Posts Tagged ‘children’s media’

A youth newspaper on environmental issues

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Posted 08 Jul 2010 — by admin
Category GreenWatch, Jalebi Ink Events, children's media, environment

Round one of Jalebi Ink’s workshop,  Create Your Own Newspaper is drawing to a close. All the young journos who participated have been working hard to meet their deadlines. Once their articles are in, there will be a round of editing, design and production work. And then it’s off for printing.

The newspaper will focus on environment issues in Mumbai. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s been happening:

Participants spent some time in Dharavi’s Thirteen Compounds where our garbage gets recycled.

Jalebi Ink reporter Maitri speaks to the children in the recycling compound in Dharavi

Children sort through trash at a recycling unit in Dharavi

Jalebi Ink reporter Abhishek with some children at Dharavi

Workshop participants also checked out how a citizen’s rainwater harvesting project is supplying most of their water needs.

Jalebi Ink reporters Shalvi, Mitali, Krittvee, Mehr and Krisha with residents of a housing society in Dadar who have initiated a rainwater harvesting project on their own

And went on a tour with a member of the Tree Authority of India to find out why the current tree census indicates Mumbai’s tree population has mysteriously gone up.


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Kids to make their own newspaper

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Posted 12 Jun 2010 — by admin
Category Jalebi Ink Events, child rights
Hindustan Times
Mumbai, June 12, 2010
First Published: 01:22 IST(12/6/2010)

Next week, children can sign to learn how to create a newspaper, right from reporting and interviewing to writing and editing.

Jalebi INK, a media blog for young people, will conduct a four-day ‘Create your own Newspaper’ workshop for six to 18-year-olds from June 21 to 24.

The children will bring out a ‘green’ newspaper after interviewing people such as corporator Adolf D’Souza and environmental activist Sumaira Abdulali.

Children will be divided into smaller, age-appropriate groups to produce the newspaper, which will be printed and sent to their homes by the organisation.

“We want to conduct more such workshops. Eventually this will be a monthly newspaper which children can subscribe to,” said Anuradha Sengupta, founder and managing editor of Jalebi INK, which has previously conducted workshops on trash recycling and use of pedal-power.

Jalebi INK hopes to encourage children to speak on matters important to them.

“Children have a lot to talk about their world, from favouritism and bullying in school to the books they are reading,” added Sengupta.

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The idli seller

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Posted 06 May 2010 — by admin
Category My mohalla

By Nikita Arivazhagan (11) and Subhashri Acharya (10)

Every morning at around eight, a man in a short lungi walks up to the pavement on the road in front of our apartment in Bandra (west), Mumbai. He unloads five steel containers which are precariously balanced on his head and serves up generous helpings of a most delicious morning breakfast. This is Raman. He has been selling his idlis and vadas with finger-licking coconut chutney in our neighbourhood from the same spot for the past eight years.

Raman with his mobile restaurant. He comes equipped with a bunch of paper (cut from magazines and newspapers) to serve his snacks on

You can have a plate of four steaming fluffy idlis and four crispy vadas for as little as Rs10.

Raman ladles a generous dollop of his trademark coconut chutney on to some idlis
The piping hot breakfast has many takers in the area

We have had this breakfast on many lazy Sunday mornings. We have also ordered the snacks in bulk for some of our birthday parties. Many people love his food  –  the office-goers in the area, people who work from the pavement like the nearby newspaper stall owner and others who are just passing by – they all have breakfast here.

Nikita (left) and Subhashri talk to Raman, their neighbourhood idli seller for Jalebi Ink’s My Mohalla Project

Raman lives in Dharavi and comes all the way to Bandra every morning. He wakes up at 4am to steam the idlis and fry the vadas and grind the ingredients for the coconut chutney. His chutney was the best we have had so far. He takes the local train to Bandra and arrives around 8am to serve up breakfast to early morning office-goers. By 11am, all the food is over. Raman is from Madurai, a city in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He says he came to Mumbai to make a living selling idli-vada. “This wouldn’t have worked in Tamil Nadu – everyone in that part of the world is making idlis! So I thought of Mumbai.”

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My Mohalla: The man in the booth

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Posted 06 May 2010 — by admin
Category My mohalla

By Taarika Thakore (9) and Malaika Mathew Chawla (13)

Outside our building, there is a phone booth on the pavement with many red bulky phones. Throughout the day all kinds of people use these to make calls. A man with grey hair sits inside the booth. He is the owner. He charges Rs 1 to make a local call. I have made calls from the booth sometimes. But we hardly know this man who sits in the kiosk every day from morning till night. Today we decided to get to know him better. We had a long conversation with him. We found out that his name is Jitendra Hiralala Katharani. He is 58 years old. He lives in Bandra East – his booth is in Bandra West (Mumbai). He calls it Radhika World Link. He told us it is a legal phone booth with a no objection certificate given by the municipal corporation.

