Month: October 2012

Categories
Big story

The Mayor’s not happy with Wadia Hospital

After an infant was stolen from Nowrosjee Wadia Hospital, the Mayor says the BMC might reconsider the hospital’s lease conditions.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It’s been five days since Jasmine Naik’s day-old son was stolen from the Parel-based Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity Hospital, allegedly by a woman who had been hovering near the ward for two whole days before she made away with the baby, but there has been no breakthrough in the case. While the distraught mother has refused to vacate her bed till her son is found, the hospital received a sharp rebuke from the city’s Mayor, Sunil Prabhu.

Prabhu, who visited the hospital on Saturday to meet with Jasmine and her family, spoke with the media after the meeting and said, “The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has leased out the plot of land on which the Hospital stands, subject to certain rules and conditions. However, the Hospital has repeatedly gone back on these, and if this continues, the BMC will be forced to rethink about the land that has been given to the Hospital.”

The BMC and The Wadia Trust jointly run the maternity hospital and the Bai Jerbai Wadia Children’s Hospital since the year 1928, but in recent times, the two have been locked in a bitter dispute over allocation of funds for the repairs of the Children’s Hospital. The building has been closed for repairs after being certified unsafe. It was built over 80 years ago.

The Mayor added, “Time and time again, the BMC has asked the Trust to install an adequate number of CCTV cameras all over the premises, but they have not installed a single device till date. Every year, the BMC grants a certain amount to the Hospital’s trustees for the smooth running of the hospital. But what we find is very different.

On the pretext of repairs, the Hospital management has kept a large part of the premises closed for a long time now. Residents and patients have often complained of the space constraint here. Besides, the Hospital is not providing the best medical care and services to patients. We (BMC) have often asked them to employ more security guards, but there are only four men guarding the entire premises. It is unfortunate that a little child was stolen so easily from a packed ward, all due to negligence on the part of the Hospital.”

How should civic and government hospitals step up security to prevent infants being stolen? Send us your ideas to editor@themetrognome and we will take them to Mayor Sunil Prabhu on your behalf.

 

Categories
Deal with it

Free up your Sunday – don’t do those chores

Instead, use this handy site to delegate shopping tasks, daily chores and home maintenance that you would normally need to do yourself.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

You live in a city that sucks the life out of you. After working all week, your day of rest is actually taken up by tasks that you couldn’t attend to before – you have to pay the bills, you have to stock up your refrigerator for the coming week, you have to clean up the house – and before you know it, your body’s screaming for a pause but you still have a hundred more things to do.

And yet another weekend goes by. Before you know it.

That was what prompted Debadutta Upadhyaya (38) to start www.timesaverz.com, a one-stop chore-delegating service that helps harried homemakers and working professionals assign tasks to certified service providers, and thus free up their own schedules. Debadutta, co-founder and CEO of the company, comes with a formidable background in conceptualising and executing ideas from scratch, as also a long and successful association with sales. The company’s services are now being offered in Mumbai, a city that she feels, “experiences a bigger paucity of time than other cities.”

We chatted with Debadutta to know more about how her business can benefit Mumbai.

What prompted you to start Timesaverz.com?

As a homemaker and a professional, I always used to find myself pressed for time, juggling the two roles. I found it difficult to outsource some of the repetitive chores that could be handled by someone else, due to a lack of certified service providers. When we looked around, we found out that there are many like us who are in the same boat and would love to have certified help coming their way. That gave birth to the concept of timesaverz.com.

Starting with services that are the usual time-consuming suspects, the vision behind the company is to offer a helping hand for every job that an average homemaker can outsource to enjoy multiple benefits. We are hoping to enhance people’s multi-tasking ability without compromising on quality or service.

Please describe your professional background prior to starting Timesaverz?

I have behind me 16 years of experience at senior level positions in the media and communications space, shaping up many winning teams and businesses. A gold medalist in English literature and Mass Communication, my forte lies in building things from scratch and evolving them into category leaders.

Before setting off on an entrepreneurial journey, I was leading Vdopia, a leading video ad network’s APAC business. During my stint, Vdopia emerged to be a market leader in the video advertising space in India and also expanded operations into SEA and ME. Prior to that, I was heading sales and sales strategy function for Yahoo! India during which my team displaced the incumbent to secure the No 1 Internet Display Player position in 2007. I have been a proud recipient of the Yahoo! Ratna Award in 2006 and was honoured with the Indira Super Achievers’ Award in 2011.

What kind of market research did you have to undertake before going ahead with this project? 

We interviewed quite a number of working professionals with nuclear families, young working couples, working couples with old parents at home, and realised that the average time spent by them over weekends trying to attend to mundane household chores is, on an average, four to six hours. This leaves them very little time to relax and rejuvenate before the new week sets in. Each of them loved the idea of a certified help that they can rely on to free up their time from regular household chores.

How do you think your site would stand out amongst others, like chachii.com, which are already operational in the city? What is your USP?

