardising the ‘Minimum Levels of Learning’ for each class at the primary level. But in the current system of uninspired teaching, who is going to implement and monitor this? Mid-day meals bring the kids to school, but are the schools good enough to ensure a different future for them? Does this education annul the opportunity cost? In the private sector where there is no reservation, people from humble backgrounds have risen exceptionally because reward and recognition is the motivation.

Of patrons & incentives

Indians, cutting across regional, caste and religious lines, have contributed generously towards the admission fee of the four boys from poor families who made it to the IITs this year. All four were coached at Anand Kumar’s Super 30 in Bihar. Anand Kumar, the man on a mission, runs Super 30 that selects 30 kids from very poor families and coaches them free for the prestigious IIT entrance exam. The Pratapgarh brothers’ (Raju and Brajesh) fee has been waived off; help and contributions from many including politicians, social workers and film stars have been promised. Not just the wealthy, but middle class Indians too contribute and help poor students in need. Sadly, patronage comes rarely to the average student who too must have a go at a better life.

Amit Shukla from Mumbai tells me that his house-help is forgetful, hard of hearing and slow, but they let it slide because in spite of a drunk and abusive husband, she has put her daughter through one of the best colleges in Mumbai and the daughter now works as ground staff for an airline.

These kids need guidance and mentoring as much as financial help. The wealthy couple who supported Kempanna asked him what he wanted to do after school. Kempanna being a brilliant artist, said he wanted to learn painting. He did not know what career options he had except that he could be a drawing teacher. 

Shanti, the daughter of construction worker, grew up in my parents’ home. She was bright and willing, but there was continual societal resistance my parents faced to enable her to study through school and college, earn a vocational degree and find a job. When she was married off to a less educated boy according to her parents’ wishes, she ended up supporting him and her two children. But as a Special Educator, Shanti is a shining example of the power of perseverance.    

I still remember how her old, illiterate father would sit by the dim light in their jhuggi at night and ask her to read from her English textbook. Often, not knowing much herself, she would repeat the same words in different sequences till the old man, warm in the thought of his little daughter speaking the sahab log’s tongue, fell asleep.

Will is the way

Radheshyam Panwariya is an assistant professor of Hindi in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh. At the age of eight, he was sent to a government-run hostel for the blind by parents both of who were illiterate. It was among peers that he realised that to gain independence, he would need to educate himself. After completing high school, he hit a dead end and did not know how and what to do with his life. He tells me he had Rs 600 left of his scholarship and nowhere to go. For almost three months, there was little to eat. When an NGO offered him help, he took it for his personal needs, but refused to latch on to them entirely and instead took up a job as a Shiksha Karmi. He studied in the mornings and worked in the afternoon to complete his studies. Many people he met motivated him. The lady who read lessons to him would know when he came hungry and offered food and milk. Whenever he lost sight of his dream of becoming a professor, she reminded him.

Radheshyam is a firm believer of the dictum that one must want to help oneself because he has a brother who too is blind and all his efforts to make the brother realise the value of educating himself and becoming independent, have failed. Kempanna echoes the same sentiment. He says a lot of kids from backgrounds such as his get opportunities but not everyone can go for the ‘kill’ that it requires. 

Professor Prabodh Kumar recognised the writer in his domestic help. He encouraged her, and today she’s known as the author, Baby Halder. Bigoted minds can cling to their insecurities, but the wise will give a hand where it is needed. I have just answered the door. It was the raddiwala who collects old newspapers from house to house. He has ignored my calls for the last two days. He smiles as I register displeasure and tells me in his broken Hindi, English and Tamil that his son has got admission into a medical college.

Good news is no news

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Good news is no news
Shefali Tripathi Mehta, June 7, 2015, DHNS

The elders’ reprimand to keep quiet if I spoke during the news on radio is an abiding childhood memory. News was timed — morning and evening on the radio; the local morning newspaper; and the national newspaper that came in the afternoon by train in the city I grew up. News was not as easily accessible as it is now. If one missed it, there was no way of checking it immediately. If ignorance wasn’t bliss, it was at least less overwhelming. Now it seems there’s no getting away. We are drowning in information.

Twelve-year old Sana was looking forward to visiting her grandparents in the summer vacations. When the family decided to do the long journey from Bangalore to Delhi by train, her first reaction was a worried, ‘What if the train meets with an accident?’ Train accidents were all she has seen and known of train journeys from watching news. That was her immediate recall. All around us there is news of corruption, scams, killings, abductions, rape, poverty, negligence, injustice. It does not help that news doesn’t ‘come to us’ like it did about two decades ago, but we ‘go’ to it. In our Internet-enabled, connected world, we are constantly being bombarded with news and very often rumour, scandal or expose in the garb of news.