How long have you been working at the phone booth?

I have been working here for five years now.

What time do you start or end your work?

I open my shop at 9am and close at 7pm.

How many customers do you get in a day?

About 100 customers.

How much money do you earn?

I earn 20 per cent. The rest goes to the government.

Katharani opens his booth at 9am and closes at 7pm

What was Bandra like when you first came here?

Bandra looked very plain when I first came here, but now it looks more beautiful. The Lilavati Hospital building was constructed right in front of my eyes.

Do you like it here?

Yes, I have come to know many people. No one troubles me here. It is quite peaceful.

Malaika (left) talks to Jitendra Hiralala Katharani

What about holidays?

I take  Sundays off.

Do you have any children?

No, I am unmarried. I have no children.

We always see you sitting here. Do you take a break to eat?

Yes, two times.

When you go to eat your food, do you close your shop?

I sit inside the booth and eat. I take my food from my brother who lives nearby in the MSEB quarters. It takes only ten minutes to get my food from there. I lock my shop till then.

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My Mohalla: Counting crosses in Bandra

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Posted 06 May 2010 — by admin
Category My mohalla, neighbourhoods

By Aiden Lillywhite, Akul and Sheldon

Akul, Aiden and Sheldon

The narrow street on which we spotted many crosses

In Bandra where we stay, there’s a small area with many old houses with tiled roofs. This is Runwar Village.  Some of these houses are more than a century old. That is why this area has been declared a ‘heritage precinct’.

One thing that strikes anyone who comes here is the large number of crosses.

We counted – on just two very small lanes, there were 23 crosses.

Some right next to each other. Some were on the road.  Some in people’s verandahs. One turn on the road had six crosses.

We were curious. We set out to find out the reason behind the crosses. Some people said it was because the area was full of Catholics. Some said to help people pray on their way to work or back.

Mr John Gomes tells us the story of the plague

Then we met Mr John Gomes, a resident of Chapel Road. There are six crosses all a stone’s throw away from his house. He told us almost a century back, Bandra had been struck by a plague. Many people died. This place was overtaken by rats who spread the disease by biting people. “People were dying like flies, Mr Gomes told us. “We would bury someone, some back and see another person had died. The dead were sometimes carried away in cartloads. Many people packed their belongings and fled to the mountain.” Which mountain, we asked. Mt Mary, he replied. (Mt Mary is a church in Bandra situated on a little hill facing the sea). That is why people built the crosses, Mr Gomes said, to protect themselves from the plague. As a plea to Jesus to save them. Had anyone died in his family? No, he replied.

This cross was built in 1907. The plague ended in 1906.

We later found out that the plague happened between 1896 to 1906. Lord Sandhurst, who was the Governor of Bombay at that time, appointed a committee headed to combat the plague. There are over 150 commemorative crosses in Bandra.

There were other reasons for building some of the crosses. In a very old book called ‘Bandra: Its Religious and Secular History’ (published in 1939), local historian Bras Fernandes writes this: “People believed that evil spirits haunted the junctions of three roads, burial grounds and even the ponds in the paddy fields that stretched beyond Hill Road. Many stone crosses were thus erected on “less frequented roads and along the seashore, chiefly to preserve the living from the fear of ghosts and the spirits of darkness”.

Nowadays the crosses are spots where people stop to pray. Or hang garlands. People gather in front of the big ones during religious festivals and sing and chant.

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My day at The Farmer’s Market

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Posted 01 May 2010 — by admin
Category GreenWatch, Jalebi Ink Events

By Parina Muchhala, 11

I had been to the Farmer’s Market at Bandra (West) in Mumbai on Sunday, the 25th of April. Here all the food sold was organic and chemical-free. As I stepped in, a fresh smell of vegetables greeted me. It was a huge garden, with different stalls selling vegetables, beads, solar caps, juice, herbal medicines and so on.

Some people were performing Agnihotra, a yagna to purify the air. There were many farmers selling different vegetables, most of them being potatoes, onions etc. And some food counters too. There was a bhel puri counter where it was all naturally grown ingredients used. ‘95% organic bhelpuri’ said the poster. There was a book exhibition and a sushi counter too.

You would also get organic sugarcane juice! And there were some herbal medicine counters selling medicines to cure almost any type of fever.

