Veins of Devotion

Published May 29, 2010 DNA

About a month ago, on the eve of Maharashtra Day, the Shiv Sena organised a mammoth blood donation camp, run with a startling efficiency that resulted in the collection of over 25,200 bottles of blood in a single day. It was a feat that earned it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and drew the wrath of rival party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, who called the drive a ‘blood-sucking exercise’, alluding to allegations that people were ‘forced’ to go to the drive and donate blood.

With a colourful record-breaking past involving newspaper columns, public rallies and a photo exhibition, the Shiv Sena is well-experienced in the power of numbers. The blood donation drive was fittingly titled Maha Yagna, or ritual sacrifice, to commemorate the martyrs who shed their blood for the formation of the state of Maharashtra. A simple biomedical procedure was thus transformed into an act of patriotic reverence, proof that the symbolism of blood can sometimes be as potent as its corporeal form.

After the Supreme Court banned paid blood donations in 1998, followed by the National Blood Policy in 2002 which called for the phasing out of replacement donation (where family members of a patient replace the blood withdrawn from blood bank), voluntary blood donation is considered the only legitimate and statistically, the safest method of collecting blood. Of the many organisations that were enlisted to help Shiv Sena organise and conduct its massive blood drive was the Shree Aniruddha Upasana Foundation (SAUF), a devotional order with a sizeable presence in the state’s voluntary blood donation sphere.

Back in 1998, during the organisation’s first blood drive, they were able to collect 800 units of blood. Since then, thefoundation has collected over 48,000 units of blood in its regularly conducted blood camps across the state.

The spiritual head of the organisation, Shree Aniruddha Bapu, is himself an interesting amalgamation of a man of science and charismatic godman. Dr Aniruddha Joshi was a practicing rheumatologist and lecturer at Nair Hospital before he found his true calling.

Today, he preaches Bhakti Marg, or the path of selfless devotion, to his followers from different faiths, running into lakhs across the country and beyond. As Sunilsinh Mantri, chief executive officer, SAUF-ASP, says, “For naamsmaran (recitation of God’s name), Bapu feels his followers can take any name they want to, as long as they do it with complete sincerity.”

Shunning the saffron robe for a secular get-up of shirt and trousers, Aniruddha Bapu’s spiritual rhetoric rests as much on notions of hygiene and provision of medical care as it does on the importance of virtue and religious service. A social reformist who exacts the power of a saint, his blood donation camps offer followers the possibility of what social anthropologist Dr Jacob Copeman terms virtuous utility.

In his book Veins of Blood: Blood Donation and Religious Experience in North India, Dr Copeman explains how devotees rearticulate the utility aspect of blood donation and load it with complex devotional logic. And although the act of donating blood is positioned as one that denotes service to humanity, or manav seva, devotees see it as a kind of guru seva — an act of allegiance to their master by offering him the most precious and intimate gift of all.

Vinay Shetty of Think Foundation, an NGO which organises voluntary blood donation drives and co-ordinates between blood banks to meet blood requirements in the city, is well-experienced in the fervour that such blood camps elicit. He says, “We have a difficult time with such drives. If they can’t donate because of a low haemoglobin count or some other reason, they get so fired up and insist on donating.” As a panacea for irate devotees, Aniruddha Bapu’s blood camps now offer rejected donors an opportunity for Charkha Seva, the spindled thread used for the explicit cause of making school uniforms for under-privileged children.

While Shetty partially attributes such behaviour to the cult status of these public figures, he feels the issue ultimately boils down to that of identity. “For example, the Kutch Yuvak Sangh appeals to young Kutch men to donate blood. Be it in churches, corporates or colleges, blood donation camps see people volunteering to donate blood to show their loyalty to the group they belong to,” he explains.

Voluntary blood donation can also underline the significance of an occasion. During Lent this year, the archbishop of Mumbai issued a directive to all churches that one of the ways that parishioners could seek penance was by donating blood. Consequently, almost every church in the city organised a blood drive, and the people as expected, attended in large numbers. The same goes for the Shiv Sena blood camp conducted on Maharashtra Day.

What is most interesting is that the act of donating blood engages both the seeker and the giver in a mutually beneficial exchange. While the donor is fuelled by a sense of purpose which transcends the practical, the blood he donates only adds to the credibility of his guru or leader, for whom the final amount collected stands as testament to his eminence.

The amenability of blood donation to varied kinds of signification makes it a powerful tool for discourse where the merits of blood donation itself can sometimes be lost. However, as Shetty sees it, every drop still counts. He says, “At the end of the day, no matter what the intentions of the group organising it, as long as blood is being collected, something good is coming out of it.”