Breaking news — and all of it is breaking — comes streaming to us as it is unfolding. If it does not update in two seconds on our phones and computers, we refresh and reboot, panicking about what we may be missing out — a catastrophe worse than any tragedy we may be following on news. The FOMO or fear of missing out makes us compulsive news seekers.

In the past few years, I have seen many friends trying to shut out news completely by not subscribing to newspapers or watching it on television. Though how one can insulate oneself thus in times when news has a way of getting to us and not the other way around, is a wonder. How are the readers and viewers coping? What keeps their hopes for a better world alive?

Choose & filter

Girish Ananth, a software professional, says he would gladly rid himself of the habit of reading news online and offline that lead to a nagging sense of despair and depression, but he is addicted. That his job keeps him in front of an Internet-connected computer at all times makes the escape impossible. But he has gradually learned to read between the lines and recognise at a glance whether a news item is sensationalist or agenda-driven or deserving of more attention.

Tisha Srivastav moderates a closed group called ‘Lifeistan’ on Facebook. In the group description she states, ‘I will delete pointlessly negative comments’. A former journalist, Tisha rejects opinionated accounts in favour of field reportage. She believes that people are cynical because they are passive receivers of news. People must exercise what she calls the ‘powerful choice of rejection’ of news. So does Varun Pai, interaction designer, who disregards stories that do not present the ‘other side’ that allow him to put things into perspective and form an independent opinion for himself.

Reading news is part of her job as publication and advocacy officer with the World Health Organization, and Vismita Gupta Smith who was recently in Kathmandu to report the relief operations says depressing as it is, she cannot switch off from news because of her need to stay informed. Marzia Ibrahim, young student and staunch nationalist at heart, wonders how much news is too much. She supports the freedom of the media to report stories, but feels strongly about the ethics that they must follow so as to not infringe on the rights of the people who are part of their stories. Sensationalism and public shaming needs to stop, something that has spiralled out of control with the rise of social media, she rues.

Remedy & recourse

We are moved by make-believe; we cry and laugh while watching films. How is it possible that real life events that give rise to fear, anger, frustration or anxiety will not affect our moods and consequently our psychological health? Writer and life coach, Eshwar Sundaresan, says that negative news impacts those already depressed and he has sometimes advised depressed clients to avoid watching news or reading newspapers till they feel better about their own lives. 

I asked Sapna G K, a senior counsellor, how despairing news affects people’s overall perception of life. Her response was matter-of-fact, “If one cannot control the events that happen in the world, and if there are more bad things than good, then that is the reality of the situation, which we need to come to terms with.” She says, “If it bothers you to the extent that it’s affecting your personal life, you can choose how much news you want to take in or not at all. Otherwise, do something to make the world a better place in the ways you can — like volunteering and helping others.” 

Girish too believes that all sorts of unpleasant things happen over which we have no control, “The world is not a fair place, so why get involved emotionally? Why not just work on our own ‘circle of concern’?” He takes recourse in classical music.

Sandeep Bekal, entrepreneur, is a regular newspaper reader who tries not to get too perturbed over bad news because he believes there is a lot good happening too which does not get reported. Spiritualism helps him keep his hope that things will change for the better. Kahkashan Ahmad, mother of teenagers who works with an NGO that helps with the education of underprivileged children, comes across very inspiring stories of the potential and talents of these children, but regrets that such uplifting news has no takers. Volunteering keeps her hope alive.

Editor and translator, Keerti Ramachandra, often shares on Facebook stories of human kindness that she encounters — a passport officer or a cop who goes out of their way and sometimes beyond their call of duty to be helpful. She says that generally news makes her angry and frustrated by its content, but when some act of kindness, some generosity from an unexpected quarter comes by, she is moved enough to believe in the innate goodness of human beings and is immediately hopeful. 

Immediacy of sharing

The same items pop up on our newsfeeds again and again. We share easily on social media. Many-a-times it is not the need to inform, but a need to show our stand which drives this. In hindsight, a lot of what we share and say may seem unfair or reactionary. A lot of the sensational news on social media remains unauthenticated. Displaying poor taste and discretion, tragedies are laid threadbare for the sake of TRPs because we have become voyeurs of mourning. This adds to a sense of collective gloom and hopelessness. Tisha is very clear in her approach to news consumption — to witness and not react. She says she’s always careful while sharing — never sharing while witnessing, always later. But such a sagacious mindset is not easy to sustain on social media which comes with readers’ reactions. Everyone has a say and it is not always pleasant or thought out. Most responses are not just lacking in sensitivity, propriety and grace, but are often caustic and unfair.

