Madras Week: Dr. J. Josephine

Dr. J. Josephine

by

Vasughi Adityan

Dr. J. Josephine, or Ma’am as we all fondly refer to her as, has been a pillar of strength and support for the innumerable students who have crossed her path.  I first met her when I joined the Mass Communication and Journalism Department of the University of Madras as a student in 1982.  Ma’am then was a quiet, self-effacing lecturer who spread warmth and deep caring with whoever she came in touch with.  She taught us film studies and encouraged us to attend the film screenings at the then Chennai Film Society.  To most of us, this was a journey that began then and has been a rich and rewarding experience.  We learnt to analyze films, to deconstruct them along several paradigms, particularly along feminist perspectives.  You could say that that was our first introduction to feminism.  After class, she was always game for a cup of tea in the office space she shared with another great lecturer, Dr. B. P. Sanjay.  You could say that many were the relationships that were cemented there.

From college days, I moved on to the realm of daily life with its numerous responsibilities, joys, successes, failures and the entire gamut of human experiences that one traverses along the path of life.  Throughout these days, I kept in touch with Ma’am, and she was one companion that accompanied me along this journey, though we would meet maybe once in two or three months.  No matter how limited her time, she would welcome me with a warm, affectionate smile, and lend a patient, listening ear while I updated her on my life.  I came away from these interactions feeling warm, supported, loved.  I soon discovered that there were many such “special” students she cared for.  Most of them were girls who drew strength and encouragement from the quiet strength she exuded and went back to bravely tackle whatever issues/setbacks they were currently facing in their lives.  Throughout all these sessions, she would gently prod us to pursue our careers and if that was not on the cards at that point of time, she would offer quiet, enduring, comforting and non-judgmental support for whatever decisions we had made.  She was truly the quintessential teacher, comforter, guide, and sincere companion, always available to us well beyond our college days.

When she retired as the Head of the Department a few years ago, I was overwhelmed at the outpouring of accolades at the farewell party we threw for her.  Mostly from women, though well-attended by the male ex-students too, we heard emotional stories of how Ma’am had served as a pillar of strength during difficult times and how she had silently cheered them along their successes.  Asked what she considered the greatest virtue, she replied it was the ability to practice the art of contentment.  When I thought about it, in all my years of association with her, though she had faced many difficult times career-wise that I was aware of, I had heard little about it from her.  She seldom complained, while she seemed to have taken a vow to always be there for those students who sought her out to share their struggles and triumphs with.  This to me, is the ultimate sacrifice, the act of offering oneself in true service to others in a spirit of love, peace, warmth, compassion.  She continues to be so, post-retirement, a good friend, trusted companion, always available to those in need.  Eventually, she will make the move to Mysore, her home town and Chennai will be the lesser for that occurrence.  But we all know that wherever she lives, she will continue to always be there for those who seek her out.  I am grateful for the experience of having her in my life as I am sure are many other women like me.

Madras Week: Vimala Seshadri

Vimala Seshadri: Not Without My Daughters

Shalini Umachandran

The only male in this family of 13 is a gorgeous brown German Shepherd named Lupin. Pharmacologist and medical researcher Vimala Seshadri lives with 10 girls between the ages of four and 20, who come from underprivileged backgrounds, and two dogs.

“We’re an all-women household,” says Vimala, who has been bringing up the girls as her own daughters in a small home in Injambakkam for the past nine years. While the younger girls study at a nearby CBSE school, the older ones have just started working. Twenty-two year old Sashi, who came to Vimala when she was 14, is doing her BCom through correspondence and works as an au pair for an expat couple. “The older girls also babysit for expat couples on weekends. And the money they make is put aside for them,” says Vimala. “Sashi paid for her younger sister’s wedding with the money she made as an au pair,” she says.

In Vimala’s home, the focus is on education and being independent. The girls live with her through the year and go back to their parents during the holidays. “We go back for a while, but this is home too,” says Divya (18), who’s paraplegic and has just finished class 12 at a special school. She’s planning to start her own baking business with Vimala’s help.

