A husband for forty years...

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working closely with R.V. Rajan, one of the youngest to head an ad agency before he went on to accomplish greater things, including the establishment of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) office in Chennai. He’s been active in the Rotary, the Public Relations Society of India and many other bodies, and now, well past retirement age, he spends his time fruitfully – writing. His articles regularly appear in newspapers and magazines and it is usually a pleasure to read them. In his book and in several of his writings, it is evident that he’s had a wonderful marriage and he and his wife love each other deeply, the sort of mature love one talks about after a certain age. Not everyone is fortunate to have such luck. Rajan is. And here’s wishing him and his wife many more years together… Here is the unedited version (including all the exclamation marks) of an article he’s just written:


I am writing this piece, on the morning of 26th January 2012 when the country is celebrating its 62nd Republic Day – a day when my wife and I lost our respective freedom 40 years ago. Yes! It is our 40th wedding anniversary!
I cannot believe that forty years have just flown by since we got married at Sivakami Kalyana Mandapam on Radhakrishnan Salai in Chennai where the South Indian fast food giant Saravana Bhavan is operating today!

I was 30 years old when I took the plunge; a “late comer” to the marriage scene of those days! My parents were obviously a worried lot! My mother in her relentless pursuit to find a bride for me appealed to every single God in her Pooja room! She even visited Siddhi Vinayak Temple in Prabhadevi in Bombay for twenty one weeks on Tuesdays seeking my favorite elephant god’s help! Lo & Behold; within a month of completing her vow, God answered her prayers! She received a daughter-in-law called Prabhavathy!

We started our married life in Delhi where I was working as a Senior Manager in an Ad Agency. Within thirteen months of our marriage, we gave the greatest present to our parents – grand-parenthood! Our daughter Kavita was born. A year later we shifted to Chennai, had two more lovely children - Sowmya & Balaji, and then moved to our own independent House in Shastri Nagar, Adyar. Prabha had to face the usual problems that a typical Indian housewife faces in a joint family system. She overcame her problems to start a new chapter in her life, giving full vent to her talents in writing, singing, gardening and other hobbies she acquired on the way!

In due course, our children got married, to partners of their choice, whom my wife and I helped to identify!! My daughters have blessed us with four grand children ( good balance of 2 boys and 2 girls) who are now aged between 8 and 15, while my son who got married 3 years ago is yet to open his account! Now a review of our forty years of marriage – was it a successful union, have we lived up to each other’s expectations? Is it a happy marriage?

From my point of view I would say a big yes. My wife has more than lived up to my expectations over the years! Befitting our Indian culture, she helped me look after my family, which included my aging parents. As I was busy with my career and involved with several voluntary organizations, she did a great job of balancing duty to the family and to me. Being a social animal that I was, she attended parties and also hosted plenty of them at home as well. It must have been tough but she did an admirable job.

A fast learner, she overcame several of her initial inhibitions to become a wonderful partner, good daughter-in-law, lovely mother and above all a great homemaker! In the last two decades of her life, she has acquired an identity of her own and walks tall in our social circles! I am certainly proud of her achievements.

What has been my role in this arranged marriage? I believe I have genuinely helped my wife in coming out of her shell. Actively helped her to develop her talents for writing, singing etc. Published a collection of her short stories in Tamil which helped showcase her hidden talents to the world. Far from being a MCP, unlike most of the Indian husbands, I have tried to be a women`s libber in a man`s world! Working shoulder to shoulder with her on many fronts - doing most of the household shopping, helping her in the kitchen when necessary or getting her manuscripts in Tamil typed, proof read them and send them to the publications and always extending a helping hand during parties at home. I have sincerely tried to be an equal partner in this joint venture! We have had our share of fun traveling around the world and within the country.

In spite of the usual quota of differences, misunderstandings and shouting matches involved in any marriage, because of our “forgive and forget policy”, we have never allowed our differences to be carried forward to the next day.

On this special occasion, (when I have completed forty years of being the husband of the same wife!), I thank the Lord for blessing me with a happy marriage and my wife for making it happen! As far as I am concerned it has been a truly successful union.