Over the last two decades, the line between news and news features has blurred with news becoming not just emotionalised, but ‘tabloidised’. Our reaction to it is consequently, emotional. Lapses of judgement are not on the part of the media alone, it is a reflection of the reactionary mood of society today — our hurry, our frailty of speaking too soon. These are our failings. We have fed the monster.

Close to the immediacy of sharing comes what I call the ‘immediacy of caring’, an irrepressible phenomenon that has burgeoned out of the quick, cheap and easy means of communication — Internet and mobile phones. My daughter was at school during the serial bomb blasts of July 2008 in Bangalore. My phone began to ring within minutes of the news breaking on television and well-wishers from all parts of the country began to ask if I wasn’t going to fetch her. It wasn’t closing time yet, so I was sure she would be safe in school. I trusted the school authorities to ensure the students’ safety and had no reason to worry as long as she was inside the school with the rest. But pushed thus, I began to panic. The television news was showing the same clips over and over, there was fear of the phone lines getting jammed. Many in my situation would have felt compelled to venture out themselves and create more panic and confusion when there was absolutely no need.  

Exploitive and yellow journalism creates scaremongering in the most harmless situations. Film Editor Amitabh Shukla says his father calls him every time it rains in Mumbai. The TV shows everything in the city submerged, without clarifying that it is in pockets. His family’s entire perception of Mumbai floods is based not on what he tells them, but what the TV shows.

A paradigm shift

Sometime around the 2010s, some people began to feel strongly about showcasing positive, inspiring stories. These soup for soul stories quickly caught up the imagination of the readers who were desperate for stories of courage and motivation as a foil for all the depressing news they were surrounded with. The reach of digital media provided these new news websites a comfortable foothold, and gradually, mass following. These social media-supported news websites like the Better India and Love Hindustan were able to start an alternative news medium and stick their heads out of the media clutter by carrying positive stories alone. 

‘We feature positive news across India, celebrate the successes of unsung heroes and change makers, showcase the little known good things about our country...’ Better India declares. “We believed despairing news could not make people contribute and change,” says Dhimant Parekh, founder, the Better India, that started as a two-member team. They began by linking positive articles from various publications on a blog, but it was difficult because there were so few positive stories. Then they started covering feel-good and motivational news themselves and as more people joined and volunteered, the articles became more varied. Today, the Better India has more than 1,00,000 followers on Facebook and about 20,000 followers on Twitter.

Love Hindustan too is a news portal exclusively dedicated to giving readers ‘the other side of India that everyday newspapers and websites don’t’. They link positive news articles from other sources and do some stories themselves. The Logical Indian is another much-followed news website that focuses on bringing to its readers social issues that according to them ‘often miss the limelight in the traditional media’. They have a following of over two million. They have not limited their content to positive news stories alone and prefer to call their work, ‘efforts for good’.

Striking a balance

“We need the media to highlight failings of government bodies, injustices, wrong doings and social problems to create awareness and get people moving towards positive action and hold the government agencies accountable,” says Keerti. 

This is exactly what Satyen Bordoloi feels. And there are many like him who are okay with despairing news because it tells them how and where they can channelise their efforts. An activist and documentary filmmaker, Satyen does not want to receive only feel-good, uplifting news. If there is despairing news, it only means he needs to ‘pull up my sleeves to try and do something about it’. He considers all news positive because once reported, all misdeeds and malpractices, corruption and scams can only lead to corrective and positive changes in the society.

Also, news may be upsetting because distressful news sticks to us more easily and surely than feel-good news, says game developer Anando Banerjee. If there were two headlines, ‘India jumps up five places on the Global Happiness Index’ and ‘People die in wall collapse’, we are likely to read and remember the latter better. There is no doubt there is a kind of voyeuristic pleasure in others’ misfortunes, but there is also a sense of relief that ‘it didn’t happen to me’, he adds.
 

As with everything else in life, we need a balanced dose of news — with the not-so-good must come the good. News media should make a consistent effort to report uplifting news along with the disturbing headlines that cannot be ignored. Political analyst Prashanth Potluri is of the view that newspapers should ensure that at least the front page always has positive news so that people have a good start to their day. 

News media gives us what we sanction, it runs on our choices. We have to stop feeding the monster we have created by rejecting sensationalism. Mountain-out-of-molehill news would have to stop if we didn’t consume it. It will seem unthinkable today, but on April 18, 1930, the BBC had no news for the evening and it announced, “There is no news today.”  The announcement was followed by piano music.