Our USP is that we are a one-stop destination for most of your needs, be it daily chores, shopping or household maintenance. We act as a single service provider, so customers don’t have to go over six maintenance contracts with six different vendors for multiple requirements at home.

Which are the key areas that Mumbaikars require the most help with?

Our research shows that Mumbaikars need the most help with household essentials purchase, followed by household maintenance tasks.

How can a person use your site?

Users can choose between long term Timesaverz maintenance contracts, to one-time ‘Get Help’ options to get services on the household maintenance front. We have a well-stocked store for household essentials purchase, wherein users can buy things at the click of a button and decide the delivery time as per their convenience.

What is the size of your workforce? 

We have a small team of seven, but we have an extended network of service providers and partners across the city.

Can people reach you by telephone?

We have a helpline number +919022711888 which people can call on in case they want to request service over the phone.

(Featured image courtesy pastalavista.blogspot.com) 

Categories
Big story

Want Spain to invest? Learn Spanish

State government will introduce Spanish learning classes in the state’s universities to create a business-friendly environment between Spain and Maharashtra.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It’s not just enough to have a forward-thinking approach to global trends and a knack for getting foreign investment – one must also know the language of the country one is seeking to develop business ties with. Or so the Maharashtra government thinks.

Two days ago, a delegation of ministers from Spain arrived on a two-day visit to Maharashtra, and met with the State Governor K Shankarnarayan and also the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. During the meeting, Chavan is said to have told the delegation that in order to have a fruitful business association with Spain, the government would suggest the starting of Spanish language classes across all universities in Maharashtra.

“This will help remove any obstacles that Spanish companies might face in setting up business in Maharashtra,” Chavan said.

Why business with Spain?

Chavan said that with Mumbai as the state’s financial centre, and Maharashtra accounting for at least 35 per cent of foreign investment in the country, it was imperative that Spain look at Maharashtra as an investment destination, considering that the technical know-how, manpower and resources for a successful partnership were already available.

“We have always given due importance to the development of infrastructure for transport, housing, power and ports, primarily. Spain should invest in Maharashtra,” he said. To this, Spain’s external affairs minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margalo said that his country would assist in Maharashtra’s upcoming telecom, transport and power projects, apart from promising to study the feasibility of undertaking a high-speed railway corridor for Maharashtra.

 

Categories
Wellness

Mallkhamb is great for you

Cheap, multi-effective and with amazing curative properties for the blind, mallkhamb is an all-body workout that heals the mind, too.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The evening is drawing to dusk, and Shivaji Park is beginning to slow down. Evening walkers are resting, talking, taking in the sight of other walkers stop as well. But in one corner of the park, a run-down building is buzzing with life. There are two wooden poles on which boys shimmy up and down. A few feet away, young girls snake up a stout rope suspended from the ceiling, holding the strangest of contortions for a few breathtaking seconds.

Away from the activity, Uday Deshpande, the chief mallkhamb coach at the Samarth Vyayam Mandir and the honorary general secretary of the Mallkhamb Federation of India, is at work in his tiny office. The Mandir was set up in 1929, and has trained scores of Indian and international sportspersons and yoga practitioners on its simple floors – teaching them mallkhamb, rope mallkhamb, kho kho and kabaddi as well.

But isn’t mallkhamb as difficult as it looks? “Of course it is,” Uday laughs (he’s been a practitioner since he was four!). “It’s simplicity lies in its degree of difficulty – it’s not just about climbing a pole and balancing on it. It takes every ounce of strength and concentration to perform the simplest of poses,” he explains.

The thing that ups the sport’s difficulty level is the fact that mallkhamb is an aerial sport. “A person’s fear complex increases the higher up he goes from the ground, and this is excellent for increasing focus,” Uday explains. “It takes a special ability to climb the pole against gravity or hold one’s body in a rope.”

Interestingly, the sport has several curative properties for the visually-challenged. “I teach at three blind schools in the city, and the results of mallkhamb on these children are fantastic. Since they are visually-impaired, they are conditioned to be careful, to not do anything without assistance. This makes them inactive and leads to a host of health issues.” He says that after practicing mallkhamb, which they can do without assistance, their concentration goes up, and their appetites improve.

“Several of my blind students later told me that they had started doing better in their studies after taking up mallkhamb,” Uday says. “Everybody should take it up – it costs next to nothing to set up (you just need to invest in a pole with a stand), and it offers a full-body workout like no other sport can. We prefer that people start learning it when they’re very young, but at our Mandir, we have even an 81-year-old man coming to learn!”

A heartening development is that slum children from Dadar and nearby areas are enthusiastic learners of the sport.

What’s so special, really?

Mallkhamb originated in Maharashtra in the 19th century, during the reign of the Peshwas. Interestingly, a mallkhamb contingent represented India in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, wowing Herr Hitler himself. Currently, 29 Indian states participate in mallkhamb competitions at the national level.