I wonder what my wife has to say. I must request her to write her piece, which she would probably write in Tamil, her innate language of communication!

It’s always best to be honest with news, and objective with views

One upon a time, radio was the ‘new media’. When black-and-white television arrived, it brought a whole new experience in communication. The advent of colour television rooted viewers to the drawing rooms in many Indian homes. When CNN beamed the Gulf War live in 1991, it heralded a new dawn in terms of television viewing experience. And then, of course, the Internet changed human habits like never before. Yet, the newspaper continues to hold out. At a seminar on new media in Kolkata, some pertinent points affecting news dissemination were made, with Ravindra Kumar, editor and managing director of The Statesman, driving home some truths: there is a cost involved to effective news gathering, there has been a steady breakdown in professional standards, the institution of the editor has been destroyed.

“Pick up on things that interest you so that your understanding of what happens is focused rather than diffused by an overload of information.” That was Kumar addressing students of the Surendranath College for Women, who formed the bulk of the packed audience at the inaugural of a seminar in Kolkata in January titled ‘Journalism in the age of New Media’. Picking up on thoughts shared earlier (by the other speakers), Kumar, the chief guest, having been in the journalism for more than three decades, said that if he were in their shoes today he would be hugely confused (because of the media explosion).
“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” Kumar stressed, pointing out that there was a cost involved in providing credible, worthwhile information. “You are paying peanuts, therefore you are getting monkeys,” he emphasized again, going on the explain: “You’ve had a monkey in the form of the Nira Radia affair, and monkeys in various forms and sizes. Unless the citizenry decides to engage itself with the process of dissemination – and I don’t mean each one of you being a citizen journalist, you’d be falling over each other… You have to be engaged in the process in the sense that you must understand what drives a news or media organisation or whether you can repose your faith and trust in that media organisation. The problem with media explosion as we call it is that everybody is groping for a revenue model, including those who practise conventional media, like newspapers. And surely, if you are looking for accurate news, well-edited copy, well-produced newspapers, articulate television channels which give you a multiplicity of opinions and then ask you to choose, if you do not wish propaganda to masquerade as news, then you must appreciate that there is a cost involved to effective news gathering, in having a reporter check, double-check and cross-check his facts, to have a fact checker within a media organisation. And what is the cost that you wish to pay? You wish to pay indirect costs; you wish to merge the cost that you pay to be educated, or to be informed or to be presented with analysis, you wish to merge that cost with the cost you are quite happy to pay for entertainment.”
Referring to the raid on Osama’s hideout, Kumar said neither social media nor conventional media had to this day been able to provide the complete inside story of what really happened on that raid, who the source was, where the information came from, how it was planned, who the people were. “It leaves you with a frightening thought: whether in the process of embracing multiplicity of media, we are in qualitative terms emasculating every media. Why? Because we have gotten used to paying peanuts.”
Kumar drew a comparison between the evolution of cost, of consumer products and the newspaper. A tube of Colgate toothpaste, for example, cost 12 annas once; today, the same tube costs Rs 25. Cinema ticket prices have soared more than hundred-fold over the years – from Rs 3.50 to anything between Rs 350 and Rs 500. All this, while the newspaper still sells at Rs 2.50 paise or thereabouts. Why is the cost important? “Even to this day, it is the print media which has the maximum number of professional journalists out in the field. Whether in Raipur or Dantewada or Chhattisgarh, the majority of news stories are still broken by print and if they are important they are picked up by television and then they reach a national audience. If you analyse, some of the big stories that have not come out of Delhi – Delhi is a city that thrives on leaks – if you are talking about genuine news breaks, the majority of them are still coming out of print. Perhaps in some obscure newspaper you haven’t heard of… By effectively trying to analyse its (story’s) implications, print comes back into the story.”
Over a period of 20 years through a gradual process, largely self-inflicted by media owners, as a consequence of an active collaboration of the reading community, there had been a steady breakdown in professional standards, Kumar said. “Newspapers of the day are not what they were. Great newspapers, great titles carry a great deal of heritage with them but are mostly unable to replicate the achievements of their predecessors. The institution of the editor has been destroyed. It doesn’t matter anymore. And this process of dumbing down didn’t happen as a one-sided transaction. Somebody was dumbing down the media agenda, somebody was collaborating in being made dumber by the day.”
What are the consequences, Kumar asked. “We talk about the Arab Spring and social media lighting that spark of freedom. Let’s look at the places where we’ve already had that spark of freedom. Because that is where the process of the media cycle must be seen and understood. To say that Egypt has suddenly discovered the virtues of social media… tells only a small part of the story. What has it done to countries which already have freedom of expression? By several processes of reasoning what it ought to mean is, that countries that already have freedom of expression and a free press, the quality of media ought to have taken a quantum jump, whether it is the Western world or the US, or India because we have prided ourselves on having a free press. To the extent we do, there should have been an improvement in standards. And yet we are bemoaning the drop in standards. How do we explain this paradox?”
Kumar was convinced that just because there was a social media site, it did not mean that the information needs were met. “What we need to do is to arm ourselves with channels and avenues that are properly equipped to meet our needs. And that is our task as a responsible citizen and that is where engagement of people with media must come. There is a huge cost involved in collecting information. We try to give you a reasonable approximation of news as we can… and an honest a set of opinions as we can. This must be the challenge before any form of media. Honest news, or objective views, go for it… it doesn’t really matter whether it’s Facebook or Twitter. If the media of your choice gives you all this, there will be a cost involved. And if you want it, you will have to pay for it,” he said.