They’re a happy hard-working gaggle of girls, only too pleased to invite you to their next Christmas party (“we bake loads of cake and cookies that disappear in a flash”), bring you their two-week-old puppy to pet (“look, her eyes are still closed!”) or show off their pink dinner plates with Disney characters (“there are three princesses on this plate). Tiny squabbles break out occasionally — the kind that siblings have — over the better actor, whose custard turned out better or whose turn it is to water the garden.

Born to Indian parents in the US, Vimala had never spent time in India, though her family is from Chennai. She decided to work with children while she was living in Michigan in 1993. “Soon after I had made that promise to myself, I got a call from the local hospital saying there was an Indian girl there who spoke no English, and could I help. That’s what made me think of coming to India.”

She came to India in 1994 and until 1997, worked in an orphanage in Tirukundram. “It was mostly an administrative role but it made me realise that though the children were well looked after, they needed one-on-one attention. I believed I could give it to them.”

So in 1998, she set up the Nivedita Centre for Learning in the US as an organisation that focussed on education and making girl children financially independent. She and trustee R N Prasad started an India branch in 2000 and Vimala moved to Chennai. “We moved here in 2000. The lease runs out in 2010 and we’re still looking for a house. It’s hard to find a landlord willing to take in a family as diverse as ours,” she says.

Though she gets help from a few donors, Vimala’s been putting in her own money — it costs about Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh a year — to keep the centre running. She juggles work as a senior project information and feasibility associate at Icon Clinical Reasearch in Perungudi with looking after her large family.

Vimala also conducts tuition classes for girls from the fishing village down the road. She pays for a master to tutor the older girls, while one of her girls, Esther teaches the girls from classes one to three. “I was just helping out and realised I love teaching,” says Esther. “I want to become a Montessori teacher and go abroad and study for a while,” she says.

The others have big dreams too — Maheswari wants to be an astronaut, or the President of India. Vaishali wants to be an accountant. “I wanted to be a pilot, but realised I loved numbers after I started doing Vimala Akka’s accounts,” says the class nine student. “You can be both,” interrupts Vimala. “You can get a licence after you finish your CA,” and then adds, “Vaishali’s doing my accounts for the third year. My auditors never find a mistake.”

Vimala believes that every city should have at least one home based on her model. “With a little bit of money, you can do a lot,” she says. “You just have to be ready to give each person one-on-one attention.”

Madras Week: S. Manjubhashini

S. Manjubhashini

by

Swarna Rajagopalan

I am not a Madrasi, as anyone who has met would have heard me assert. For most of my life, I associated Madras with obligatory visits, admonitions about appropriate conduct common to all diaspora-come-home experiences and a redoubtable person called S. Manjubhashini. We called her ‘Rajamma’ at home and her children at Bala Mandir knew her as ‘Manjumma.’

A Congresswoman until her last breath, Manjubhashini was one of the countless women to step out of the home to participate in Quit India protests, to court arrest, to learn Hindi and adopt Khadi. She had a sense of the moment, and beyond her own actions, she saw to it that the young people in her family did not live like zombies through this important moment. They took part in rallies and prayer-meetings and those who were lucky, even got pulled out of school to volunteer in the Seva Dal.

Manjubhashini and Congress leader, K. Kamaraj, founded the Bala Mandir Kamaraj Trust in 1949. What is now a sprawling campus with a home, school, dispensary, laundry, carpentry unit, auditorium, research centre and resource centre, began with one cradle and one child. Manjubhashini gave the organization all of her formidable organizational ability and under her disciplined leadership, hundreds of children, over more than three generations, have blossomed into happy and productive citizens.

On Founders’ Day, Bala Mandir kids perform skits where the child playing Manjumma will often castigate someone for describing them as orphans: How can they be orphans when I am there?