I went to interview a few farmers and some people. At first I went to Mr. Anand Bhave, a 47 year old man who lives in Andheri and does paper folding art. He says, “I make furniture out of recycled paper and use natural colours. I love nature and so I don’t want it to get destroyed.” On asking him at what age he started doing this he says, “I started doing paper craft on my own when I was 10 and no one taught me to do it.” He says he uses only a few tools to do this. “I only use some tools like cutters, pokers and hands, most of the time.” He has 12 hobbies like skating, traveling, making things etc. Bhave loves to do this at any time, any place and has a company called ‘Oricraft’.

Next we went to a farmer called Mr. Sampat Balnath Dhamane. He has come from Nasik to sell his crop. I asked him how he fertilized his crop, and he says, “I use gobar (cow dung) to fertilize my crop. I take more time to grow it and more of my efforts are wasted.” When asked why organic foods are better Dhamane says, “There is no chemical and you get natural sweetness in the food.” He grows bottle gourd, onions etc. on his farm. The government does not support him in any way, he only has a certified right to grow such crops. Whenever he goes to places like Bhajji Gali, the farmers and sellers using chemicals protest against him. “They do not let me sell my things there, so I have to go somewhere else.” He delivers fresh things at your doorstep and you can contact him at 9004259600.

Then I interviewed another farmer called Ramesh Pawar, who too had come here from Nasik. It was his family business. He says, “Organic foods are better for you because there is no chemical in it. I use gobar (cow dung), chana ka aata, gomutra (cow urine), neem leaves and jaggery to make a slurry. That is the fertilizer I use.” They have a certified group called ‘Kashap Group of Organic Farmer’ which includes 5 other farmers like him. They are running it since 13 years. He ends by saying that all should eat organic foods for the betterment of their health.

And suddenly, I bumped into Mrs. Kavita Mukhi, the person who started this market. On asking her how and why she started the market she said, “I had started a company called Conscious Foods in 1990 to sell the dry versions of food. But I wanted to give fresh food to everyone. So the farmers came together and I could make this market. Also, because my son was a colicky child, and I realized it was due to harmful chemicals in food, I studied nutrition. This market started before 6 weeks.” She says that the farmers get all their earnings. “I do not take any commission from the farmers and they take home the full price. Only we take a little bit from the stall owners.” Mrs. Mukhi was a journalist before becoming a nutritionist. “I was one of the first employees with Gentlemen magazine, and I yet dabble in writing every now and then.” I asked her if she has and special message for all the readers and she says, “Choose organic not for your health but for the earth’s health. This market is open to all of you. You can come and organize workshops, play around, and do whatever you like.”  And there ended my interview with her.

I really had a lot of fun paying a visit to the farmers market and you must go too. There are many activities here and you would enjoy it. And yes, as Mrs. Mukhi says, ‘Choose organic not for your health, but for the earth’s health.’ I pay a tribute to this lady who has tried to save our mother earth in small steps.

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A street play for strays

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Posted 27 Apr 2010 — by admin
Category Animal rights, Public spaces, neighborhoods, neighbourhoods, strays, street theatre, streets

On Sunday evening (April 25), we joined a group of street theatre artists who put up a roadside performance to protest against cruelty towards animals, especially strays. We first met Durga Rai, the head of the group. She is a student of NSD (National School of Drama).  She is also a member of the animal welfare organization called Karuna.

She had some students of KC College with her who were performing in the play. They said they were performing every day at some public spot in Mumbai. The last performance will be on May 30 and then they would wrap it up for the time being.

The troupe began their journey from Linking Road, Bandra. We went with them shooting with our cameras. First they went around distributing pamphlets which talked about the need to stop cruelty to animals to people on the road. We also helped them distribute the pamphlets.

Durga told everyone that if you see an injured animal, please call on the number given on the pamphlets. She also told them if anyone tries to injure an animal, they can be sentenced for up to seven years.

After that they went to New Hanuman Nagar, near Carter Road and performed their play. This was a slum and it many kids came to watch the play.

In the play, Durga is asked by two very rude men to stop feeding dogs. They also tell her if she loves them so much, to take them home with her. That they are dirty and they bite.

Durga replies that humans have taken over their homes – the dogs used to live in the same places where we have built our houses. We uproot animals and then do not want them around. She said humans too dirty up places. Look at rail tracks – people are using public spaces as toilets too. So why pick on animals? And if you think the dog population is getting too big and think killing them is a good idea, then humans too should face the same treatment because they too are growing in large numbers. All this made the audience think.

