Author: The Metrognome

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Diaries

Crime snapshot of the year

Mumbai was not such a great place to be in in 2012. A survey by Praja Foundation finds out more.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Part 1 of our Yearender Dairies

It’s not often that you can actually measure how secure you feel in a given place. But the Praja Foundation has done just that – brought out a white paper after carrying out a survey in Mumbai and measured, in terms of percentages, how secure people in the city feel, after alarming spikes in crime rates this year.

As per a survey conducted across 15,191 correspondents in Mumbai, Praja Foundation has compiled statistics that are grim, at best. For instance, 25 per cent of people surveyed felt unsafe in Mumbai this year. Only 20 per cent of respondents from North East Mumbai who said they felt safe in the city, while 41 per cent of respondents from North Central Mumbai said they felt safe when travelling from one place to another within Mumbai.

The Foundation further notes that “of the total 71,425 cases filed in Mumbai in 2011-12, 18 per cent (a total of 12,762) cases are related to serious offences. Of this, only 45 per cent (a total of 5,772) cases were sent for trial. The rest are pending investigation. And of those that went for trial, only 10 per cent got a conviction. It is indeed shocking to learn that of the 1,61,528 cases gone into trial, the acquittal rate was a shocking 83 per cent!”

And if you blame lack of political will in getting criminals punished, or indeed, talked about, you may be right. The Foundation reveals that Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) from the North Central Mumbai zone were guilty of raising only 65 questions during the Monsoon 2011, Winter 2011 and Budget 2012 Sessions of the State Legislature; this zone also has the highest incidence of crime in the city, at 6,736 cases. MLAs from this region are Krishnakumar Hegde, Milind Kamble, Prakash Sawant, Kripashankar Singh and Baba Siddiqui.

A lack of strong policing was also found to be a key issue – of 71,425 cases, 18 per cent (ie 12,762) cases were related to Class II (Serious offences, such as murder, rape, abduction, grievous hurt, kidnapping, etc.) and were investigated in 2011. Of these, investigations were completed in only 6,515 cases.

‘Diaries’ is a series of stories on one theme. The Yearender Diaries seeks to capture the most telling moments, happenings and people in the city this year. Watch out for Event of the Year tomorrow.

(All figures are from Praja Foundation. Picture courtesy gawker.com)

 

 

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Guest writer

Sex and the city

Shifa Maitra recounts a recent late night ordeal in Mumbai, and says that Mumbai is only slightly safer than Delhi.

So Delhi is an awful place and women shouldn’t even visit. Well, Mumbai is just a tad better. Having lived in both cities and having returned here after a five-year stint in Delhi, I can tell you that living on your own as a single woman here isn’t as great
as it used to be. I am not comparing it to Delhi, but let’s put it this way, women can’t be as bindass as they used to be here. With women being molested outside a five star hotel on New Year’s eve, to a security guard sexually assaulting and killing a bright young lawyer, to acid attacks, stones being pelted at the ladies compartments in trains…all of it is a nightmare.

I recently had a shocker of an experience when I was returning home from a late night shoot. Thank God my driver was driving. It was around 3 am and at the Juhu beach turning, an SUV came very close to my car, with some guys inside it waving and screaming. My first reaction was to see if it was someone I knew, but my driver sensed trouble and stepped on the accelerator. I could see them screaming and making lewd gestures. I panicked and my driver warned me that he would be speeding – this car tried to block our way and stop in front of us. The entire ordeal lasted a few minutes but it was nightmarish. When I looked up, my driver had taken another route till we lost them.

I was telling a friend the next day about this incident, and she said that something similar had happened to her and a friend when they left from Wtf in Versova and were going home. We don’t have a Chief Minister, yet, who tells us that women should stay at home to avoid such incidents, but we are getting there.

Pepper sprays and learning taekwando are all very well. Drunk driving is something the city has been able to get under control, but all the same, driving alone past midnight is best avoided. A friend had a flat tyre late at night at the Garage Road in Santacruz, and she was pretty shaken up by the time she got home.

Another thing to avoid is going for a walk or a run at night. From Versova’s back road to the Carter Road promenade, women have had to deal with unwelcome attention for no fault of theirs.

Allowing electricians, plumbers and watchmen inside your home when you are alone is again a no-no. However inconvenient, call a friend or neighbour to hang around till the work is being done. Someone I know runs an agency for guards, and he was candid about the fact that background checks on those employed are not always done.

Taking an autorickshaw at night is asking for trouble. God help you if you light up a cigarette, you really may not get home. People who seem perfectly ‘normal’ when alone, when in a group become a mob that can’t be trusted. Colaba Causeway, Gateway of India, Linking Road and Juhu are areas that are hellholes, given that streetwalkers operate there and any woman out at night alone is instantly branded as one.

