Khairlanji Anniversary 2011 29sep11 By Atrocity News Service

Today is the 5th Anniversary of  Khairlanji Atrocity happened in Oct. 2007.  The atrocity questioned the real interest of People into the principles of Humanity. Though it is One among the 368 Notorious Atrocities committed on Buddhist Converts , it has all the elements of uncivil outlook of Indian Society in pronounced way.

Witnessing people in general, social activists, lawyers, doctors, politicians and Buddhist Monks congregating from all corners of the world for paying floral tributes to Bhotmange family.  The family Leader Surekha, was humiliated and her dignity was taken for ride by Hindu Gang before murdering her. Later her blind son, brillient daughter and another son were murdered.

Khairlanji massacre has become a WATERSHED that sensitized media, civil society and politic by producing a realistic perspective on caste violence very deeply. Father Bhaiyalal was present in Khairlanji. There is an equivocal demand for having the ‘Khairlanji Memorial Pillar’ in front of the hut. None of the violent incidents reported till this time all over country. Atrocitynews correspondent from Khairlanji reports gathering everywhere, many more joining in groups in diffrent places to pay respect to the Bhotmange Family. We will come with the photographs for our readers soon.

Girangaon Out of Focus: By Rachel Lopez Time Out Mumbai Magzine 2009

Mumbai’s mills were already fast disappearing when Ajit Abhimeshi began to photograph them in 2005, in an effort to capture the changing face of Girangaon. A former resident of the area, 27-year-old Abhimeshi found that several decaying structures had given way to malls and office complexes even as the neighbourhoods around them stayed the same. “I grew up at a time when the mills had already shut,” said Abhimeshi. “I got to see only empty buildings. But my children won’t even be able to see these structures. An important chapter of Mumbai’s past will have disappeared forever.”

 

Abhimeshi’s images, roughly 30 of which will constitute Girangaon Out of Focus, an exhibition at Rachna Sansad, help archive what’s still standing. His images show lone chimneys lost among new skyscrapers and neighbourhoods that house the last of Mumbai’s former mill labourers. Empty shells of outer walls offer views of new constructions beyond, while moss and creepers take over factory facades.  

 

The exhibition is part of a continuing project by the research group Pukar to examine the area’s livelihood, infrastructural and educational opportunities through the lens of the caste system. Though there’s a belief that caste barriers dissolve in a metro like Mumbai, Pukar’s executive director Anita Patil-Deshmukh said that these divisions “are actually reinforced and stronger than ever”, pointing to city ghettoes and caste-specific professions. Abhimeshi contributes with mill photography and research on city celebrities who emerged from chawls, the commercialisation of community festivals and Girangaon’s khanavals – tiny kitchens run by women for millworkers living alone in Mumbai.  

 

Abhimeshi’s exhibition opens on January 18, the date that marks the anniversary of the day union leader Datta Samant started the enormous mill workers strike against the Bombay Mill Owners Association in 1982. “Twenty-six years on, most mill workers’ children are unaware of the strike,” said Abhimeshi, who hopes his images say what history books don’t.

 

The photo exhibition is a preview to a Girangaon festival that Pukar will organise later this year. “Two locations in Mumbai, Dharavi and Girangaon, are going through an unprecedented transformation never before witnessed in history,” she said. “Dharavi has been studied and studied and studied, but no one has looked at Girangaon. We’re telling these people that we revere their contribution to the city. We understand what they have been through.”

City of Gold review by Sonia Chopra

Movie
City of Gold
Director
Mahesh Manjrekar
Cast
Vineet Kumar, Sameer Dharmadhikari, Kashmira Shah and Satish Kaushik


The film’s title is sarcastic. For the message, it wishes to inculcate is that while Mumbai is assumed to be city of gold (opportunities), these riches have been paved upon the toils of several mill workers who never got their due.
The setting is a chawl in the `80s (a time when mill shutters were being downed robbing thousands of their livelihood) – the protagonists are a family supported by a textile mill-worker. The workers haven’t been paid for six months and are being encouraged to retire voluntarily. Without any income, the workers’ families are distraught. Tired of false promises by the owners who are keen to sell off the land for a new mall, a family in the chawl commits suicide. Their union leader Rane (Sachin Khedekar) fights for their rights, but can’t battle the attitude of his own people who are ready to quit the fight for a little money.

There are some arresting moments – you truly feel for the plight of the workers, and are moved when their firebrand leaders climb on top of cabs and rev up the workers. The story of disillusioned young, with an easy access to alcohol, guns and smooth-talking crime lords is also disturbing.

The character you feel for the most is the home’s matriarch Aai (Seema Biswas) who sees each of her children let her down one by one. Post-retirement, the husband too refuses to take any responsibility. It’s left to her to handle the lives of each of her family members, and welcome money into the home, even if got by questionable means. She watches helplessly as one son loses a job over robbery, another gets embroiled in crime, while a third must sell a kidney to keep things afloat.

The realism is often hampered by melodramatic bits: the neighbourhood wife having an extra-marital affair explaining her infidelity, for the benefit of the viewer and the eavesdropping husband outside the door; the women turning to prostitution; criminal gangs running with 14-year-olds drunk on power and alcohol, and so on.

This melodrama has been questioned also by a columnist who quotes PUKAR activist Ajit Abhimeshi.

As per the article, Abhimeshi who has had first-hand experience of working with mill workers, City of Gold chooses to showcase only the sensational bits – “Instead of choosing to show how women of mill workers often got together in the most enterprising of ways, the film chooses to focus on those rare cases of prostitution that may have happened. The underworld did seep into the neighbourhood. Unemployment and lack of financial support did have the potential to degrade the most ethical of youngsters. But never to the point that anyone would attack a passerby at night or pick up a fallen vada pav from the pavement. This is clearly a gaze that comes from the outside.”

And truly enough, the film plays on one heart-rending episode after the other, never seamlessly weaving them all. It’s mean to manipulate and shock (a character ends up with a contract to kill his own friend’s father; another character dies most unexpectedly), never really saying much.

Mahesh Manjrekar (Astitiva, Virudh, Vaastav) while taking up the cause of the mill worker doesn’t tell us enough. What we see is stock film portrayal of the city’s underprivileged and their daily struggle for survival. You wish the film had delved deeper with a more hands-on approach and more layered characters. The ending sequence is simply offensive. The Maharashtrian family speaking in Hindi also robs the film of its authenticity; one is certain the Marathi version (Lalbaugh-Parel) is more effective. Performance by the cast is a huge bonus.

One can call the film somewhat gripping, but hardly one that explores the mill worker’s tribulations with an honest heart.

Link - http://www.sify.com/movies/bollywood/review.php?id=14939523&ctid=5&cid=2425