Picture: Prof B.K. Kuthiala, vice chancellor, Makhanlal Chaturvedi Rashtriya Patrakarita Evam Sanchar Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal, lights the traditional lamp as (from left) Girija Shankar Sharma, head, Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Agra; Prof M.R. Dua, former professor, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi; Prof V.L. Dharurkar, professor, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad; Ravindra Kumar, editor and managing director, The Statesman; Prof Sachchidananda Joshi, vice chancellor, Kushabhau Thakre Patrakarita Avam Jansanchar Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur (partly seen); Prof Tapati Basu, head, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Calcutta; yours truly; and Uma Shankar Pandey, head, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Surendranath College for Women, Kolkata and the seminar convener look on.

Koodankulam nuclear plant - here's what some students think

Should then Koodankulam nuclear plant be abandoned? In Tamil Nadu, what do some students think? Well, Nandini Voice for the Deprived, a Chennai-based NGO organised an essay competition for college students in the state. The objective: to provide an opportunity to the students to express their views on the subject and forward their views to the Central and state governments. According to N.S. Venkataraman, who runs the NGO (he had stood for election to the Lok Sabha earlier but was unsuccessful), 112 students participated, with women comprising 65 per cent.

The verdict: 77 per cent of the students said that the Koodankulam plant should be
commissioned, while the rest wanted it abandoned.

The majority who wanted the project to be commissioned felt:

• India has no option other than nuclear power in view of the huge scarcity of coal, fuel oil and natural gas and the latter’s rising international price. While non-conventional energy such as solar and wind power should be utilised to the maximum, they would not be adequate considering the futuristic demand for power in the country

• Given the serious shortage of power in Tamil Nadu, there is great urgency to commission the Koodankulam nuclear plant to avoid production loss of several crores of rupees.

• Many suspicions of the protesting local people such as fisheries getting affected, threat of tsunami and cyclones, radiation effects etc have been pointed out as unfoundeded by senior Indian nuclear scientists, including former President of India, Abdul Kalam. The
• leaders of the protest movement are not listening and the poor innocent people who sit in agitation cannot understand science and technology issues and depend on the leaders of the protest movement for guidance

• There is no justification to doubt the credibility and claims of Indian nuclear scientists who have repeatedly said that they would explain the safety aspects of the project to anybody who approached them. Further, possibility of accidents have not prevented people from traveling by air.

