Flamenco, as Wikipedia defines it, is a Spanish musical genre. It can be both a musical form, known for its intricate rapid passages, and a dance characterized by audible footwork.

Recently, a Flamenco group from Spain performed at the Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur. At this function, the Spanish ambassador Ion de la Riva announced that the origins of this art form are believed to be in India. Now, the Spanish government plans to set up a flamenco center in Jodhpur, India.

Sohini Chattopadhyay writes in this article in The Open Magazine:

Fernando Casas Granadino, artistic producer of the flamenco troupe says “We would like to eventually develop a festival of gypsy culture where flamenco would be a key element and a meeting ground for possible collaborations between Spanish and other European gypsy art expressions with Indian culture. We’d like to organise in a festival that will include dance, music, but also art exhibits, film festivals, lectures, workshops and master classes and collaborations among different cultures.”

The DNA reports in this article on the similarities between Flamenco and Rajasthani music:

Speaking through an interpretor, Antonio Rey who plays the guitar for the group says that since both the performance art forms — Flamenco and Rajasthani folk music originated from similar backgrounds, it was but natural to try and figure out a perfect co-existence.

Another interesting snippet of information shared in the above articles is the setting up of a Spanish classical music academy in Kolkata. World music coming to the shores of India should augur well for our music to get recognition as well as opening up opportunities for innovative artists.

Image courtesy: Wikipedia (shared under a GNU license)

What is Parivaar?

Parivaar is a humanitarian service organisation, based in 24 Parganas (S), West Bengal, and at present is chiefly working for total care and overall development of homeless children from categories like orphans, girl children highly vulnerable to exploitation, victimization, and trafficking, street children, abandoned children, highly impoverished children from tribal areas and other such highly vulnerable children at Parivaar Ashram, Village- Barkalikapur, P.O. Bakhrahat, District 24 Parganas (South), West Bengal.

Starting from scratch and thereafter developed brick by brick, Parivaar Ashram is being continuously developed and moulded into a unique institution transforming the lives of each of its residential members (children and adults) and acting as a training ground of highly dedicated life-committed Seva-vratis for taking up multifarious service activities in future. As on 15th December ’08 there are 372 resident children and 30 Resident Seva-Vratis and 40 other day-time workers at Parivaar.

Parivaar Ashram also acts as a hub for various service activities for scores of the villages in the vicinity. At the Parivaar Ashram campus is also located Parivaar’s own Formal School ‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’ in which the resident children of Parivaar study.

Children are admitted at a young age of 4 to 10 into Parivaar Ashram. Each resident child once admitted into Parivaar will be under the care and custody of Parivaar till higher education (graduation / post-graduation) and subsequent job placement and settlement into future phase of life. Parivaar is and shall be behind each child and pave his/her way into any future career which he/she is aspiring for and showing promise of making to, whether it is a stream graduation in humanities, commerce or sciences, or a professional degree education in engineering/medicine. Their eldest group of children is already in Class 8 and despite the fact that they were late-starters in academic path (trained and initiated straight into Class 4 in 2004) they are outperforming children from educated households in their respective schools, and securing top-bracket ranks.

In the next 2 years, Parivaar is being developed to accommodate 1000 such resident children while ensuring the same high quality. A separate All-Girls Residential Institution is on the way of being developed which will be gradually expanded to accommodate 500 resident girls. Residential Institutions shall also be started in some of the far-off tribal areas where Parivaar is working.

Parivaar Ashram is also the base for many other projects serving the rural areas in 24 Parganas district as well as far-off tribal areas in districts of Midnapore (West), Bankura, and Purulia in West Bengal and Singhbhum (East) in Jharkhand. Two main tribes, Sabar and Birhore, are the main beneficiaries of Parivaar’s tribal service programs. 400 such families from highly impoverished tribal areas are enrolled in Parivaar’s regular Foodstock Scheme whereby 9 tonnes (9000 Kg) of foodstock (Rice and Dal) are ferried and distributed by Parivaar Seva-vratis through most inaccessible terrains in these areas every month. More than 100 children from these tribal areas have also been admitted at Parivaar Ashram Residential Institution. Also miscellaneous service activities like house-repair of dilapdited dwellings etc. are taken up across these villages.

See http://www.parivaar.org/Food_stock_Distribution_Scheme.shtml

Parivaar’s work has attracted an increasing number of supporters from amongst Indians in varied walks of life, and at the same time has been able to build a cadre of highly dedicated youth Seva-vratis who are initiated into ideals of service and trained at Parivaar Ashram.

