Tag: Mysore

we’re getting closer to the passport application…

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what’s in a name? No 5

to apply for the passport, we now need to gather various forms of ID but here is a stroke of luck. There is a quicker way to get a passport, known as TADKAL. Unfortunately, Manjula can’t apply under this scheme as you need to get a letter of support from a senior civil servant ( a way of institutionalising, it’s who you know!) and we don’t know one. However, the Government minister has recently announced a way to apply for a passport which is a sort of half-way-house. If Manjula has the correct ID and a signed affidavit she can speed up the process, get the passport quicker as a visit from the police would be held AFTER it’s issued. fab!

 

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Why tell Manjula’s story?

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Manjula’s Story

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Manjula is from a poor background.

Her poverty, family instability and the consequences of being a woman in a patriarchal society are not atypical. She has shown great determination, fortitude, even stoicism. It’s a common story for Indian women (and men) coming from difficult backgrounds and managing to survive through challenging life circumstances.

Manjula’s story helps illuminate what life is like for so many people living in contemporary India. There maybe, explosive growth of the economy and with it the middle classes – we can see the evidence in many ways – higher disposable income, spare money sloshing around, leisure holidays, the shift to the cities, flash cars, house dogs, you name it, it’s here.

But as with everywhere else in the world, probably more so here, in India, the rich and poor have traditionally lived ‘cheek by jowl’ yet as the economy grows people are left out and left behind. The distance between the rich and poor actually becomes greater. There is always the risk that their story is not told nor realised, their needs forgotten, a myopia of the modern age.

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Manjula’s fortunes, have changed, she has seized the opportunity of running Mysore Bed and Breakfast and in many, ways she not only survives but thrives. So, she’s sort-of-moved-on but is still a bridge between those different worlds and hence provides invaluable insights. I, therefore, believe it’s all the more critical that we share her story, her experiences and her world.

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Of course, I’m in no way, biased. She is, of course, a beautiful woman of great character, with wonderful beguiling wit  combined with an astonishing tolerance and resourcefulness….

The story shared through this site, comes from recordings she has made, the tales she tells me and our shared experiences since I came to live in Mysore six years ago when I first met Manjula.

…. do join us on our journey.

Horse Riding in Mysore

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I sometimes think that Vasanth, who I first met ten years ago and now co-ordinates our transport, used to dread my return trips to Mysore. I’d often arrive with an idea for a new project. One such project was my interest in horse riding. It actually lasted a few trips. We searched far and wide for opportunities for me to go horse riding. Vasanth was convinced we’d get nowhere. I was beginning to believe him. He found tourist horse riding trips in Srirangaptnam, nope not my ‘cup of tea’, we even visited the stables at the horse race course. Nothing! I was sure, there had to be something.

Then one day, we had one of those typical India experiences. I was leaning over a garden wall admiring a small traditional Mysore house. The lady came out and we got chatting. I complemented her on the house and garden, as you would, and happened to mention our search for horse riding.

” Oh” she said,”you should go meet my father, he’ll be able to help.” He was an officer in the Mounted Police. Well, sharpish we headed down there and tentatively entered the grand horse-shoe-shaped archway entrance and result! our project was a complete success.

it works out that the Riding School of Mysore was with the mounted police. I kid you not! After a meet with the Commandant I became a visiting member.

It worked like this:

if you wanted a ride that morning, a member would go to the horse exercising and practice fields before 6am

It would still be dark but one could hear the movement of men and horses, with snorts and neighs…. As the darkness was broken by sun rise and any mist began to lift, there were up to 50 men and horses lined up on parade. The officer on duty would check all his men were in line and in horsey attention, then ride and report to the commandant, who by now had arrived and was smartly facing his men. The officer reported on who was and wasn’t there and the plans for the day.

Impressive!

Once the ritual of being ‘on parade’ was completed Commandant Shetty would turn to whoever had arrived from the ‘Riding School’ and after a short ‘how are you?’ informal sort of conversation, would call over sufficient men to give up their horses for the members of the ‘School’ waiting there.

It was absolutely amazing. Who would have believed it possible to go borrow mounted police and horses to go riding in a morning. If just one person had turned up, more often than not, you’d do left to your own devices to ride your horse alone in one of the fields. Otherwise a policeman might lead you in an improvised lesson.

I subsequently discovered that many locals learned to ride in exactly this way.

One of the many unique ways of life in the city I would later adopt and move to.

I was reminded of  all this on reading this article about …..

The Mounted Police in Mysore

what’s in a name part 3

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so to get the PAN (registered for tax) card, for Manjula. I need to find proof of address , Photo ID and Date of Birth. It’s a bit like a board game, throw the dice, move forward a few steps, teeter a bit on the edge and run the risk of falling back a step or two.

In my view, this will help in our ultimate aim of obtaining a passport

Simple:

proof of address comes from her election ID card

nah, that will not do, its got the wrong address and name, so what else can we use? Thankfully, I used to match her savings: rupee for rupee, so I’d set up a bank account for her years ago and yes…….. it’s got her proper name and address. So there is a BIG tick for the bank pass book. Result!