I happened to be in Madras during the 1996 May cyclone–floods, power outages, the works–and none of us could step out at all. Manjumma, almost ninety years old, found her way through the floods to Bala Mandir, made calls, arranged for milk and bread and other essentials to reach her children. When I asked her how she had done it, she said: If  I don’t, who will? She died less than five months later.

Today, living in Madras, trying to build something from nothing, I think of her often. I think of that spirit, that courage, that determination and frankly, that willingness to be the unpopular person who takes the tough decision.

Manjubhashini brought the same values to her personal life. She had a routine that never wavered. She related to people and her garden with the same disciplined ‘tough love’ that she brought to her institution, and rebel or not, people and garden blossomed under her care. She was unflinchingly fair and uncompromisingly principled.

Khadi, Hindi, protest marches, politics, music lessons, scouting, camping outdoors, training by INA officers–all entered her very large, joint family household under her leadership, and enriched the lives of those younger than her immeasurably. Good, healthy, tasteful but not wasteful living–this was the core of her family legacy. A very unusual work ethic and a strong public-spiritedness were other gifts. How could creativity not thrive in the circumstances? The large community of cousins who grew up in that house wrote, composed and performed, at home and outside, with her complete encouragement.

And writing about Manjubhasini, how can I not write about K. Meenakshi, her sister-in-law, friend, colleague and support system, who worked with her at home and outside to help achieve her goals? Meenakshi brought humour and warmth to the same causes. They complemented and supported each other over a lifetime of social service of the old-fashioned kind: simply helping whoever came their way, without fuss.

In later years, getting over my shyness around this awe-inspiring person, I got to discover that she had a very sweet singing voice, that she could giggle and that she knew an amazing array of ‘Patience’ games! (She must have needed a lot of patience!)

For me, above all, it is the quest to align both public and private life into one principled way of being, that is most impressive about Manjubhashini’s story. To live as you work, to work as you believe, and to be true to your beliefs–those who struggle with this are those who form the bedrock, not just of a city, but of a society.

Madras Week: Dr. Sarada Menon

Dr. Sarada Menon

by

Dr. R. Thara

For many years, the discipline of psychiatry in Chennai was almost synonymous with one name – Dr. Sarada Menon, the first woman psychiatrist in India. She served with great distinction for 18 years as Superintendent of the Madras Mental Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health). It used to be said that people in Ayanavaram would set their clocks to her routine, and know that it was 8am when they saw her drive by – such was the discipline she had ingrained in herself and others.

During her tenure, the hospital which was then little more than a mere asylum saw many reforms at the administrative and human levels. She brought in social workers and psychologists into the hospital, started a vocational training unit, mainstreamed rehabilitation into the care programmes, opened the doors to volunteers and NGOs from outside and was chiefly responsible for starting psychiatry departments. in many district headquarter hospitals.

Her passion for rehabilitation was one of the main reasons for the genesis of SCARF- a voluntary organization committed to those suffering from severe mental illness. In its silver jubilee year, SCARF has established itself as a centre of national and international repute and is a collaborating centre of the World Health Organization, a distinction accorded to very few NGOs in the world.

Sarada Menon, or Madam, as everyone referred to her, was also responsible for the start of a family movement in Chennai called Aasha, which is now 20 years old. Through the various organizations she helped establish, she still strives to fight the stigma of mental illness, a major barrier to people seeking medical help for psychiatric problems.

Her interests extended beyond mental health. She was vice president of the Red Cross Society and was involved in the construction of many shelters during the cyclones. She has also served on many national committees including one that inspected jails and suggested prison reforms.

Many awards including the Padma Bhushan have come her way, but she continues to be a simple, unassuming person, highly accessible to her patients and their families. Her optimism and perseverance are infectious and inspiring. When I have given up on many potential donors and wanted to move on, she would never give up or show signs of fatigue. “It is difficult for people to understand mental health or the needs of the mentally ill- so, we have to give them time”, she would say. Her thirst for knowledge even at this stage in life and her eagerness to update herself on recent advances is admirable.