After the play, Durga made the children promise they would never be unkind to street dogs. We saw lots of children petting the dogs in the area after the play was over. And some people were feeding the dogs. One man came and said I like dogs and feed them but my wife chases them with a stick. Another man came and asked her how to round up the dogs for sterilization and send to Karuna.

After everything was over, we said bye to Durga and the team took one last picture together. I hope we meet them again.

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My first protest

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Posted 12 Mar 2010 — by admin
Category Uncategorized

A protest against fascism at the Kalaghoda Festival

By Anand Benegal, 12

Some time back, the Shiv Sena ( a political party in Mumbai) boycotted the Hindi film My Name Is Khan – all because its lead actor Shahrukh Khan had said in an interview that Pakistani cricket players should be included in the teams that play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches. Some rowdy Shiv Sena party workers even attacked and damaged booking windows in cinema halls in Mumbai. We decided to protest against this parochialism shown by the Shiv Sena. I had already written an article strongly speaking against this phenomenon but it was not enough! We (My dad and a few of his friends) planned to go to the Kalaghoda festival, an annual open-air art and culture festival and actually hold up posters and protest. (That’s me on the far left of the photo above).

After reaching the Kala Ghoda festival, we saw one of the people in our group had made and got along a small bundle of small posters carried out with captions like: “My name is Khan, My name is Yadav, My name is Pandey, My name is Singh, My name is Mumbai.” And another one said, “Wake Up and Smell the Fascism.”

It was a first for me – protesting in a public space in the view of everyone. I must admit that at first I decided I had nothing to do with all this and felt embarrassed and somewhat annoyed with my dad and asked him questions like “Why do we have to do this?” and “Why is this necessary?” but all he said was “You’ll see.” which made me feel extremely irritated.

But after a while, I relaxed as I saw the effect our small group of protesters was having on the crowd at the festival.

A woman asked us to explain the meaning of fascism to her boy. We told them that fascism was when someone was not letting you freely express your opinion about what you want, what you think and what you feel. (The boy  immediately pointed to his mother!)

Another woman wanted to hold up a poster too. She had her kid, a small girl, with her who  kept trying to snatch the poster from her saying, “No mamma, don’t do it. They will beat you up too.” The woman explained that the girl had seen the Shiv Sena beating up people and breaking things on TV (which was their way of protesting against the film MNIK).  So she was afraid they would do it to her mamma too.

Initially, I was extremely shy and afraid, holding up my poster half-heartedly and mumbling to myself but I soon found the protests getting quite a few positive responses. People were clapping – one old man came and wanted to know if we belonged to an organization and could he join it. Many people asked us if we had a platform they could all join. A group of children who were attending a finger painting class joined us.

Many gave us a thumbs-up. People surrounded us taking our photos.

The positive reactions cheered me up quite a lot. Soon I started giving explanations about this protest to the various people who asked us and I finally started getting into this unusual scheme of things.

People asked us for posters. Some held up posters with us, some wore the protest message on their T-shirts. Some on their backpacks.

We were no longer just the few of us — we had become a big group, so many people had joined us!

We soon ran out of the ‘My Name Is Khan…My Name Is Mumbai’ posters and had to get photocopies done from a nearby shop. My dad drew a few on-the-spot spoofy sketches of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray in minutes with captions like: ‘YOU ONLY HAVE TO SAY ‘NA’ TO THIS MAN!’ and showed them around. The posters were funny, but unfortunately a few people didn’t think so.

Two Shiv Sainiks caught us and asked us why we had put Bal Thackeray’s sketch on the poster and that instead we should have put Shahrukh Khan (‘he is the bigest terrorist’, they said) or Ajmal Kasab’s face instead. They were asking us what Thackeray had done to deserve this. We explained to them that first, this was a non-violent protest. Second, Thackeray’s face was on the poster as we had many grievances against him. Apart from boycotting theatres which released the film My Name Is Khan, we can blame him for:

1.  The 1992-93 Mumbai riots (him mainly creating Hindu-Muslim rifts in Mumbai.)

2.  The Babri Masjid demolition

3.  In 2008, Thackeray wrote “Islamic terrorism is growing and Hindu terrorism is the only way to counter it. We need suicide bomb squads to protect India and Hindus”. Under interrogation, Lt General Hoon claimed, Thackeray instructed him to set up the suicide training camps

4.  He boycotted shops and restaurants in 2006 that sell Valentine’s Day items, stating it was indecent and not Indian to celebrate that festival.

