Bengal’s Pal idol makers make stopover in Doon

By PRABEER SIKDAR

DEHRADUN, 11 July: West Bengal’s traditional idol makers, the Pals, have arrived with their team in Doon’s Durgabari, where they have started work on clay models of Durga. The skilled craftsmen, comprising six members, have already finished working on the clay models, two months before Dusshera.The idol makers working here all have surnames ending in Pal: Panchu Gopal Pal, Podut Kumar Pal, Prashant Pal, Mitu Pal and Anup Pal. “Traditionally, Bengal’s Pal community, whose basic tradition has been pottery (Kumhars) and clay idols,” pointed out Prashant Pal, 30, a resident of West Bengal’s Bardhaman District, who started learning the idol making craft at the age of 12 years.“We have a busy schedule. Next week, we will head to Ghaziabad, then move to Faridabad, Meerut and the final stopover is Aligarh,” said Pal. “This year is too hot,” complained Pal, who is making his 15th visit to Doon. His brother-in-law, Panchu Gopal Pal, is the chief craftsman in the team.The idol makers have got one week’s time to finish working on a dozen idols at Aragarh’s Kali Temple, Durgabari and Sahastradhara Cross Road before they move to Ghaziabad, where his brother-in-law runs the 'Sarv Sundari Murtikala Kendra' (SSMK).Among the idols, the tallest of them has a height of 8.5 feet, which would be installed at Durgabari complex on the Mall Road. “Besides Durga’s idol, we have also finished working on the other accompanying Gods and Goddesses including Ganesh, Laxmi, Kartik and Saraswati,” said Pal.Interestingly, the clay used for making these idols has been sourced by these makers from three places: Kolkata, Ghaziabad and Dehradun. “Clay from the Ganga (Kolkata) to make fingers and faces, Ghaziabad clay for polishing, while clay obtained from Doon is used as base material,” disclosed Pal, adding that they use powder based colours and mix them with tamarind glue.Over the years, these professional idol makers from West Bengal, where idol making is done on a large scale, have made their business secure by going to other states.“We will come back a week before Durga Puja to apply colours to the idols,” said Pal, disclosing that they would hop from one stopover to another, making idols in the next two months.

http://www.garhwalpost.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=Feature&article=1545

‘Ukhand culture unreceptive to Gays’

By PRABEER SIKDAR
DEHRADUN, 9 July: For the time being, the Delhi High Court judgment on Section 377 IPC may have put an end to the Gay community’s hide ‘n’ seek with the police, but it has also opened a Pandora’s box in the process.
“It is because what may hold true for the gay community in Delhi, may not hold good for their counterparts in the closed society of Dev Bhoomi,” says Shanta Kothari, Project Director of Himalayan Institute for Environment, Ecology & Development (HIFEED), the only NGO in Uttarakhand that works with MSM (men who have sex with men) population.
Kothari says that a situation when gays are found acceptable in society would take more than 20 years in Doon. “It’s easy for Gay community members to find acceptability in metros, but difficult in small places where the threat of social jeers and ostracism is great.”For the record, according to Kothari, the ‘networked’ gay community is 1500 member strong in Uttarakhand. “We are already in contact with 500 members, who regularly participate in our counseling and outreach workshops,” discloses Kothari, pointing out that HIFEED’s USACS supported Target Intervention Project (TIP) for the MSM is run in Districts of Doon, Pithoragarh Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar.
Commenting on the reasons leading to development of such practices, she mainly blames child abuse as one of the foremost reasons. “Those who were sexually exploited in their young age, gradually and unintentionally, develop MSM practices,” she explains, while also counting the role of peer pressure and hormonal factors.
The biggest disadvantage for gay couples relates to attaining parenthood, even if Section 377 is completely abrogated by Parliament. “Surrogacy is definitely a solution, but any ‘well-settled’ MSM couple would find it difficult to find a surrogate mother,” Kothari points out, maintaining that ‘MSMs are always regarded as a High Risk Behaviour Group compared to heterosexuals’.
The age group of MSM population in Doon, who are said to prefer gay hot spots like Gandhi Park in the city, is said to be between 15-50 years. “They are from all sections of society: Well-to-do, middle class and economically poor, including government employees.”According to Kothari, there have been instances where they have even come across commercial male sex workers in Doon. HIFEED, to carry out awareness among gays, has also appointed peer educators, who are retained on honorarium basis and visit gay hot spots to enlighten them about HIV/AIDS, STDs. Throwing light on the legality of the Delhi High Court judgment, Advocate Sarit Sharma said that the ‘judgment holds good for the gay population in Delhi until it is passed or rejected by Delhi government or overruled by the apex court’. Technically speaking, it means, a consenting gay couple in Delhi, if found by the police cannot be arrested till the operation of the Delhi High Court ruling, while the same in Uttarakhand, would still attract the wrath of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.(HIFEED also offers counseling for gays. It can be contacted at 0135-2666865).
http://www.garhwalpost.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=GupShup&article=1525

Dilapidated Bldgs on Chakrata Road have residents worried

By PRABEER SIKDAR
DEHRADUN, 28 June 2009: If it is nightmarish to commute on the congested Chakrata Road from the Clock Tower, life is no better for the residents of a dozen dilapidated buildings there, some on their last legs.
“Sometimes, when the vehicles move at high speed, the floor starts shaking,” said Rajesh Chauhan, who lives with his widowed mother in a large extended family of 22 persons at 28, Chakrata Road, opposite RGM Plaza.
Their ramshackle building, which appears like a heritage site from a distance, is just 150 metres away from the Clock Tower, Doon’s landmark.
Made with lime plaster, the yet standing building is a proof of the existence of God. “We are lucky that the building is still intact,” said Parmod Devi, 45, whose husband, a taxi driver, died three years ago, leaving her to feed 10 mouths.
A mother of 10 children (9 daughters and a son), Parmod Devi, despite sitting on a gold mine (at the current market rate, their two-floor building with four rooms would be worth more than Rs 1 crore) lives the life of a pauper. Thirty metres away from her home is Prabhat Theatre.
“There are three families in this building,” added Devi, disclosing that her father-in-law’s father had constructed the building. “I started living in this building since 1975, post my marriage.”