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But we do need something with her name on it and photograph …. believe it or not, even though the address and father’s name is wrong we can go with the election ID card, astonishing, but eh beggars can’t be choosers, so just don’t tell anyone… great stuff, we’re at tick no 2.

Photo ID, the election card

 

In these situations, the evidence for the date of birth, if a birth certificate is not available, is the school leaving certificate or as in Manjula’s case, her TC or Transfer Certificate. She didn’t last more than a very short time at school so there wasn’t a formal leaving as such! So off we went to the school she last attended in Bamboo Bazaar in Mysore, around 35 years ago. Your wouldn’t believe it. Once Manjula, had explained what we were after, the current head teacher, reached into her cupboard for one of (only a few ledgers to cover so many years!) and started checking dates and names. After a couple of false trails she found her entry. Astonishing! She completed a new TC, paid up and they posed for our commemorative photo. Result…….. tick no 3

 

 

 

It’s taken sometime but we’re on our way, so I take the documents to the accountant.

 

 

 

Our wishing well….

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we do wish you well but it’s actually a wishing WALL…

It’s a great example of what fun we have at Mysore BnB and how it sometimes feels like a big international family.

This latest project started from a photograph

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Andrew Murren, one of our wonderful previous guests, posted this photo on facebook. It’s from Japan and called Ema. Found in Shinto Temples, visitors buy a plaque, write a wish and hang it on the wall. Well, we thought it was pretty cool.

So we discussed it with various guests who also liked it.

We all thought it would be good to create our very own. I recruited Suresh from Sri Muruli Fine Arts to make some wooden shapes as a bit of an experiment. They are the guys who I reckon are amongst the best wood inlay and marquetry artists in Mysore. Here’s two of the team at work.

So check it out, below.

Ok, there isn’t very much so far… but that’s the point, it will build up over-time and become its own work of art…. you are invited to make a wish or statement or just design a plaque and hang it on our wall.  It’s launched by a lovely family of artists from New Zealand. Admittedly they have set a rather  high standard with beautiful plaques and other recent guests with a similar artistic bent have risen to the challenge. But it’s not about great art, it’s about making a wish or a statement, if you want to make it art, then that’s fantastic, an added extra. But what’s really important is that we invite all those taking part to buy the plaque and all the money goes to the Asha Kirana Charitable Trust and their wonderful work with people in Mysore who are HIV+ and with AIDS.

what’s in a name? part 2

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So what to do next?

remembering that our eventual aim is to get Manjula a passport, but let’s build up to the big tasks and start with something more straightforward

a simple first challenge was to get a PAN card for Manjula. You get a PAN card when you register to pay taxes. Country needs people to pay taxes so you’d expect it to be relatively easy. Well it, sort of, is and I’ve got one (as has the company), so it can’t be that difficult, can it?

pics of ID cards have been removed

This would be important as would be to learn from the process of obtaining it, we’d need to get Manjula’s various ID’s in line (rather like ducks) and the card itself would be a valuable addition to helping create a formal identity suited to the modern age 😉 yeh, right! what are we waiting for?

So the man to manage the process would be Ganesh, my very able accountant. He copes with my idiosyncratic accounting practices, so is nothing, if not flexible and adaptable.

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But of course, the balloon (ie me, do check our business card) is ‘the fixer’ or is it gopher?

 

First stage is to get her three forms of ID that show her photo, name, Date of Birth and address… now let me just find them out…….

Projects

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we’ve had a few. The latest might be a bit of a challenge.

Vasanth has been a great help in so many of them: whether large or small. He fondly remembers the horse riding period, the riding boots fiasco, finding new ways to experiences India but, I must say, our projects do seem to have got a wee bit bigger: moving to India in itself, is of course, no small P1030419challenge. This, in turn has led to renting a house, furnishing it partly from the lovely things at Ritz Hotel, creating the cycle tours, registering the business, finding the drivers, herding the cats (aka drivers), spending money on lovely art and working out how to haggle so as not to always pay too much foreigner tax,  getting a visa every few years… to mention just a few of the different examples of being tossed out of our comfort zones, into the wild unknown. But I wonder if the latest one is a stretch too far….

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Do I really have to declare that I’m not an idiot? and if I do and she subsequently finds that I am, is that grounds for divorce?

the morning after….

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or elections part three.

The BJP has won a landslide victory. The press and media in general is full of analysis of how, why and what it means to us in India and the wider world. Who knows what it means?

Modi has already initiated many changes. Amongst them, he’s introduced a presidential style in the election, utilised the social media and shown great leadership, all to great effect.

One thing I’ve noticed something new, on a morning shortly after the election.

In one of the parks near my house, members of the RSS (wikipedia labels it a ‘para-military volunteer Nationalist Hindu group based on selfless service to the nation’ although the neutrality of the article is disputed) who have close links with the BJP, will meet once or twice a month, in their uniform of shirt and khaki shorts, to parade and drill. At the most there are 2-3 usually elderly people.