The Beginning

Parivaar was started by Vinayak Lohani (an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta), who, inspired by spiritual and humanistic ideals of Swami Vivekananda, decided to devote his entire life for serving ‘Divine in Man’ as taught by Swami Vivekananda. Immediately after passing out of IIM in 2003, with just 3 children in a small rented building with almost no financial resources, Shri Vinayak started Parivaar. Till the level of 15 children at Parivaar, he used to take some lectures for students appearing for Management entrance examinations and through that could meet the expenses. Gradually people began to be inspired by this dedicated service and started to support this initiative and the number of children at Parivaar grew. At the end of 2004, Parivaar could purchase its own land to develop its permanent campus called Parivaar Ashram. Parivaar’s mission and theme began to attract dedicated youth, many of whom joined Parivaar Ashram as resident workers and began to become bearers of this mission.

Parivaar Ashram : Building of a Unique family

December ‘03 : Admission of 3 children at rented building at Bonogram near Thakurpukur, Kolkata.
June 30th ‘04: 59 children
Dec 29th ‘04: Purchase of land at Barkalikapur, Bakhrahat in 24 Parganas (South)
Dec 31st ’04: 67 children (all housed at Bonogram Centre)June 30th ‘05: 110 children.
Dec 31st ‘05: 145 children.
June 30th ‘06: 200 children.
April 15th ‘07: 226 children.
May 15th ’07: 250 children.
Oct 15th ’07: 275 children.
Feb 15th ’08 : 310 children.
Jun 15th ’08 : 332 children.

Dec 15th ’08 : 372 children

The Road Ahead

Parivaar wants to continuously develop its cadre of dedicated Seva-vratis who can devote themselves to a life of service and work in various neglected parts of India for our unserved brethren and bring light to their lives. Thus in the years to come similar full-fledged Seva-Ashrams shall be started in other places first in West Bengal and then in rest of India.

Parivaar’s Support Base

Indians (and a few foreign nationals too) all over the world have been influenced and inspired by Parivaar’s work. A large no. of working professionals including IIT and IIM alumni (more than 500 of them) the world over support Parivaar. Parivaar received more than Rs 3 Cr in the said Finacial Year, by Parivaar supporters worldover. Out of this the bulk was from individual donors who inspired by Parivaar support it magnanimously.

Read more about Parivaar and its activities at: http://www.parivaar.org/

A 16-year old who teaches 600 students in his backyard. A single man who led to an entire city being declared smoke-free, a year before the nation enforced it as a law. The saviour of the endangered whale shark who has rescued as many as 50 so far. A former Tisco employee who gave up her secure job to help poor tribal families in a remote Maoist-infested village build a new life. And a Physics professor who learnt all there is about rain water harvesting and then made it mandatory for all official buildings in Tamil Nadu. These are just some of the everyday heroes that are doing their bit to change lives, whether they are recognized for it or not.

Babar Ali is a class XI student in Berhampore, West Bengal. Moved by the plight of poor parents who could not afford to send their children to school, this youngster has been conducting classes after his school hours since he was 11. His students come from nearby villages, some even walking four km to reach his house. In order to induce better attendance, Ali also managed to get government officials to distribute free rice at the end of the month.

Besides lessons, the children are drawn by the free rice distributed at the end of each month. “Attendance was falling drastically. That is when I hit upon this idea. As my school is not recognised by the government, I couldn’t have got free rice. But government officials helped me,” says Ali.

Ali has big dreams for the future. “I dream that my school will grow and expand to other parts of the state and country where children want to but can’t go to school.” But for now, he will be content if his students get a proper classroom.

——

Hemant Goswami had been committed to act against tobacco since a school project he did in 1987. In 2004 he filed a writ petition with the Chandigarh High Court, following which the government was instructed to follow the tobacco Act in letter and spirit.

In 2005 when the Right to Information Act (RTI) came into force, Hemant decided to use it to make Chandigarh the first smoke-free city. He filed over 300 RTI petitions with all government departments and offices, raising questions about their adherence to tobacco control laws. In a year, more than 1,800 signboards warning people of the health implications of smoking were up in all government offices. Educational institutes too fell in line.

Hemant’s efforts finally resulted in Chandigarh being declared smoke-free in July 2007. But he didn’t rest even after that. He continues to monitor the proper enforcement of the law, and smokes out the violators.

——

Dinesh Goswami is a daily wage earner in Junagadh district of Saurashtra in Gujarat. But every time he hears of the whale shark being indiscriminately hunted by fishermen on the rough and choppy sea off the coast of Saurashtra, he rushes to their rescue.