Crowded places are again a bane, whether it is Ganpati visarjan or Holi. New Year’s eve or the Bandra Fair, the minute a woman is in the crowd, it is assumed that the woman will ‘enjoy’ being groped and molested. Sad but true, that women are better off staying off the roads when these hooligans reign.

Well, the silver lining is that if a woman asks for help in a public place in Mumbai, people will step forward and help her. Walking into a cop station is also not as daunting as it would be in Delhi.

Keeping your mobile phone charged at all times helps, and calling up a friend when there is a hint of trouble makes sense. A friend who lived alone had a drunk neighbor banging on her door at one in the morning. Thankfully, she called us instantly and had only frayed nerves to deal with.

So, trust in God but lock your car, as the Dalai Lama said. Of course Mumbai is a rocking, fun city, but don’t push your luck.

Shifa Maitra is a media professional based in Mumbai.

(Picture courtesy Joshi Daniel)

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Big story

56 Mumbaikars v/s city’s Housing Federation

Citizens fought against ruling clique that held elections in violation of rules, and got a stay from the High Court.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Last week, an email from activist Krishnaraj Rao did the rounds. In reality, the email was a letter that was meant to be signed by Mumbai citizens and which was later forwarded to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. The letter was about how a few persons who controlled the Mumbai District Cooperative Housing Federation Limited, had hastily declared elections just days before the official release of the Cooperatives Commissioner’s order dated November 30, 2012.

“A handful of persons in control of Mumbai District Cooperative Housing Federation Ltd – which is officially recognised as Mumbai’s nodal agency for Cooperative Housing Societies (CHS) – are virtually carrying out a daring daylight hijack. In a last-ditch attempt to hold onto their positions of power, they declared elections just days ahead of the official release of the Cooperatives Commissioner’s order dated 30th November 2012. They are sidestepping the order that mandates that cooperative society elections must be conducted after their bye-laws are amended, and in compliance with the 97th Amendment. They have taken this mala fide step knowing that as per the 97th Amendment, Maharashtra will soon have to appoint a proper authority for ‘superintendence, direction and control of the electoral rolls, and conduct of all elections to a cooperative society’ before February 2013,” the letter said.

“Led by Late Dr Raghuvir Samant’s son Shri Pradeep Samant, who is Vice Chairman, and Shri Anil Jadhav, who is Chairman, the ruling clique has taken evasive action by announcing elections 15 days before its official release of the Cooperative Commissioner’s order, to which they were privy as insiders. On 16th November 2012, the Federation announced the election on 16th Feb 2013. The returning officer is an advocate arbitrarily appointed by themselves, letting them avoid conducting free and fair elections. Shri Samant & Jadhav have thrown the Federation into a gray area,” the letter further alleged.

What does it mean for housing societies?

“About 50 lakh people reside in Mumbai’s cooperative housing societies. As the Federation has the powers to hear grievances and give a verdict, its elections determine whether these 50 lakh people will get their Fundamental Right guaranteed under Article 14 – “Equality Before Law & Equal Protection of the Laws” during the next five years. Hence, this is not a matter between rival contenders; the Federation election concerns the larger public interest,” Krishnaraj told The Metrognome.

Incensed by this development, housing society activists and others got together and signed the letter that Krishnaraj drafted. “Till December 10, we had 56 signatures,” he says, adding that the same were forwarded to the CM. The letter has been endorsed by such luminaries as Dr LB Tiwari, advocate and President, Sahayak NGO, Vinod Sampat, advocate, Pearl Goswami, committee member of Bandra Commonwealth CHS and JB Patel, CHS activist, among others.

“Currently, out of 38,000, the Federation has enrolled only 18,000 CHS and no efforts are made to enroll the remaining 20000 CHS,” says Krishnaraj. “Again, out of 18,000 societies, only 17,093 CHS has been listed as members of Federation who can vote provided they clear their dues. No details about the dues from these 17,093 members are made available. This enables the Federation directors to allow or reject the voter without any accountability.”

Another issue is that through “systematic manipulation”, the Federation’s “ruling clique is preventing majority of Federation member societies from voting, so that the small number of votes that they command, about 3,000 votes, lets them repeatedly win elections virtually unopposed. This is how the same group of people have been getting re-elected for several decades,” he adds.

Current status

However, on December 13, the Bombay HC issued an order that stated “List this matter on 22nd January, 2013…In the meantime, however, in the interest of justice, the petitioner can continue with the Election process up to finalisation of Voters’ list and not further”. Vinod Sampat says, “There is an inevitable postponement of about 35 days in the entire election schedule because of this order.”

It seems that even if the High Court delivers a favourable order to the writ petition, the elections may be held in mid or late 2013, as the election schedule will have to be drawn up from scratch, and communicated to around 18,000 Cooperative Housing Societies in Mumbai months in advance as required by law.