• Many arguments advanced against the project are based on suspicions, av pessimistic view and lack of understanding of the recent technology developments. Further, the leaders of the present movement give an impression that they are sworn opponents of nuclear power . There is certainly a political undertone in the protest movement

• It is unacceptable that religious outfits should take part in such agitations, which essentially concern a matter of science and technology

• Most of the protestors at the site are people from the lower income group who are innocent and who do not have the advantage of a good educational background. Quite a number of them are elderly people living in old age homes or school students and relatives of fishermen . The leaders of the protest movement persuade such people to take part in the protest because of their local contacts and proximity to the local people


The minority felt:
.
• The local people are the stakeholders and even if the majority of the people in Tamil Nadu woul want the project, it should not be implemented when the local stakeholders object

• Nuclear plant accidents have taken place in the world which cannot be ignored by local people. In the unlikely and unfortunate event of an accident occurring in the Koodankulam area, the consequences would be very severe for the local people

• Human life is more important than the issues of economic and industrial development and such development factors cannot get priority when safety concerns for human beings are prevalent, particularly when local stakeholders are not convinced

• The scientists are not able to communicate with the local people to convince them effectively, may be due to their lack of training in communication skills

• By taking a “silent stand”, the Tamil Nadu Government gives an impression that it favours abandoning the Koodankulam project. Recently, the Chief Minister has not spoken in approval of the project despite the huge controversy it has generated. In the wake of such stand by the Tamil Nadu Government, the Koodankulam project should not be implemented.

Books are magic, says Ken Spillman, author of Advaita, the Writer

When Advaita leaves Delhi for boarding school in Dehrudun, she is lonely and unhappy, even though the school is the best in Asia, even though it is supposed to have a wonderful library. However, the library soon becomes a haven for Advaita as the books more than cover up for her homesickness. One day, she learns that Ruskin Bond, her favourite author, is staying close by. She wonders whether he is the same person, the author whose books she so dearly loves. She also wonders whether she can become her writer one day. Well, all this forms part of a 50-page storybook written by Ken Spillman, who was in Chennai recently to interact with children, something he loves to do.

Spillman, based in Australia, first visited India in 2006 and immediately fell in love with the country. He “soaked everything up and wanted to read and write about it.” He spent hours in the book shops of Khan Market, New Delhi, bought loads of books, read Ruskin Bond, and tried to get a hang of the kind of books that influenced children in India. In 2008, he was invited to the Mussoorie International Writers’ Festival where he met Bond, Ruskin Bond, for the first time. It was there that Spillman met Advaita Kala, a writer, whose book Almost Alone had sold well. They struck a healthy friendship even as she took him to the bookshops in central Mussoorie and got him to savour paan. Advaita had felt lonely while at the Welham School in Dehradun but felt reassured knowing that Ruskin Bond was staying close by.

Yes, Advaita the Writer is Advaita Kala’s story, simply and wonderfully narrated by Spillman for children, encouraging them to read and write. At a workshop conducted by the Spring & Zoom Centre for Literary Arts and Tulika Publishers, Spillman kept emphasising at every point that “books are magic”. To questions from anxious parents, asking him how they could get their children hooked to books, he gave the example of a child’s aunt who took the boy to a large bookstore and left him in the midst of the children’s section while she went away to search for books she wanted for herself. The boy had never shown an interest in reading before, but, left in the middle of all that “magic”, he couldn’t resist picking up a picture book or two and thumbing through the pages. Eventually, the boy grew to become a great lover of books.

Listening to Spillman talking to a group of small children at the Spring & Zoom centre and enthusing them, I was taken back in time – to my days as a schoolboy when I spent most of my spare time reading books. Spillman has now inspired me to find some time to read a book, even if it just be a few pages every day. Thank you, Ken.

For those interested in knowing more about Spillman, log on to www.kenspillman.com.

Pictures show Spillman acting out a story, interacting with children while autographing books, and parents (do fathers care at all!) listening to the author.

A book, a storyteller, and some joyous young faces

It’s always encouraging to see children pick up the reading habit. Not that many do that these days. Also, parents, teachers and others who run activity centres for children, who enthuse and motivate them to read storybooks, deserve a lot of credit. Because they are really up against the odds – most children would do anything to be left undisturbed while they are glued to television watching cartons, serials and films. I know of quite a few in my family (including my cousins and others) who have children and are fighting a losing battle every day – while desperately trying to get their children (ages three onwards) away from the television set, getting them to eat properly, do their homework etc. So, getting them to read storybooks and get a broader view f the world is simply beyond them. And many of them don’t really care beyond a point; they have never taken a serious initiative as such.

