ISSUE 33 October 31, 2015 The secrets of being secular · The murder of Govind Pansare for...

ISSUE 33 October 31, 2015

News In BriefThe secrets of being secularSananya Datta

Subhasish Mitra

Tremor of Shock in Afghan-Pak

provincesAn earthquake of 7.5 magnitude, struck Afghanistan and Northern areas of Pakistan, killing more than 200 people, leaving hundreds injured. The quake was 213 km deep and centered 254 km northeast of Kabul in Badakhshan province. One of the most heart-writhing scenarios amidst the destruction was the death of 12 little girls, who died in stampede while escaping their school premises during the quake, which was located at Badakhshan, from where the quake originated. Reportedly, shockwaves have been felt in New Delhi also.

After a long span of 14 years, the 23 year old Geeta, who incidentally went astray in Pakistan in her childhood, returned to her homeland, India. The deaf-and- mute girl has been living in Pakistan under the parental care and affection of Bilki Eedhi and Abdul Sattar, who took her as her daughter and named her Fatima. Amidst the celebrations of her return to India, the two rival nations, India and Pakistan, have been involved in a constant combat for credit of the girl’s well being and safety. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister of Pakistan as well as the Foreign Minister for taking care of her and allowing her to keep her religion integrated for all these years.

Gangster Chhota Rajan arrested

Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje, also known as “Chhota Rajan” the man who is associated with crimes as heinous as Bombay-blasts in 1993, and several others including, extortion, murder and drug smuggling, has been arrested in Indonesia. Arrest warrants had been issued by the Indian authorities long back in 1993, and the Interpol notice was issued in 1995, since then he has been on the run, until now. Two theories are being associated with Rajan’s arrest: first, the Indian government might want to protect Rajan against Dawood Ibrahim, in order to extract information out of him which would help the India to bring Dawood under custody; the other theory suggests that the arrest has been facilitated by Dawood’s moves, by informing the Interpol about Rajan’s whereabouts in order to humiliate the Indian Government.

88 feet Durga: Mismanagement to satisfy Political Vendetta?Durga Puja, in all its majesty and magnanimity, is the grandest of all festivals for the City of Joy. It brings with itself a gust of new life as the city as well as the people dress up to their brightest best. Pandal hopping and checking out how a locality has played around with the decoration of the ‘Puja Mandap’ and its surroundings is the talk of the town during the 5 days of the festival.Localities like Suruchi Sangha, Baghbazar, Ekdalia Evergreen, Maddox Square, etc attract the most number of visitors and this year was no different except for one 88 feet idol standing tall and veiled at the heart of South Kolkata, Deshapriya Park. It was a mammoth feet achieved by the south Kolkata locality who have been advertising of the biggest Durga idol ever since the last few months to have actually made an idol of 88-feet and as expected it gobbled up all the crowd to itself. The hype that the Deshapriya Park Puja had created with its advertising banners left the pandal hoppers victim to a terrible case of

mismanagement. People started queuing up to see the idol right from Chaturthi and by Panchami the roads in and around south Kolkata were completely chocked and the rush even resulted in a near stampede

situation where eleven people were reportedly hurt. Then started a terrible case of blame game where later it was found out that the puja had allegedly not collected certain no objection certificates. The puja committee however pointed the finger at the

police who they say were not prepared to control the crowd of such a magnitude. This resulted in the shutting down of the puja from being viewed by the visitors as all the gates were closed. The Deshapriya Park Puja Committee which had a major cement company as its sponsor was the spot of all attraction even a month before the commencement of the festival and was inaugurated by Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee in the presence of the ‘Prince of Kolkata’ Sourav Ganguly. The Kolkata Police which holds world record for managing such a massive crowd during the five days of the festival surrendered even before the festival commenced properly and closed down the Deshapriya Park.Was it at all necessary to close down the puja? Is it not something fishy that the Kolkata Police Commissioner while addressing a press conference appealing to the common public to refrain from visiting the Pandal? Even “Maa” suffered...is it for mismanagement or subtle politics...?

The Dadri mob lynching incident finally addressed the elephant in the subcontinent of India in the most gruesome manner it could find. This incident which is a clear sign of growing religious intolerance in India triggered a chain of events which if not resolved or addressed soon would definitely result in riots, murders and more bloodshed.If we look back, all the events kicked off with the meat and beef ban in many states in India, even in states having a majority of Muslim population like Jammu and Kashmir. The story started with the mob lynching incident in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh where 52 year old Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi and his 22 year old son Danish were attacked by mobs believing the rumour that the family had killed a cow and consumed its meat. The incident lead to the death of Akhlaq and forced the family to shift its base from Dadri to Delhi. The incident came as a crude eye opener of growing religious intolerance among the citizens of India with political parties having extremist religious viewpoints giving support to such ideologies and thoughts. Following the incident many celluloid stars, bigshots, smallshots politicians and self-declared VIPs gave their views on this incident and shamed it. Among these people were the literary scholars and winners of Sahitya Akademi awards who decided to return the honours bestowed upon them protesting the “rising intolerance” and “communal” atmosphere. Writers like Nayantara Sehgal, Ashok Vajpeyi, Sara Joseph, Rahman Abbas, Uday Prakash, Gurcharan