(Featured image courtesy chsguru.com)

Categories
Do

Bisons on bikes

This gang of bikers does charity on the go – if you’re a serious biker, you’re free to join in.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Admit it, the moment one says the word ‘biker’, the immediate image in your mind is of a tough, tattooed dude, weaving in and out of traffic with practiced ease in the day, and burning up the roads in a death-defying race on the night’s empty roads. Bikers race each other, they drive when they’re drunk, they drive rashly…in short, they don’t follow a single road rule.

But a bunch of bikers that do charity? Drive within rules? Never drink and drive?

Meet the ‘Bisons Ride Hard’.

This is a city-based group of serious Royal Enfield bikers that was started last year by three bikers – Gurinder Singh, Sameer Balakrishnan, Deepak Ananth and Vineet Rajan, with the twin idea of combining responsible, safe biking with helping society. Speaking to The Metrognome, Deepak (35) said, “The three of us have been riding for about 15 years now, so we decided to form a club for like-minded bikers who ride in our style. We do charity rides, because our core philosophy is that we should give back to society in some way. And when we started the group, we wanted to break the stereotypical image of bikers that people have, and replace it with that of a serious, responsible person who rides hard and follows the rules.”

So much so, Deepak says, that when the group is on a ride, the ‘captain’ of the team ensures that nobody goes near their vehicle after drinking. “If we stop at a resort for the night and want to drink and party, the bike keys are handed over to the captain or a teetotaller in the group, who does not let a single drunk person near his bike,” he explains.

No need for speed

“Our rides are unique, with a concept that is well thought of,” Deepak says. Each ride is planned at least three weeks in advance, including the routes, timings and stopovers. Rides are done over weekends, and are characterised by long, typically hard riding at a maximum speed of 70 kmph.

The Bisons celebrated their first anniversary in September this year with ‘Red Bums’, a 24-hour, night-only ride. “This was an endurance ride for 1,000 kilometres,” Deepak says, adding that none of the bikers ride without helmets and jackets, and each bike has a crash guard. “We ensure that at least 40 per cent of the ride goes towards charity. We ride within speed limits, the captain for the group ensures that nobody is left behind, and driving rashly or after drinking is a strict no-no.”

Becoming a Bison

The initiation into the group is no cakewalk – you have to echo the group’s core values and undergo some tests. “Once a person applies to us for membership, we call him/her and have an informal meeting. We ascertain some basic things: does the person do drugs, does he drink and drive, what speeds he/she normally rides at. Then the person has to do five overnight rides with us over a period of one year,” Deepak says.

Two overnight rides later, the potential Bison is given access to articles on biking and the group, related information and he/she is involved in decision-making for future rides. “After five rides are complete, the person is given a Bison T-shirt, and a dog tag that lists the person’s basic details and blood group,” Deepak explains.

A rising number of women are enrolling in the group, he says, and several women also go riding with their spouses. “We have a mix of people joining us. There are entrepreneurs, doctors, dieticians, graphic artists. Even Aditya Raj Kapoor (the late Shammi Kapoor’s son) rides with us. Our youngest Bison is 21, our oldest is 59 years old,” Deepak says. In a year, the group has 70 members and 25 more are in the process of being initiated into the club.

The next charity ride

On Sunday, December 23, 50 Bisons will ride from Bandra Kurla Comples to Assisi Bhavan, Goregaon, to spend time with the senior citizens living there. The initiative is called ‘Bisons Serve’.

“We had been there last year, but we didn’t have enough funds to carry out our plans  then. This year, we have appealed to each member to contribute Rs 500, and we are planning a Christmas surprise,” he explains. Of the money thus pooled in, the group will purchase toiletries that will last the female inmates a year. “A Santa Claus is going to ride with us, and we’re also working on getting a carol group. There’s a Christmas tree as well. Besides this, we’ll be spending the day there, and we’re carrying lunch for them which we’ll eat with them. After all, the one thing they want the most is somebody to talk to,” he says.

All bullet biking enthusiasts can join the ride on December 23. Register for ‘Bisons Serve’ on the group’s website www.BisonsRideHard.com.

(Pictures courtesy Bisons Ride Hard) 

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Listen

Turn up the (copied) music

Pritam Chakraborty
Music directors are coming full circle – after copying global tunes for years, they’re now copying from old Hindi films!
by M | M@themetrognome.in

‘Copy cat, copy cat, tell your mother to make you fat.’ This line didn’t make any sense to me till I began to listen to songs from Hindi films. This line is just like the songs in our films these days – they don’t make any sense, but we’ve heard them before.

A song from Dabangg 2, ‘Pandeyjee Seeti Bajaye’ has the refrain from ‘Chalat Musafir’ from the Raj Kapoor starrer Teesri Kasam used all through the song. The original track was composed by Shankar-Jaikishen, but Sajid-Wajid, who say they created the music for Dabangg 2 in just two hours (a claim that’s easy to believe once you’ve heard the songs), argue that the tune in their song is a folk tune, and hence their song is not a copy.