Shortly after the election, there was a parade of maybe a dozen young men from pre to mid teens parading in the park. The elders looked on. So, Id say that the election and the impact of BJP is influencing younger people and their interest in the nationalism of the RSS.

and who knows where it leads….

 

 

We await the other changes…

Sand – The Great Escape

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Sand Karma, from cradle to grave to be born again. The long tentacles of the mafia imprisons the sand by dredging the lakes and rivers, looting the embankments, stealing sand wherever it can, and bribing where it needs to… Dotted around our countryside we see in our rivers, small round boats like metal coracles or Bella (Jaggery) cauldrons or gangs attacking the river banks. These are the starting point for the convoys of bullock carts filled with the precious cargo.
After a sometimes long and arduous journey from river bed or bank, to cart, to truck, to city distribution point (to become official) and then on again (its a wonder there’s no sand travel sickness or maybe there is) to be dumped, unceremoniously outside the mushrooming building sites, found throughout the city. Only then to be reincarnated, as a grey mix, for the greater good of the ‘development’ (some might say ruin) of our great heritage city.

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But this isn’t a sad tail of the demise of sand, the loss of its identity or of its sacrifice to the greater good…..no way.

One or two of our sand grain friends, reunited with water (their very own vehicle) from the previous nights torrential rainfall, seize the opportunity and escape form the constructors piles and become part of a great escape.

This morning the roads are covered with a layer of sand, in time, some might be scraped into little piles and recaptured but some will have managed to reach the storm drains, and on to a new life..

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So next when you notice sand on the road and maybe you feel a bit irritated by the sand on your shoe. Spare a thought for the hard life of sand. Remember the triumphs and tribulations of the grain of sand and its great escape in its long march to the sea.

More on elections

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a follow up and part two of half life finished

This is a pretty impressive election. Just look at some of the facts, complements of the Diplomat:

India’s upcoming general election will be the largest democratic event in history, with more than 814 million people entitled to vote to decide the country’s 16th government. This, however, is not the only record that will be broken when the world’s largest democracy goes to the polls. According to the Centre for Media Studies, Indian politicians will spend as much as $4.9 billion during the electoral contest, which will end in May. The estimate makes this year’s general election the second most expensive of all time, behind only the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign in which, according to the U.S. presidential commission, $7 billion was spent.

The sheer scale of the electoral exercise is unprecedented. Almost two thirds of India’s 1.3 billion people are eligible to vote – 100 million more than in 2009 – and 96% of these have already been equipped with electoral ID cards. In nine polling days spread across five weeks, the world’s largest electorate will visit 930,000 polling booths to cast their votes using 1.7 million electronic voting machines. 11 million personnel, including members of the army, will be deployed to assist with the elections, whilst a further 5.5 million civilians will be employed to manage the voting process.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/03/indias-record-breaking-2014-elections/

Back to the extraordinary ordinary in Mysore.

As you may now be beginning to notice….Manjula is very much my touchstone and helps keeps my ‘ear to the ground’.

As these election for lok Sabah (parliament) are upon us, I’m reminded of last years Karnataka state elections. Manjula was on holiday. I was astonished to hear that her mother came back to Mysore a journey of some hours on an uncomfortable bus in order to place her vote. I was impressed. I thought back to my own studies in politics and the importance we gave to those who’d struggled to give us the vote. It was the sort of commitment that those who’d fought for the vote would have been proud. But you know, in India, nothing is as you’d expect.

Cary, a good friend of some six years, burst my reality bubble.

He explained that political parties pay people to vote for them. Manjula’s mum had travelled back to Mysore as she had been paid to vote for a particular party.

It also why we’ve found, over the last few weeks, checkpoints manned by police and election officials, popping up on many of the roads outside the city. Cars are stopped, searched and when found, large amounts of money or gifts that can’t be properly accounted for are confiscated as it’s assumed they are to be to be used as bribes.

It seems that it is a common practice, at least in state elections, to bribe the electorate to vote for a particular party and in manj’s mum’s case it was 500 Rs. A significant sum for this poor lady who might be lucky, when she found work, to get 200 Rs for a days work. I’m reliably informed there is no bribe money around for this national election.

Another more subtle technique, for state elections, is to promise gifts to the poorer sections of the community , sewing machines, cycles for school children etc and give them once elected, so it influences the vote and it’s paid from the coffers of the state government. Normal politics I suppose, we’re all part of that particular system.

Over dinner this evening, it’s a last supper as Manj goes on holiday (again!) tomorrow. Manj happened to mention that the pressing lady (she operates out of a hut down the road and presses our clothes with an enormous, heavy charcoal driven iron) had ‘earned’ 2,000 Rs by promising to vote for four different political parties in last year’s state elections. Hilarious.

So who has the last laugh?

The poor accept the money, conscientiously vote and press the buttons (they vote at electronic voting machines) for the party they’d wanted to vote for anyway.

People have to survive as best they can.