Madras Week: MS Subbulakshmi

M.S. Subbulakshmi of Madras

by

Hamsini Ravi

Many homes in Chennai still wake up to her Vishnu Sahasranamam. The woman with a golden voice, who used an initial that stood for her birthplace, Madurai, she spent the more significant part of her life in Madras. Just as she gave the city and its music loving populace an icon to look up to, the city gave her a platform, as a young, shy teenager, to blossom into one of the greatest Carnatic musicians of all time. Yes, Madurai Shanmughavadivu Subbulakshmi, was Chennai’s, through and through.

From her blue silk sarees, to her glass bangles and her reverence to Kanchi Maha Periva; the city loved and adored her. For them, she was one of them, only blessed with a talent so divine, that it felt like the Gods came down to Earth to catch a glimpse of her music. Kunjamma, as she was fondly known as, to near and dear ones, shied away from media glare, and hardly made public appearances, except for charity concerts, created a sweeping fashion statement with her “M.S Blue” sarees.

For the knowledgeable Madras Brahmin community that considered itself as the authority on Carnatic music, to honour a woman singer from the Devadasi community and to give her pride of place, would have been unimaginable a few decades ago. Yet, Subbulakshmi transcended caste barriers with ease, and with the same kind of élan, she sang some of Hinduism’s most sacred verses.

M.S. was the quintessential Madras wife of the 50s, submissive, quiet and accepting. Her husband, Sadasivam, was her mentor and guide, and his word was her law, without argument and question. It was this quiet charm that appealed to her fans, this simplicity and unassuming nature that made her a living legend, beyond her music. When he passed away in 1997, she retired from public life; it was like, her career, died had along with Sadasivam.

The first ever musician to receive the prestigious Bharat Ratna, no award or words of praise can do justice to what she has achieved. Her music, perfect diction and honey-coated voice, touches every heart, it comes across. From scholars of the art to foreigners who have no knowledge of classical notes, her music is deep and stirring. She was a picture of relentless devotion, a bhakti, of the highest order. The Paramacharya’s Maithreem Bhajata sung at her famous concert in the United Nations concert, invokes divine reverberations, as does Rajaji’s Kurai Ondrum illai.

I was fortunate visit her house, in 2000, and was struck by her simplicity, modesty and grace. As she offered us the customary chukku coffee, she told us that she was not keeping too well, but she spoke to us with genuine love and sincerity. “We are all one”, said the Ramon Magsaysay awardee innocently. It’s been 5 years since she departed, yet her immortal music and her bhav, both have their rightful place in the hearts and homes of the music fraternity in Chennai.

Prajnya and Madras Week

As a Madras/Chennai-based organization and also an organization with an interest in documentation and history, we at Prajnya wanted to be apart of upcoming Madras Week celebrations. With limited human resources, we chose this blog as the venue of our celebration and invited our friends to write about Madras women they admired.

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Prajnya celebrates Madras Week 2009

The Women Who Built Madras

Their Story, Your Words, Our History

Madras Week will be observed between August 16 and August 23 this year. Prajnya is committed to documenting and highlighting women’s contributions to public life–as political activists, as social workers, as members of mass movements, as public intellectuals and artists and as professionals.

This year, we celebrate Madras’ women achievers on The PSW Weblog (http://keepingcount.wordpress.com), a blog devoted to the interests and activities of Prajnya’s Politics, Security and Women Initiative.

We invite you to be part of this celebration by contributing between 400-800 words about a Madras/Chennai woman whose contribution to public policy, social change and political life you consider interesting and/or exceptional.

The post contributed could take the form of a profile; an anecdote; an extract from your own work about this person; an extract from their work with correct and full citation and a note explaining your choice; or photographs with a short write-up provided you have the permission to contribute the photograph. Your post may also be personal if this is a person known to you.

