Workshop on Adolescent girls in Bangalore

Manju a dear friend at NIPPCD had organized a workshop related to adolescent girls and this was a review of all kinds of material available on this issue. It was three days of sheer excitement and fun from 6th to 8th October, 2008.  It was amazing to see the kind of material developed by Government, NGO, schools and Colleges related to the issue. However what we found was that most of the material related only to health aspects especially giving information on reproductive health and diseases like AIDS etc. We had a lot of discussions and then pointed out the need to create more materials on different aspects like livelihoods, violence, empowerment etc. The highlight of this workshop was the Yakshagana performed by a group primarily comprising of men on the last day. These men were dressed in beautiful costumes and with a lot of drama, music, song and dance they covered a large number of  women’s issues. Yakshagana  means  " the music of celestials" is a form of a dance drama performed predominantly in South Kanara, Malnad region and certain parts of North Kanara Districts of the State of Karnataka. It is a  400 hundred-year-old tradition. It is a combination of dance, music, spoken word and costume-makeup and stage technique. It is a typical folk form of drama , commonly performed at night on a platform-like stage in the open air with themes based on Hindu Epics like the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and mythological tales from the Puranas. As prescribed in the Natya Shastra, it has the Suthra Dhara (conductor) & the vidushaka (the Jester). here is both mystery and robustness about this form in which singing and drumming merge with dancing, and words with gestural interpretation, and players clad in costumes of striking colour and contours. In all it was a very robust performance and will stay in my mind for a long time.  It really brought home the point that any format which includes a folk format stays for a long time in the minds of the people and it was wonderful to see this group take up the issue of educations, empowerment, health, the right to take decisions for one self.  I also decided to experiment with a lot of folk forms to bring in an awareness on women’s issues.

Varun and his Bike

We had been avoiding buying a bike and though Bittu had also asked for a bike we refused and he was satisfied with a Kinetic Honda.  Varun had started pestering us for a bike and I kept postponing it for I was very much afraid of the heavy traffic of Hyderabad  and felt that  an open vehicle was not safe. However there was no way that Varun would relent and he made our lives very miserable and finally we decided to get him a bike. We thought that a bike would be around forty to fifty thousand and this should be sufficient. However this was certainly not what Varun was looking for . He came out of the show rooms thrice and how much ever would be ask him to be reasonable there was no way. Finally he did get his bike but certainly not the one which he

wanted. He had some RL in mind which was costing more than a lakh but with great reluctance he agreed for splendor. Now this red colored bike  is his prized possession though there are two rules which he had promised to follow strictly. One he will never drive with out a helmet and second he will never take three people on his bike.  As of now he really loves the bike and is enjoying the freedom this is giving him He is also maintaining it and keeping it clean, though I am really not sure for how long he will continue this. he was initially a little upset that his bike remains standing in the sun through out the day, though we do have the shade of the mango tree and he was asking us if we could build a shelter with  a cover so that the bike is in shade.

Love for Russian Language

Today I am writing this post about the age which is represented by black and white photographs ie. nearly thirty to thirty five years back. I was eighteen years old and had taken admission into Allahabad University as an Undergraduate student. We were young and had big dreams and a vision to change the world. It was during this time that many of my friends and I joined diploma classes in foreign languages. Ashima had joined French classess and Renu and I joined Russian. The main reason for joining these clasess was the Russian teacher Gopesh Ji. I had heard so much about him and every one praised his love for the language. The classes were held in the evening from six to seven or five to six now I do not remember. But what I remember was that it would get very dark during winters. Dr. Gopesh opened a new world for us. He introduced us not only to the language but the culture and history of Russia. His class was such a lot of fun and one would feel that time just flew and one really wished that this would continue for ever. He had a very sharp wit and what I remember today was the humour that he would bring into the class.One would never be bored in the class. Today as a teacher I always remember him and secretly wish that I am able to influence my students and have the kind of impact he had on his students. He influenced me a lot and I started taking a lot of interest in the Russian language and litearature. It was primarily due to his influence that I slowly started reading and the whole new world of Russian literateurs opend up before my eyes. I read Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of such classics as Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Count Leo Tolstoy, author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Anton Chekhov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also impressed me a lot especially The first Circle, and One day in the life of Ivan Donisovich. The Russian names were very difficult to pronounce and I developed my own style of pronouncing them in a way which was convenient and then I enjoyed the books. The market price of these books was also cheap and one could easily buy them. I also developed a lot of interest in short stories. It was a shock to all of us when Dr. Gopesh suddenly passed away after teaching us for one year. He was also a writer and a poet if I remember correctly. I still have a photo graph of Dr. Gopesh given to me by his daughter Anita who wrote on this, that he was the bridge that bound us together. Anita was a writer in her own right and tyhough I do not remember any of the titles of her story I can still remeber one of her stories which impressed me a lot. It was related to bigamy and had the male point of view. Russian class were never the same after this though the new teacher was also very good and had a Russian wife. We went to a number of places on picnic with the new teachers but I think the new teacher did have a tough time because each and every student would compare him to Dr. Gopesh. Even today, though so many years have passed I still continue my love for Russian literature and culture and feel very nostalgic when ever I read any novel or story for I am transported back to those days gone by.

In Uganda

I was in uganda at Kampala in Mekerere University for a course on gender and ICT. From 9th August to 16th August, 2008. This was my second trip to Uganda for earlier I had been here to attend the Women’s world Conference in 2005. I found Uganda to be a beautiful country with beautiful landscapes. The houses had red tiled roofs and since the region was in slopes they looked very beautiful spread across the hills. Like India I found a lot of disparity among the people in terms of their riches and wealth. We were put up in in a beautiful hotel called Kabira. The fruits in Uganda were really very tasty and we had lots of pine apples, oranges and apples. We went crazy calculating the prices. There were 1600 shillings to a dollar and we were paying some thing like twenty five to thirty thousand shillings for one dish. I kept wondering how much money would people carry to buy land, house or a car. I think they would need a trunk to carry this money. In the Department where we had the Conference they were selling lap tops and this was costing some thing like sixty lakh shillings.

The workshop was inaugurated by Ms. Lukiya Isanga, the Minister for Gender in Uganda. I was very happy to note that Uganda had a gender policy, which we still did not have in India. I got a copy of this policy and only hpoed that one day India would also have a gender policy. The participants were all very mature and were from different fields of computer science, Banks , managements, gender studies and we became very friendly with them and shared many happy moments. We had a great time with Theo, and Nicole from Radboud University , Nijmegen in the Netherlands and Joan and Rouf from South Africa. It was great fun to introduce Rouf to Indian food and since he was young he enjoyed every moment of this when we gave him some of our namkeens and kurkure to eat. In the breakfast we introduced him to pooris and allos.We had a memorable time in the African village and were wonder struck with the way the dancers moved their hips. The women had so much grace in their movements and it was fun to be a part of their celebrations. We went around and did shopping for some art objects and the Kiyondi the African bag which I love. It was a memorable trip and visiting the source of the Nile will always remain fresh in my memory. We always associate Nile with Egypt but it was nice to know that the source of Nile was in Uganda.