A couple of enterprising women who run activity centres for children recently teamed up with Tulika Publishers to get storyteller Craig Jenkins to enact stories and interact with children at the launch of the book, In Bon Bibi's Forest. It was heartening to see many of them trooping in to the venue at the scheduled time, enjoy every moment of the evening, and taking part with inhibition. There were several parents, made of mostly mothers, who were also transported to another world. They all deserve applause because in the midst of homemaking and work and all else, they had found time to get their children to a storytelling event at 7pm. Many of them belong to another generation where the book-reading habit came more naturally, when there was no lure of television and other distractions as such. It was clear they wanted their children to experience the pleasure of reading. It was also clear to me as the evening progressed, that if parents and teachers took the initiative, it was not too difficult to coax children into reading books. The joy in their faces was so much evident. You can tell from the pictures here.

It, of course, brings into focus a subject that is always talked about – how our education system needs to change. But that’s another story.

Pictures show Proiti Roy (the illustrator), with Sandhya Rao's (the author) help, showing the children her creations; children raise copies of the book they have purchased and pose for a picture with Sandhya and storyteller Craig Jenkins; the joyous faces; and Craig in full flow as the audience laps it all up.

Sights and sounds - in the Garden City

Clicked these pictures during my last visit: the first and last taken from the house where I stayed; the Ulsoor lake in passing; on the way to Jayanagar, oblivious to the world he almost forgot he had to get down; and a signboard I spotted on the way home.

A chance meeting with Moinuddin in Bangalore

My Bangalore trips never fail to throw up surprises. This time, a couple of weeks ago, the weather was of course a surprise – it was just too warm for Bangalore in October – but it was a drive in an autorickshaw that produced the real one. Sometime late afternoon one day, I had enough of walking down St Mark’s and Brigade Roads, after having had done a fair bit of shopping, spending an hour inside a store looking for DVDs of old Hindi films I wanted. My legs were aching and as I stood there on the sidewalk wondering what to do, there came along an auto; the driver stopped and looked at me quizzically. So I got in and decided to head to where I was staying.

When I’m in the mood I like traveling by auto. You can sit inside and see the world go by and, more than that, if the driver is the friendly sort, you can always start a conversation and get to know a thing or two. We were chatting about the weather and how the Garden City had lost hundreds of its trees to ‘development’ when suddenly vroom! a sports bike roared past. We were on a bridge, a flyover, where overtaking was not on, but here was a youngster breaking all rules, almost like a recalcitrant child. As I perked up to spot the last of him and the monstrous vehicle, the auto driver sighed in horror. “Why does he have to do this,” he said. “You must drive, much like you eat. Don’t you like to savour and relish the food you eat? Driving is like that – you must inhale the air, get a whiff of the smells and not be in a tearing hurry. Just like you must eat slowly for food to digest well, you must drive slowly to experience the pleasure of driving,” he added.

I couldn’t agree with him more. As my eyes strayed to the meter, I was aghast. The fare showed Rs 65 while we had hardly traveled five or six kilometers. Now I’m not good at handling such situations. So I decided to stay quiet and hoped he would get me home fast. And I stopped engaging him in conversation.

When my destination arrived, I produced a 100-rupee note from my wallet and thought I’d say there was something wrong with the meter, which showed Rs 80. The driver leaned back to have a look at the fare on the meter. He smiled, said “sorry”, and went on to explain how he suddenly realised he had not restarted the meter once I had got in, how he had been wanting to tell me that all along, how he wondered whether I would take umbrage, and how, like me, he too was waiting to get quickly to the destination! I was too flabbergasted to speak. He then asked me how much I would have paid in the normal course. Before I could say anything, he nudged a 50-rupee note into my hand.

“Thank you for your gesture, what’s your name,” I asked. “Moinuddin,” he said triumphantly, his left hand raised in half-salute, his way of saying goodbye. He reversed the auto effortlessly and turned the corner. I waited there a while and wondered whether I would ever meet him again.

No picture of Moinuddin or his auto here, but of colourful Brigade Road and its surroundings.