Singh, Film maker like Dibakar Banerjee, and many others have returned their prestigious award protesting the Dadri killing along with the brutal murder of renowned writer M.M. Kalburgi for questioning the practices of idol worship. In a “free”, “secular” India murdering a person voicing his contrarian views goes against the very pillars of the democratic establishment of the country. The appalling fact is that there has been a rise in such incidents rather than things coming to a halt and the administrative and legal authorities have a taken a casual approach regarding such cases communal and religious intolerance. The murder of Govind Pansare for questioning the demi – God status given to Shivaji, murder of Narendra Dabholkar, who waged a relentless battle against superstitions, Shiv Sena activists smearing of black paint on the organizer of former Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri’s book launch are a few incidents out of many plaguing our country at this moment. If a country’s ruling party has an extremist viewpoint and if the judiciary curbs the freedom of the citizens by ordering what food they can have and they cannot, ignoring the fact that in a “secular” country like India, different food holds different meanings for each religion, then it shouldn’t come as a shocker if communal tension and crime is on a rise. Now it is upto us to decide whether India remains “secular” only in our constitution and text or in reality....

Geeta’s homecoming

Never think you are the best: Pele at NSHM

Students at NSHM witnessed a historic moment as the ‘Black Pearl’ stepped into the campus to spend an hour with the NHSMites as Devi Pakkha commenced in the Kolkata. Ex Bazilian superstar Pele, was at the campus on the auspicious day of Mahalaya to interact with the students and to inspire them. The event, ‘Inspire the Champion in you’ had the football legend walking in the midst of rose petals showered by the students, dressed in

traditional attire to welcome him. Pele was felicitated by Mr Rajib Chanda, and Mr. Arnab Roy, co-founder NSHM. Followed by the felicitation was a musical guest performance by UNI, where Pele enjoyed the beats tapping his fingers all the way recognizing similarity between the fusion performance and Samba. Also present at the event were, Mir, actor/anchor and Boria Majumdar, journalist hosting the event as anchors.Eager and excited students from the audience questioned him to know more about his vision regarding modern football and his key to success. When asked about India’s possibility of playing the World Cup football, he said that Indian footballers have the potential but need more

international exposure for which they should get international coaches and players in the teams and take the initiative to play abroad. In reply to a student’s question on who is better, Messi or Ronaldo, he said that both the players had equally good with separate styles and hence they could not be compared. He also proudly stated that his son had coached Neymar, and that he will shine in the future. Pele also recalled his childhood, when he played street football and his mother scolded him for damaging his clothes. When asked if physical fitness or skill is more important, he said that the most important thing in life is health. He advised the students to respect everybody and to never

think of oneself to be the best and be prepared to face every situation, as a reply to the query of the secret behind his success.

The answer that sent a wave of laughter and loud clapping was the host Mir’s question. Pele would be celebrating his 75th birthday at Buckingham Palace in London, and to spice up the occasion Mir asked, “If you are given a choice between a 75 pounds cake from the best bakery in London and a kiss from Queen Elizabeth, what would you choose?” A shy Pele replied smiling, “Being a sportsperson I cannot eat that much cake … so I’d prefer the kiss.”Pele unveiled a sculpture of his famous bicycle kick onstage and autographed it.

Lahari Basu

ISSUE 33 October 31, 2015

The Team: Anshu Dubey, Indrajit Bhattacharjee, Koustabh Das, Lahari Basu, Madhushri Banerjee, Paramita Das, Punit Tripathi, Sananya Datta, Santanu Ghosh, Sreetama Karmakar, Shubha-sish Mitra, Subhecha Mitra, Sohini Majumder,Tapatrisha Das Design Team: Banhishikha Ghorai,Abhishek Bhattacharjee,Rishin Bose

Chief Mentor: Dr Buroshiva Dasgupta Mentors: Debanjan Banerjee, Reshmi Naskar, Bhaswar Bhattacharyya, Sourav Basu, Barnali Ray,Ankita Ash