Shockingly, there are about a dozen ramshackle buildings on the Chakrata Road, which are on the verge of collapse. Their existence is directly proportional to the intensity of the monsoon. “For us, more rains means less life for our buildings,” explained Chauhan, son of Devi, who, should land be given by government, would prefer to migrate to any alternative site, along with his mother and unmarried sisters.
“Let the government give alternative sites, we would relocate, provided they pay us the market value,” said Devi, whose poverty has forced the family to live without electricity. “The electricity department disconnected our line five months ago, after we failed to pay the charges.”
Despite her acute poverty, (she makes a living by packaging bulbs) Government babus, also denied her a white ration card. Her Yellow card bearing No 276427 makes her eligible to receive 5 litres of oil and 3 kg of sugar every month.
The condition of others living in such decaying buildings is also similar. “There are many poor tenants who live in there,” said Devi, while showing another building opposite to theirs, which is also on the verge of collapse.
Doonites already knows about the plight of residents of a nearby building that is owned by the LIC and bits of which keep collapsing, particularly during the rains. Come the monsoons, the buildings on Chakrata Road are a disaster waiting to happen.

‘Nishank’ gets boisterous welcome at BJP HQ

“No division in BJP”
By Prabeer Sikdar
DEHRADUN, 25 June 2009: The entry of Uttarakhand’s new CM designate, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, at the State BJP Headquarters on Balbir Road today at around 3:00 p.m. had people falling over each other to greet him. After landing at the Sahastradhara helipad, he was straightway brought to the BJP HQs in a flower bedecked car.
Virtually cornered by supporters and electronic media crew, the BJP office bearers and policemen on duty, utterly failed in managing the crowd, some of whom were waiting at the HQ holding garlands and bouquets in their hands.Ironically, the moment ‘Nishank’ set foot in the compound, initially it was not him that the sloganeering crowd was concerned with. For a couple of minutes, the slogans of ‘Ganesh Joshi zindabad’ rent the air.
The slogan shouting crowd, after realising its mistake, then raised slogans in favour of ‘Nishank’ and also for the outgoing CM BC Khanduri.
By then, some of the excited press photographers, climbed onto the HQ building for that ‘perfect picture’ of Nishank, who was surrounded closely by his supporters near a flag pole in the premises. However, the constant pushing and shoving caught about a dozen people on the wrong foot and they fell down.
One enterprising lady, who had arrived without a garland or a bouquet for the CM designate, quickly collected a fallen garland.
“It is chaotic,” described an old man, who hails from Nishank’s constituency and had come to greet him on his big day.
Even as the electronic media crew members and BJP party workers jostled for a view of ‘Nishank’, a BJP office bearer shouted: ‘Nishank Ko Dabayoge Kya?’ At the same moment, a portly senior photographer fell over the iron chain fence of the garden.
Pushed to the side by the eager and excited crowd, a policeman came out after somebody stepped on his feet. He was seen tying his shoe laces. Three IPS officers, after escorting the CM designate inside the BJP HQ, successfully, had by then heaved a sigh of relief. Sweat had drenched their clothes from top to bottom.
In the ensuing melee during the first 25 minutes of his arrival, whatever he said got drowned in the empty slogans. For some of the electronic media crew, there was only ‘sound but no ‘byte’.

Once inside, the soft spoken ‘Nishank’ told media persons about his desire to realise Khanduri’s mission. “I want to see Uttarakhand emerge as an ideal state,” he said, claiming there ‘is no division within BJP’.
The new to be CM, then, along with other State BJP stalwarts, including Bachi Singh Rawat, BC Khanduri, Ganesh Joshi and other MLAs numbering more than a dozen, attended a closed door meeting for 1:30 hours.
Speaking to Garhwal Post JK Rawat, a retired teacher who hails from Nishank’s Thailsen Assembly constituency and had come to greet him, said that the new CM’s area still lacks proper road connectivity and drinking water.
“There is a Community Health Centre (CHC) in Thailisen block, but patients from here, still have to go to Pauri District HQ for X-rays,” he said, while hoping for good in the days ahead.
Ram Bharti, a social worker from Thailsen, said that education for girls ‘is a problem’. “For over a decade, the locals are demanding upgradation of the only Girls’ High School to Girls’ Inter College,” he disclosed, adding that with ‘Nishank’ at the helm, ‘we expect things to improve’.
Post the closed door meeting, Bachi Singh Rawat, State BJP President, said that the meeting was held in honour of ‘Nishank’.
Refusing to divulge much about the meeting, which according to unconfirmed report, was attended by only Khanduri’s camp followers, said that the state would make progress under ‘Nishank’. “There is no division in the BJP,” Rawat said, when asked to comment about the infighting in BJP.
http://www.garhwalpost.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=Dehradun&article=1403