Interview with Ranjan Ghosh, screenwriter (full version)

(A dreadfully edited version came out in DNA, which you can find here)

To be the first writer that Aparna Sen has ever collaborated with in her career is an achievement that newcomer Ranjan Ghosh best acknowledges by talking about it with an enthusiasm atypical of his otherwise stoic disposition. Ghosh was script assistant and assistant director on the National Award winning Bengali film Antaheen. The 28-year-old Ghosh wrote the script of Iti Mrinalini with Sen as part of his final project while still a screenwriting student at Whistling Woods International. Directed by Aparna Sen, the Bengali film tells the story of an ageing suicidal actress (played by the director herself) who digs through remnants of her past which remind her of her younger self (played by daughter Konkona Sen). The movie will be dubbed in Hindi for a national audience and is slated for release on June 15.

From watching films as a child in a satellite township in West Bengal to a six-year stint in the Merchant Navy where he rose to the post of Captain, the quietly confident Ghosh has chartered his life’s course with single-minded resolve, his final destination aimed at making his own films. The aspiring director is currently writing the script for the Bengali remake of Prakash Jha’s Gangajal as well as developing an idea with Ketan Mehta.

How did you end up bagging a project with Aparna Sen while still studying at the film institute?

During my summer break at Whistling Woods International, I got in touch with faculty member Shyamal Sengupta and insisted that I work as his script assistant for his ongoing project. That film turned out to be Antaheen. It was on sets that I met Aparna Sen and one day, went up to her and told her I wanted to write for her. Now she is a magnanimous lady and also a diva. She basically brushed me off saying I should contact her after six months. In January 2008, I went to meet her in Kolkatta. We ended up talking for hours. I began working on a Hindi film idea that she told me Konkona had suggested and sent her my drafts. Two months into it, Aparna Sen gave me the basic storyline of Iti Mrinalini and asked me to begin work on that instead.

What was it like working with Aparna Sen?

It was intimidating initially but she would be really nice to me. She would ask me sweetly, are you enjoying working with me? Are you sure I’m not breathing down your neck? (smiles) She’s a meticulous lady and a pure artist. The only problem she had with me was that she thought I was very aggressive and a bit of a control freak. At times she would firmly say, just let go Ranjan. But she also respects a writer’s space. She let me work on the first draft completely by myself, although she used to ask what I was working on and give her suggestions. She then worked on the second draft and for the third draft, we worked together. After that, I assisted her on the shoot as well and she always welcomed my involvement at every step. I’m very grateful that she allowed me such an opportunity.

Iti Mrinalini explores the complexities of a woman’s mind as she looks back at her life. Was it difficult for you to write a woman’s character in such depth?

I’ve always been very close to my mother and sister, so I think I have somewhat of an idea of the female psyche. And anyway, we’re all half-male, half-female. If I’m a man, does that mean I can only write male characters? That would be so boring. So as a writer, you have to imagine. Personally, I don’t do a lot of research; I like it to come to me instinctually. I was also observing Aparna as well as Konkona during my interactions with them, and that helped me shape the character as well.

Do you feel fortunate to have achieved so much so soon in your career? Do you attribute it to luck or talent?

I would say it’s a combination of hard work and luck, with adequate amount of talent being assumed. You have to be talented but that’s not all it takes. It’s more about grit, not taking things lying down. With no hard work, there’s no luck. But with hard work, luck can be an advantage.

31/5/2010, DNA

Beyond Black & White, DNA, Mumbai, March 27, 2010

(photo from The Indian Memory Project by Anusha Yadav)

Of all the innumerable social rites that make up domestic lives, the ritual viewing of old photographs is particularly intriguing. The family, which exists to fulfil the principle of forward continuity, finds an odd antithesis in its attempt to derive meaning from a lost past, hoping it will somehow illuminate the present.

Being the only material remnants of a forgotten time, old family photos evoke a strange sort of nostalgia, a word that, etymologically, signifies a return home, a desire to relive what was once fondly experienced. However, the way nostalgia is experienced today isn’t restorative, but an attempt to savour the distance between a past malleable to our imaginations and our present, which is frustratingly certain.

Anusha Yadav, photographer and founder of The Indian Memory Project, an online archive of photos from pre-90s India, is a self-described photo time-traveller. “If I had a time machine, I’d go to Akbar’s court with my Mac and show him all the cool things he could do with it!” she laughs, “But old photos are all that we have. It gives you a glimpse of a time when life was different, the pace was different.”

Being products of an unthinking point-and-click culture, today’s generation is naturally curious about old photos, which are telling in their deliberate intent. Their careful iconography, displaying visible markers of class, caste, prosperity and progeny, reveal a clearly identifiable lineage. But while photos present an objective truth, their in-built narratives, shaped by a rich oral tradition, are what give them a charming complexity. A contributor to Yadav’s project, web and animation consultant Shubhodeep Das is the only child of Pradip Kumar Das, the youngest of seven brothers, seen in the photo (top) taken on the terrace of their childhood house in Shyambazar, Kolkata, in 1943. The photo appears to be a proud declaration of male-bearing fertility. But Das reveals that his grandparents tried very long to have a daughter but failed. The terrace shot immediately tells a different story, one marked by absence and longing.