5.  He stated in one of his many inflammatory speeches that Biharis are an unwanted lot in Maharashtra.

6.  His party workers burnt down Singhania hospital.

7.  His party pillaged newspaper offices

And many other atrocities…

Need I say more?

After having that short argument with the highly illogical Shiv Sainiks, we took another round of the festival and showed the posters around once again and then got into an argument with the organisers.

“I’m very sorry, could you people stop showing around these posters in this area?”

“Why do we need to do that? After all, this is a peaceful protest!”

“Well, whatever you people are doing is very provocative. We don’t want any such inciting banners or posters over here because after all, this is an art festival.

“BUT ART HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF THE MEANS OF NON-VIOLENT PROTEST!”

“Well, next time you can probably print or stick these on T-shirts, or do a peaceful protest by SMS because that is allowed.

“But we are not provoking anybody, are we? We are just non-violently standing like statues, showing posters around and making a point? Why isn’t that allowed?”

“I’m sorry but please do not do it at this festival.”

Art has always been used as a non-violent means of protest and actively going to a place, holding banners or posters, and simply showing them around creates a much bigger impact than passively inviting your friend to a social networking group or forwarding an SMS which will not make as deep an impact as a poster protest but will also be forgotten. People will at least remember us as a bunch of zany activists making a stand against the Shiv Sena.

Now I finally know why we must actively protest against such regionalist atrocities.

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Schools, teachers and all that

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Posted 25 Feb 2010 — by admin
Category TalkAbout

By Taarika Thakore, 9
When I was in senior KG, I wanted to go to the toilet very badly. Then teacher came and she slapped me. If I was the principal, I’d make teachers do 10 sit-ups because they give us so much work to do. Adults have much less work. We kids are working all the time. Adults can come back from their office whenever they want to.

In my ideal school, there would be no homework; a verrry big compound for kids to play in, and lots of greenery and flowers and butterflies; and a swimming pool – I love swimming. I would be the only teacher and I would give only twenty children admission at a time. Because I would be able to handle just that many. I could do with less classes to go to. The day just goes by – from here to there, from there to here. I like Maths. I hate Hindi and Marathi. My class teacher Ms Stevens is very nice. She lets us sit with our friends in her class. Other teachers don’t.

What’s life in school like? Tell us at jalebi.ink@gmail.com

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Mumbai’s first car-free day

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Posted 24 Feb 2010 — by admin
Category GreenWatch, neighbourhoods

Chew on this.

There are over 22 lakh private vehicles in Mumbai, 8000 buses, 55000 taxis. Future shock: 550 new cars are registered every day in the city!

On Sunday, February 21, for the first time ever, Mumbai held a Car Free Day. It was held on one road only – Carter Road in Bandra. No cars were allowed. From 8am to 10pm, we had the roads to ourselves. People came in their cycles from all over.

The strange thing was some used their big cars to come with their cycles.

Our parents do not let us get on to the roads because of the cars. But today was different!

Having the road to ourselves was great fun. We cycled around without having to dodge dangerous traffic. People were walking around. A cyclothon was held.

We saw a troupe of capoeira dancers singing and dancing on the roads.

There were no fumes. There was no noise. But wait… did we say no noise? There was one irritating noise source – big speakers blaring some bad music, set up by local gyms. The gym people came to attend the car-free day with a bunch of stationery cycles.

What was the point of cycles that go nowhere? And all that noise! This was supposed to be a noise-free day. We weren’t the only ones who didn’t understand the presence of gym cycles. A city-based organisation that is campaigning to bring down noise levels in Bombay were also miffed with the noise levels. They were supposed to do a before and after noise survey on the day. We will be reporting on the survey soon.

We met many interesting people. This 73-year-old woman cycles every day in the evenings. She told us the car-free road was a huge relief for her and for her young niece.

And Sarabjeet and Aryan who came all the way from Worli in his cycle. Aryan is the son of a fruitseller who sits below Sarabjeet’s building.  Aryan loves cycling and when he heard about the car-free day and the cyclathon, he was very excited. So Sarabjeet decided to bring him to Bandra. From Worli, Bandra is a long way — about 7 kilometres. That was quite a feat, guys!

We also met some people who have been using cycles as a mode of transport for a long time. Like Shamsher, this milkman.

And this newspaper delivery man. Both swear by cycling as a means to keep fit and healthy and keep the planet in good condition too.

We wish every Sunday was a car-free day. We hear Times Square in New York has become permanently car-free. Can we do that in Mumbai too?

You can watch a video report of this story on Jalebi Ink’s YouTube channel:  Car-free day in Mumbai

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