Another recent release, Khiladi 786 has gone global in its copying – ‘Hookah Bar’ is copied from Chris Brown’s ‘Turn up the music’, whereas ‘Balma’s beats are lifted from ‘I’m sexy and I know It’. Himeshbhai, I sincerely hope you get pulled up by your nose for this.

We were finally out of the remixes era, when a dearth of original music forced composers to pick a popular track from yesteryear films and add some upbeat, dhinchak notes to create a song. We now have a new issue at hand – forget remixes, we are now facing a weird homecoming of sorts, with music directors simply copying tunes from earlier Bollywood films.

It is highly unfair that only Pritamda gets singled out as the biggest copycat of the industry. Sure, most of his tracks are good copy-and-paste jobs; his last, most evident copied track was ‘Subha hone na de’ from DesiBoyz, where the opening strains were lifted straight from Pitbull and Ne-Yo’s ‘Give me everything tonight’. But Pritam is not the only one.

The art of copying has been refined to suit individual needs. For example, some don’t believe in copying subtly. A renowned music director works like this: he likes an international track, he chops and dices the tunes, adds a few jhankar beats for Indian sensibilities and serves it straight up. But the way he sells his tunes is interesting: he sets up a bazaar kind of atmosphere in his office, where the buyers (who are two teams comprising producers and directors) sit in different rooms and the music director lets them sample his offerings one at a time – the idea is, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So if team A doesn’t like the tune, he takes it to the next room to team B. And this goes on till both the teams have something in their shopping cart.

Copying music is not limited only to music directors. A singer, famous for his folksy voice, is known to invite gypsies from North India, who are masters of folk music, to stay with him (sometimes for weeks). He practices singing with them, and has been known to confess that he hates living with them, because they are not used to closed spaces and make a mess out of his home. However, he picks up the nuances of folk singing from them, and doesn’t give them any credit.

This same singer occasionally composes music as well, and the folk tunes imparted to him come in handy there. The singer sits on a big, fat bank balance. The gypsies, naturally, get nothing.

Some musicians go even further and buy tunes from struggling composers at dirt cheap rates. They re-package these tunes under their brand and sell them to film producers at phenomenal costs. The slightly smarter ones have created academies, and are currently playing Dronacharya to several willing Eklavyas – they claim that they nurture budding artists, but they freely use their work in their films. No wonder then, that nobody actually knows who the real composer is.

There are very few musicians, and I can only think of one at the moment, who compose original music today – Mithoon, who composed the soulful ‘Maula mere’ from Anwar. The industry recognises him as a very spiritual and gifted person, but unfortunately for him, he is often slotted as “Arre, who ek hi type ka music banata hai, masala nahin hai usmein”.

Thus, after importing masala from the West, and sometimes South-east Asia, we are now borrowing it from the North of our own country.

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.  

(Picture courtesy india-forums.com)

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Do

Students create wall-size mural at Goregaon school

Renowned mosaic artist Kirstin Green guided students over 90 days to help create 26 x 12 feet wall mosaic mural.

The Oberoi International School (OIS), Goregaon, saw a fun and creatively rewarding project end recently, with the unveiling of a wall-size, 26 x 12 feet mosaic mural which was a ‘community effort’ in which students worked and some parents also got involved in. The mural was created over a period of 90 days starting from September this year. Students were guided on the project by renowned American mosaic artist Kirstin Green, who was the resident artist for the project.

Kirstin is also working with seven other school-based community projects in the US and South Africa. The mural work at OIS started under her guidance, where she taught students on working with ceramic material, stained glass, glue, blueprints, construction and working on overall artistic collaboration upon completion. The materials were hammered, structured, and placed randomly or were cut and smoothed for a structured layout.

“Each step of designing a mural requires forethought, dedication and an overall vision of the larger picture, while focus has to be on each and every piece of the puzzle. It was truly a pleasure to interact with the ever-enthusiastic students, and create something so beautiful,” she said. The completed mural portrays children of different nationalities holding hands, flags of countries, a tree, the Taj Mahal, an elephant, a peacock, a staircase and a lotus which is the central focus of the piece.

“The entire exercise is a unique experience for our students,” said Dr Vladimir Kuskovski, Head of OIS. “They not only learned new skills of the medium, but also teamwork. Some students have used their free time after school hours, as well as weekends, to work on the mosaic. Many other students may have not worked directly on the project, but they have come down to see the work and often brought their parents along, so this is indeed a community project,” he added.

The mural was unveiled yesterday by acclaimed sculptor Arzan Khambatta, who said that the mural was “one of the finest pieces of art I have come across at a school level; it is amazing to see students delivering a fine art piece with this professionalism and finishing.”

 

 

 

 

 

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