(Picture courtesy Samarth Vyayam Mandir)

Categories
Learn

PETA had goats for dinner

The animal rights organisation threw a party for goats on Bakri Eid day. Meanwhile, the city celebrates with full gusto.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

It’s the same story every single year. Goats and sheep are taken across the city to Muslim homes, where families eagerly await them every Bakri Eid day. But a recurring theme in the celebrations, is that the animals end up dead even before they are cut – many times during transport, at other times because they are artificially fattened up in a very short period of time, thus making them very ill.

A seller who spoke to us on condition of anonymity said, “Orders are increasing every year. Sometimes, we find that the animals don’t survive very long after selling. Some customers say that the animal was unconscious after the sale, others say that it couldn’t walk properly and kept collapsing.”

In the midst of this, animal rights champion People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) told The Metrognome that PETA had goats for dinner this year. In an email sent to us by Corporate and Government Affairs liaison, PETA India, Sarfaraz Syed said, “This Eid, PETA had goats for dinner, not as food but as the guests of honour. We urged people to join us in using this auspicious occasion to celebrate, not take, life and to give alms such as fruits, vegetables, breads and pulses to the people and animals who need it the most.

We’ve pushed the Ministry of Environment and Forests to ban all animal sacrifice in the country. As per the Slaughterhouse Rules, slaughter is supposed to happen in a licensed slaughterhouse, not on the streets. Most cases of sacrifice/slaughter are conducted in temples or on the roads, against the Rules.

We also have a case on in the Indian Supreme Court against year round illegal treatment of animals during transport and slaughter. Goats, buffaloes, sheep and other cattle are crammed onto vehicles on their way to slaughter in such high numbers that many break their bones and die en route. Those who survive are hacked to death with dull knives in full view of one another.

Our year round focus is on raising awareness on the benefits of going vegan for the animals, our health and the environment in a variety of ways so that it reaches the maximum number of people.”

 

Categories
Enough said

Long live the King

Humra Quraishi is heartbroken over Yash Chopra’s death, and has given up looking for a man with Guru Dutt’s eyes.

Ever since I heard the news of director Yash Chopra’s death due to dengue, all I kept muttering to myself was, “Yash Chopra’s dead…He’s dead…the king of romance is gone…”

I didn’t know Yash Chopra personally. But sometimes, you don’t need to know somebody on a personal level to feel the loss when they’re gone. Most of those who are mourning for him didn’t know him either, but we’re all shaken by his death. I think what bound me to Yash Chopra was that he personified all that was romantic in film, and I am a diehard romantic in real life. But I count myself lucky, because unlike the scores of people who could idolise him only through his films, I actually had the opportunity to see him up close.

I saw him in person just once, at the New Delhi airport. He was with his wife, and though they were together, his eyes darted about restlessly, like he was mentally somewhere else, looking for someone. Even at a distance, his personality did leave an impact…he wasn’t good-looking in the conventional sense of the word, but he had a definite personality. I thought he was tall and dark, but not really handsome, but there was something about him that would make you notice him in the crowd, turn around for a second look, even on a crowded airport.

The restlessness in his eyes probably stopped me, or rather, the journalist in me, to go right up to him and talk to him. I still could have spoken with him, and I’m sure he would have been cordial enough to answer my pleasantries and my questions, but I thought  it  would  be  wrong of  me  to  intrude on his thoughts and bother him.

And   as  I  saw  him  boarding  the  same flight  to  Srinagar as I was on, I  was  more  confident  of  going   up to  him, if nothing else, then for  one of those unplanned  interviews that journalists are sometimes lucky enough to get. But  by the  time  I  could  muster enough  confidence to approach him, he was almost  mobbed  by  his  co-passengers. After that, I settled back in my seat and resigned myself to glancing at him at regular intervals, and I could clearly see his smile and his set of fine, good teeth. And I could also hear his distinct voice, and snatches of the sentences he spoke rather quickly.

On the evening of his death, as I mused over losing Yash Chopra, I was actually surprised that I still remembered all these details of so long ago, after so many long years. The only explanation I  can  offer for my fond memories of Yash Chopra, are that the romantic streak in him and me brought about a strange connection of sorts. Yes, romantics  do connect in these rather bizarre ways.

And when I ponder on romance, I remember Guru Dutt and his lovely eyes. After him, no other man conveyed the kind of want, the yearning and a subdued passion of love. Guru Dutt was probably the only man in cinema whose eyes touched a chord with you across a cinema screen, that made love to you with a single glance. I am still looking for eyes like his, but I have almost given up hope. Where am I going to find such a pair of eyes, in these fast times and in an age where pelvic thrusts denote love in cinema, that will be emotional, in love and full of yearning?

Today’s filmmakers would do well to understand why Yash Chopra and Guru Dutt made romance so special. They understood that romance was about an abundance of emotions, exploding in a dazzling display of colours and tears and heartbreak and ecstasy. They understood the difference between love, romance and sex, and also that romance remained with the viewer long after the sex was done with. Their films underlined this wonderful line from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of  My  Melancholy  Whores: ‘Sex is the consolation one has for not finding enough love.’

Humra Quraishi is a veteran journalist and author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Absolute Khushwant. 

(Picture courtesy www.deccanchronicle.com)

 

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