A photo only speaks when we ask questions of it, says Sujith Parayil, assistant professor at the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, TISS. While the surface connection is usually emotional, photos speak to us within far richer contexts, he says. “You experience nostalgia when you connect something evaporated from the present with its presence in the past,” he says. Another Memory Project contributor, Geetali Tare, sent in a photo of CK Nayudu, India's first Test captain. The faded black & white photo is of an intense-looking man in regal military garb, who stares at us commandingly. With no immediate sense of kinship, Tare still finds the photo captivating, displaying as she says, a period when playing a sport for one’s country was an act of defiance. “We worship mediocre, over-paid, over-weight sportsmen today, completely forgetting those gone by; sportsmen for whom playing for the country was a personal credo, not just an opportunity to spin money,” she observes.

As contributions to her project keep pouring in, Yadav links them to an interesting trend she’s been observing on social networking websites, where people are uploading old photos of their childhood or their ancestors. Yadav sees it as an indication of people seeking an escape from the constant struggle of keeping up with the modern world. “We’re well on our way to living fast-paced digital lives, and uploading old photos online is one way to stay in touch with our roots,” she says.

The plight of the modern subject in Western thought can conventionally be traced to modernity’s willful negation of tradition. However, as Parayil points out, Indian modernity is unique. “Our modernity has always tried to relocate tradition. We undergo a continuous process of remordernisation in a way that tradition is perhaps devalued, but never rejected.”

India's first queer drag performance group - Dancing Queens

An article for DNA, Mumbai, which is where I'm working now. :-)

Here's the link to the story. And here's the unedited version.

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Abheena, founder and lead dancer of Dancing Queens is yet to find a stage vast enough to sustain the remarkable enthusiasm displayed by her 14-member dance troupe, and Mumbai’s first queer drag performers. The Dancing Queens were first noticed by Mumbai’s LGBT community last year, when they put up a show at a little rundown hall in Khar to raise funds for the Queer Azadi March. The overwhelming response convinced Abheena to take a brave step forward, and actively seek out bigger platforms and mainstream audiences for their shows.

After all, Abheena aka Abhijit, a communication specialist for John Hopkins University, knows first-hand that the first step to self-discovery lies in transcending your comfort zones. At 20, Abhijit joined The Humsafar Trust as an outreach administrator and consequently became their youngest manager for nearly eight years. However, he knew when it was time to move on. He says, “My intention was to open up spaces for dialogue between marginalized groups and a heteronormative society. I took up opportunities to work with bar girls, sex workers, migrants and intravenous drug users.”

During outreach activities, Abhijit quickly recognized the visceral appeal of dance and music in overcoming the initial jitters people feel on the mention of sexuality. Meanwhile, experiences in the personal realm led him to discover his transgender identity and he eventually adopted the name Abheena. Between 2004 to 2006, Abheena attempted two drag folk dance shows with the purpose of raising money for queer issues by providing a platform for queer talent. However, the response was lukewarm.


An accomplished Kathak dancer, Abheena soon realized that India’s rich culture of drag was acting as a barrier to the issues she wanted to address. Groups such as the lavani ensemble Bin Baykancha Tamasha, were bringing gender subversive performances to the limelight but choosing to remain silent on the complexities of gender and sexuality that these performances could potentially give voice to. Pallav Patankar, director of HIV/AIDS programs at The Humsafar Trust, points out, “Traditionally, many Indian dance forms have seen men take on women’s garb, but that in itself doesn’t necessarily allude to their sexuality. By openly calling themselves queer, Dancing Queens are unique in the sense that they’re moving out of a socially accepted framework, connecting that framework to gender and sexuality, and making a strong political statement.”

Abandoning folk dance performances in order to connect with a broader audience, Dancing Queens mostly perform Hindi numbers, paying homage to the dancing queen divas of Bollywood. The flirtatious glances, that suggestive biting of a darkly painted lip, the exaggerated physicality with which we’re so familiar, is effortlessly assumed by Abheena when she take the stage. Performing last week at Theosophy Hall for the Queer Nazariya film festival, Abheena’s hair came undone mid-performance, unfurling into pretty locks that fell over her light hazel eyes while she kept swaying to the music. Nobody in the audience was looking at a man; they were looking at a woman who loves to dance.

Palankar explains that a drag performance is inherently subversive because it thrives on exaggeration. “Most women performers become extremely conscious of their sexuality on stage. But by deliberating dressing as a woman, a drag performer invites being objectified.” Having captured their attention, Abheena successfully turns the gazes of her viewers back to themselves, a feeling that is liberating for some, but uncomfortable to others.

Abheena is quite aware of the challenges Dancing Queens face in becoming a more professional outfit. She is looking for a theatre venue where they can perform regularly and further promote undiscovered queer talent. “Many good dancers are unwilling to dance for us because of the stigma attached to being openly queer. Only people completely comfortable with their sexuality perform with us,” explains Abheena. Currently rehearsing in limited space without a trained choreographer, the Dancing Queens are still upbeat about their next performance on April 17, to raise funds for Kashish, an international queer film festival to be held later in the same month.