Shashi Ghulati on the Coimbatore of the 60s, and the slew of welfare activities she and other ladies undertook in the city

I migrated from Calcutta to Coimbatore in 1964 after my husband Sagar decided to quit Hooghly Pilot Service to start his own business. Since I grew up in Madras in the 40s and 50s, moving to Coimbatore was a sort of homecoming for me. The city was an overgrown village back then. The hills in the periphery of the city gave one a feeling of being in a hill station. And yes, the salubrious climate! It was one of the major reasons why we chose to settle down in Coimbatore even after experiencing the exciting lifestyle of Calcutta.

I distinctly remember the level crossings on Avanashi Road and Cross Cut Road. The flyovers did not exist then. These crossings tested our patience especially when we had to get our kids to school on time!

When we moved to our first home at Siddhanaidu Layout, I would drive past the Kamarajapuram sweeper colony. The area housed municipal workers and cobblers. The roads were lined with numerous huts and they were very badly maintained. I wanted to do something about it. I became a member of YWCA and proposed an idea of starting a community centre at Kamarajapuram. The then President of YWCA, Dr. Rangala and Secretary Hepzibah were receptive to it.

Literacy drive

With the municipality’s support, we restored a dilapidated reading room in the locality and started a crèche, nursery and a tailoring unit. Adult literacy classes were started for women in Kamarajapuram and they are functioning even today.

The very first Ladies Circle in India was founded in Coimbatore in 1968. The wives of members of Round Table No. 9 in the city formed it. I was the Founder President. The Ladies Circle helped organise recreational activities for children in Kamarajapuram, set up kitchen gardens and volleyball training sessions.

I remember the time I visited Stanes School to enrol my son there. The school had an expanse of open land. There were not many trees. Strong gusts of wind raised waves of dust in the school. Reverend H.O. Fowler of Stanes was a very genial man. His wife, Alda Fowler and V. Amritham didn’t let me miss Calcutta at all.

In 1966, the members of the Society for the Aid of Handicapped Children started the Coimbatore Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Centre at Krishnasamy Mudaliar Road. Alda, Amritham, Dotty Boppayya and I were the first office bearers of this centre, which is now ‘Amrit Centre for Special Needs’ on Mettupalayam Road.

In January 1984, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) was founded in New Delhi. In November 1985, Dr. Deborah Thiagarajan, then State Convenor of INTACH, Tamil Nadu, invited me to found a chapter at Coimbatore. In August 1986, this chapter was formed. Till 1995, our initiatives included documenting and listing several public structures in the city. We fought for the restoration of the Victoria Town Hall, which was being used as a godown.

Awareness campaigns

In 1987, 88, 90 and 92, National Environment Awareness Campaigns were held for a period of four months each. These addressed issues involving pollution of rivers Bhavani and Cauvery, the Noyyal tank, and the ground waters of Tirupur due to industrial and sewage effluents.

INTACH Coimbatore pioneered legal action to save the Bhavani River with a PIL in the Supreme Court.

In the early 70s, Coimbatore had the privilege of playing host to Mother Teresa twice. During her first visit, I had the opportunity to meet her. She expressed her desire to do something for the homeless in the city. She wasn’t ready for any sort of civic reception then.

In Divine Company Shashi Ghulati (centre) with Mother Teresa Photo: Special Arrangement

Nuns from the Missionaries of Charities came down to Coimbatore to set up Nirmal Hriday and Sishu Bhavan near Carmel Garden School. As members of Ladies Circle No. 1, we invited the nuns to volunteer at a home for juvenile delinquents near Lakshmi Mills.

During Mother’s second visit, a huge gathering was organised for her at the grounds in Carmel Garden. But the most exciting thing for me was that I got to be her chauffeur!

(As told to NITHYA SIVASHANKAR)

BIO

SHASHI GHULATI Born in 1934 in Chennai, she made Coimbatore her home in 1964. She was the first President of the Ladies Circle India. As part of her work with Women’s Voluntary Services in Calcutta, she worked with refugees from East Bengal. Her interests include music, writing, reading and drama. Shashi is the secretary of the Coimbatore Book Club Theatre Group and she regularly directs plays in the city.