Puja Porikroma

The Durga Puja Industry Inc.Indrajit Bhattacharjee

Gone are the days when Durga Puja was dealt with sentiments among the mass and the festive feel itself aroused excitement in many all over the country. We have entered an era of commercialization and it is quite appropriate to say that ‘we mean business’ now. It has all come down to profits and losses and the original flavor of the festival has disappeared.This change came in the past decade or so when popular brands started to associate itself with the biggest festival in the country. With this alliance between brands and Puja not only in the state bust also in other parts of the country, it became more about competing with others rather celebrating it in an aesthetic manner. Interestingly corporatization of the pujas’ started around the mid-eighties when the big FMCG companies realized that a mega event like Durga Puja drove mega consumption of products and services like there was no tomorrow. Advertising and publicizing their brands in such a fabulous ‘’Captive target base,’’ turned out to be successful. That’s when it began and soon a deluge followed. The next big thing which came up was awards, prize money and publicity for best displayers of Puja Pandals and the movement took off. Today, two decades later, Kolkata has emerged as a major retail hub with consumption of lifestyle products going through the roof, during the puja season. The Durga Puja industry in West Bengal is

growing at an annual growth rate of 35% which also indicates that it will reach an estimate of 40,000 crores by next year setting a benchmark. Roughly there are 10,000 pandals erected every year in West Bengal. The Pandal industry is expected to touch the figures of 500 crore this year. As festivals increasingly becoming community events, companies are finding them the ideal platform to interact with consumers and make an emotional connect. 80% of the revenues are generated through advertising, while the rest comes from individual contributions and advertising in the Puja souvenir. Advertising rates range from Rs 5 lakh for a banner to Rs 25 lakh for branding the front-gate. The major advertisers include telecom, consumer durables, automobile, insurance, consumer products and media companies in Kolkata and Mumbai. In NCR, advertisers include local small and medium-sized companies, including construction and engineering firms and exporters, from Delhi, Kolkata, Jharkhand, Haryana and other states.This year is no different from any other and had seen perhaps the biggest mode of corporatization in terms of the festival. Especially Star Cements in Kolkata had pulled out a huge range of advertisement campaigns to promote the theme of the biggest idol ever made in the world of the deity. This has certainly helped position the brand with the star attraction it brings in terms of the festival itself. Themed Puja has been the mantra of every corporate house when it comes to Durga Puja. In order to offer something new it encodes the brand message in a very sublime form along with the emotional appeal Durga Puja has to offer.

Selimpur Theme - Women PowerEntrance was decorated with hammer, cutter, etc. the main pandal was designed like a dancer’s house. Huge hand fan, lantern were used to decorate the pandal.

Jodhpur Park Theme - Rainforest of AfricaHuge monkey was on the entrance to welcome you. Sound effects will move your mind for an African safari. The stricter also have an African touch to portray the theme

95 PallyTheme - Debighot and PotchitraBlack and white combo which is always delicate was used in the pandal decoration.This combination encouraged by huge number of people.

Babubagan Theme- Peaceful EarthNeither the huge round pandal nor the statue of the goddess was their point of attraction, their attractive point was the blank place to chat.

Maddox Square Theme- Ethnic The main attraction of Maddox for all is the ADDA. Same pandal, same structure of goddess but the most number of people are found in Maddox only for chatting.

Ekdalia Theme- Wooden Pandel 24ft statueHuge wooden pandal was their attraction. The structure was huge in size. People were astonished by the size.

Singhi ParkTheme- Shila Temple of Jaypur74th year celebration of them were designed like Shila temple of Jaypur. Their structure of goddess was also made in that way.

Suruchi Sangha Theme- Art and Culture of Tamil NaduCulture and art of Tamil Nadu was portrait by Suruchi Sangha. It was very well planned and the place was really like an south Indian temple.

Chetla Agrani Theme- Protest against killing of girl childTheir thought must be appreciated and their work must be encouraged. It must be an awesome experience for the visitors of Chetla Agrani to see such work in front of them.

Md. Ali Park Theme- African SafariA piece of Africa was scooped into Md. Ali Park for the five days of Durgoutsav. The structure was placed in such a way that it look to be in the African jungle.

Bagbajar Sharbojonin Theme- EthnicTheir attraction is not in their style or theme, but in their culture. The simple way of portraying Sarodotsav is their magic.

Shobhabajar Rajbari Theme- EthnicThis is also another example of simplicity where people come to worship their goddess for their heart. Their main target is to do clean prosperous Durga puja.

Kashi Bose Lane Theme- Today’s daughter tomorrows motherWell thought theme with well executed pandal but their goddess was most attractive to see.

Santosh Mitra Square Theme- Adventure in MarsPeople interested to go to mars were warmly welcomed in Santosh Mitra Square. Their pandal was a spaceship to go to Mars.

Deshapriyo Park Theme- Biggest Durga 88ft long idol made by them this year was the centre of all attraction even months before the pujas commenced. It was their pandal and the main idol was inside. The shape of the pandal was like Durga idol. Sadly it was closed by police citing security reasons.

Compiled by:Santanu Ghosh, Pic: Riju