As you know, blog posts can be fairly informally written, but please make sure the posts have as full a citation as possible if you are referring to other sources.

We will tag the posts identifiably, along with a page of links to make them easily accessible. We will also make this project known via the social and news media.

Please let us know by return email that you would like to take part, and if possible, who you would like to write about. We would like to receive all the contributions by August 10th so that they can be edited and uploaded well in time.

Prajnya celebrates Madras Week 2009

The Women Who Built Madras

Their Story, Your Words, Our History

Madras Week will be observed between August 16 and August 23 this year. Prajnya is committed to documenting and highlighting women’s contributions to public life–as political activists, as social workers, as members of mass movements, as public intellectuals and artists and as professionals.

This year, we celebrate Madras’ women achievers on The PSW Weblog (http://keepingcount.wordpress.com), a blog devoted to the interests and activities of Prajnya’s Politics, Security and Women Initiative.

We invite you to be part of this celebration by contributing between 400-800 words about a Madras/Chennai woman whose contribution to public policy, social change and political life you consider interesting and/or exceptional.

The post contributed could take the form of a profile; an anecdote; an extract from your own work about this person; an extract from their work with correct and full citation and a note explaining your choice; or photographs with a short write-up provided you have the permission to contribute the photograph. Your post may also be personal if this is a person known to you.

As you know, blog posts can be fairly informally written, but please make sure the posts have as full a citation as possible if you are referring to other sources.

We will tag the posts identifiably, along with a page of links to make them easily accessible. We will also make this project known via the social and news media.

Please let us know by return email that you would like to take part, and if possible, who you would like to write about. We would like to receive all the contributions by August 10th so that they can be edited and uploaded well in time.

***

Watch this space from tomorrow for the responses we received!

FYI: Elsewhere online

Two recent, relevant articles by Swarna Rajagopalan:

• Martyrs, metaphors or wasted lives? Story from Shopian, Kashmir, Asian Security Initiative Blog, June 15, 2009.
• Everyday Feminist, Feminist Everyday: Sa-Pa-Sa-Pa-Sa, Savadati, June 15, 2009.

Women’s Quota Debate Resources 1: The May 2008 Bill

Thanks to PRS Legislative Research, we have access to the text of what is commonly referred to as the Women’s Reservation Bill.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, May 2008.

PRS Legislative Research also has a briefing on the Bill that explicates its provisions without legalese.

Women MPs in 15th Lok Sabha: Dr. Prabha Kishore Taviad

Basic Information:

Name: Dr. Prabha Kishor Taviad

Constituency: Dahod (Gujarat)

Party: Indian National Congress

Terms in parliament: First term

Age: 54

Contact Information: Jhalod road, opposite Mission Hospital, TA-Dahod, Dirtrict HDahod-389151, Gujarat.

Only woman candidate fielded by a political party in entire central Gujarat, Dr. Taviad was given a ticket to contest, chosen over veteran Congress leader Somjibhai Damor.  A gynecologist by profession, she campaigned door to door, tying scarves on the hands of the voters (like rakhis) which became a trademark of her candidature. One of seven candidates who had fought for a seat in the Dahod constituency, Dr. Taviad’s husband Dr Kishore Taviad is the Dahod district zilla panchayat president, and a seasoned politician.

For more details, visit the following links:

• Sachin Sharma. 2009. She ties bonds with scarves. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com. 28/4/09. 9/7/09

Women MPs in 15th Lok Sabha: Jat Poonamben Veljibhai

Basic Information:

Name: Jat Poonamben Veljibhai

Constituency: Kachch (Gujarat)

Party: Bharatiya Janata Party

Terms in parliament: First term

Age: 37

Contact Information: Plot No -6, Jay Zulelal Society, Bharat Nagar, Gandhidham District, Kachch

Jat Poonamben Veljibhai is the winner from Kachch District. Despite this being her first elections, she beat out 16 other candidates, including three other women, and Danicha Valjibhai Punamchandra of the Indian National Congress.