I REMEMBER

Sessions with a group of us sitting down and reading out of favourite books and plays. We would have these meetings at home. These sowed the seeds of the Coimbatore Book Club.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Life & Style> MetroPlus / by Nithya SivaShankar / Coimbatore, April 03rd, 2012

 Fitting script to star Balki feels that’s a concept we can’t really change Photo: Murali Kumar k.

Ad man and feature filmmaker R. Balki tells Bhumika K. that in Indian cinema the actor is definitely bigger than the character

His ads make sure you don’t switch channels between programmes. You’ve also enjoyed his films if you’re as much of an Amitabh Bachchan fan as he is. The same guy who came up with the “Daag achche hain” concept for a washing powder, also turned the Indian love story on its head with the May-December romance “Cheeni Kum”. R. Balakrishnan, better known in the ad and film world as R. Balki, is now in the process of giving Sridevi’s acting career a breath of fresh air.

He’s producing the much-awaited “English Vinglish”, Sridevi’s large screen comeback, written and directed by his wife, Gauri Shinde.“My wife wrote the story with certain experiences in mind…it’s an ode to her mother. It’s a woman-oriented subject and needs a certain sensitivity in how it’s made. I loved the script so much, I just wanted the film to be between us,” is how Balki explains his entry into the Hindi film industry as producer.

Balki, who’s the chairman and chief creative officer of ad-agency Lowe Worldwide, was in Bangalore recently to speak to college students at ‘Expressions 2012′, the annual seminar on journalism and mass communication organised by Commits. Ad guys never fail to charm with their talk, and if the students at the seminar lapping up his every word were anything to go by, Balki was Chief Charmer. Playing clips of his advertisements, Balki spoke of the power of advertising, of saying so much without saying it all. And how the same ad can be stretched into an entire movie.

It’s all out in the open — that Balki is a big fan, both of music composer Ilayaraja and Amitabh Bachchan — a combination that made his maiden film “Cheeni Kum” in 2007 and then again his “Paa” in 2009, great successes with the audience.

It is also now part of Bollywood legend that Balki writes the script keeping in mind particular actors, and always gets them to star in those roles. “In Indian cinema, an actor has assumed a role larger than that of the character he plays. So you start thinking on those terms. Auro (the character of a 13-year-old that AB played in ‘Paa’) is still Amitabh Bachchan at 13 — he’s witty, intelligent, sarcastic — everything that Amitabh is. You and I can’t change it,” is Balki’s reason for fitting a script to star. He continues: “My desire is to work with Amitabh Bachchan so I will write for him. Shah Rukh Khan also has an image associated with him and it’s a strong one, Aamir Khan is still Aamir Khan, even if he is playing a college student. The characters can’t be actor-neutral and we love it. It’s a bonus we as a country have.”

All this Balki says over phone, as the high-flier who zips into the seminar zips out to meet his mother who lives in Bangalore. “I’m a Bangalorean. We’re Tamilians who’ve lived here all our life. I’ve spent 34 years of my life in Bangalore. It’s only in the last 13 years that I’ve been in Mumbai. I guess my association with Bangalore figures in me as a person, and influences me. Bangalore has always been cosmopolitan in outlook and I’m comfortable with my Hindi, Tamil and Kannada. It may rob you of the kind of cultural richness that you would have if you were born in a city like Chennai, but it is replaced with another richness — a far more easy going, fuss-free attitude, which reflects in the way I think.”

A product of Frank Anthony Public School and Christ College, Balki has fond memories of the restaurants and landmarks in the city, and “of lanes I’ve walked in depression” when he was quite undecided about his career. “Theatres like Lido, Galaxy, Lavanya and Lakshmi, and Kannada, Tamil and Telugu films are all part of my memories,” he laughs. “I love Kannadiga food; I love akki rottiand bisi bele bhath and ask my mother to make Kannadiga saaru when I visit.”

While he straddles both worlds — of ad and feature filmmaking — with ease, Balki says “I love advertising. It’s like solving a problem; it’s addictive. Unless you have a fantastic story to tell, making a feature film is too laborious a process.” That, coming from a man who claims he’s never worked on a single crossword in his life! Speaking earlier at the seminar, Balki spoke of how advertising is one of the most insecure professions. “You don’t know where your next idea is coming from. It can kill you or make you. It’s just a game and you keep playing.”

source: http://www.TheHindu.com/ Arts> Cinema / by Bhumika K / January 10th, 2012