Describing his most dangerous rescue so far, Goswami recounts, “State officials called me after reports that a shark was trapped in a net. After we set off, the sea got very rough and every minute, we thought the boat would overturn. Thankfully, we managed to save the whale shark and return safely.” Goswami now runs Paryawaran Mitra, an NGO for the protection of sea animals.

Having learnt about the whale sharks and their plight in a documentary by environmentalist Mike Pandey, Goswami decided to make it his mission to save them every time they are in danger.

——

In Purulia, along the Bengal-Jharkhand border, Jayati Chakraborty has started a school to help a tribe called santhals build a better future. Inspired by an NGO run by Kamalesh Chakraborty for developmental work in the area, she decided to stay on and make a difference.

She quit her job, faced down appalled friends and family. “They found it hard to believe that I would be better off working with poor people in a godforsaken village.” And she tried new things — linseed and tomato farming — finally deciding the area needed a school. “We converted a hall into a classroom and started with 66 students in 2001. It seemed the school was waiting to happen,” she says. Students pay Rs 30 a month. But paid pupil or not, no one is turned away.

—–

Chennai-based professor Sekhar Raghavan’s passion for saving and harvesting water found an outlet when he worked with the Centre for Policy Studies, which examines traditional ways of living.

He says he found “we had the complete records of Chengelpet district for 200 years and realized rain-water harvesting is not new, it’s just something we had forgotten”.

His Akash Ganga Trust eventually led to rainwater harvesting becoming compulsory for all buildings in Tamil Nadu in 2002.

—–

Thus we see that it is possible for a single person to change the lives of many, even while performing normal duties like going to school or earning a daily wage. All our barriers are just imaginary.

Read the complete article in Times of India here.
Image Courtesy: jyothsnay.wordpress.com

In the 1980s, women in Darjeeling went through a lot of turbulence especially due to the Gorkhaland agitation. Their primary means of earning a living was to work as maids and other petty jobs. But now, all that has changed significantly. The women have now adopted carpet weaving as a primary source of income, thanks to the assistance of Hayden Hall, an NGO based out of Darjeeling town. Tehelka’s Teresa Rehman writes in this article about how a turnaround was achieved in the lives of these women:

Tears roll down her cheeks as she recalls the turbulence during the Gorkhaland agitation of 1980s in Darjeeling in West Bengal. As Shannu Sherpa, 36, gives finishing touches to the new carpet she has woven, she narrates how her uncle and most of the male members fled to the jungles fearing atrocities by the security forces. “There were bandhs for as many as 40 days. The whole economy which had thrived on tourism collapsed and there was no income for many days. Moreover, houses were raided and there were atrocities on women by the security forces,” she says. 

It was during these trying moments that she found succour in carpet-making after she landed in Hayden Hall, an NGO in Darjeeling town. Then it was quite an uphill task for her to traverse the distance of nearly an hour from her village Singmari to reach the place. She says, “But it was worth it. I have brought up my children with these earnings after my husband’s death. I am not always able to fulfill their demands but I am happy that at least I can lead a respectable life here.”

Radha Karky, the administrator of Hayden Hall has been interviewed in the article. Some excerpts of her views:

“The idea behind introducing this alternate way of earning livelihood is because employment opportunities are very few here and there is tremendous pressure on these women. Here, they at least pick up a skill. It’s like being literate, gaining confidence. For illiterate women, coming up with beautiful hand-woven carpet is psychologically uplifting. These women would otherwise be going home to clean dishes. Even their meager wages are cut if they fall sick,” adds Karky. 

Interestingly, and perhaps more importantly, in addition to the wages that these women are able to earn, they also have the added security of medical care and life insurance!
About the economics involved, the article goes on to say:

Carpet making is not a viable option if done independently but Karky says, “Its viable in Hayden Hall. We ensure that a weaver makes at least Rs 1500 per month. While working at Hayden Hall, women are also enrolled in a health program that covers basic medical expenses, a lunch schemes, and their children benefit from the many children’s schemes, from day-care and health care to after-school tutoring to help with public or private school fees.” These women make carpets, which are then marketed by Hayden Hall in the two stores located in Darjeeling. These stores are also have an overseas shipping licence. Hayden Hall’s carpet weavers spend roughly a month on a three-by-six-foot carpet. 

Read the entire article here to get a sense of the freedom that these women have managed to earn for themselves. It is truly heartening to see an organization being able to achieve such a turn around for people, who only a decade ago, were grappling with uncertainty and turmoil.

Image courtesy: www.tehelka.com