The school on GB Road (Times Crest)

Kat-Katha can easily pass for a typical school for slum children: Six students from age 3 to 17 sit on a floor mat supervised by a teacher busy explaining place value on an abacus when we go in. Two bedsheet- covered computers are perched on a table in the adjacent room. The dilapidated walls are covered by sketches made by the students. 

However, at the entrance of the school, on the same wall that displays a chart of 23 enrollments, hangs a curious vending machine which makes it apparent that this is not a typical slum school - a condom dispenser. The space was once a brothel and the students are the children of sex workers and brothel owners. The teacher, Gitanjali Babbar, 26, is the founder of Kat-Katha.

Kat-Katha, which translates into 'story of puppets, ' originally intended to provide life choices to sex workers. Before establishing the centre, Babbar was working at the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), the body that had put up condom dispensers at brothels including the now dysfunctional one at Kat-Katha.

However, when some of the sex workers urged Babbar to think beyond condoms, the idea of Kat-Katha came up. "Kat-Katha was first conceived to equip women who do not want to be in the sex trade with skills like tailoring, dancing, literacy, etc. so that they could pursue alternative livelihoods, " Babbar says.

Babbar began operating from a youth centre but as soon as she started bringing prostitutes there, the owner of the space who had donated it to the centre asked her to vacate the premises. Thereafter, Babbar quit her job and along with some volunteers entered the brothels and began to educate the sex workers.

It wasn't smooth sailing in the beginning. "The didis (Babbar addresses every sex worker as didi) used to abuse us because they thought we were a part of some NGO that would make big promises and then manipulate them, " Babbar says. But slowly, she gained the confidence of the women and their children too joined the classes. Finally, the children ended up absorbing most of the time and attention at Kat-Katha though about 25 women still come to the centre to learn dance, to study, or to simply chill whenever they feel like it. 

Kat-Katha is located on the infamous GB Road in Delhi that houses more than 3, 500 female sex workers and their 1, 500 kids in about 77 cage-like brothels. It is 1 pm and on the ground floor, the shops selling hardware, paints, mobile recharge and such have already done half a day of business. Babbar clambers the narrow, steep and sneaky staircases between the shops which lead her to her students. The sex workers have just woken up and are idling around. Some are having brunch, while others are getting ready for their 'day trade' in deep-necked spaghetti tops, lips painted a bright red.

Babbar heads for the rooms where she knows that she will find children who are regulars at her class. She asks them to rush to her "school" as if she were a school bell. Babbar cajoles Nisa (name changed), 6, to bathe before leaving for her class. Nisa pleads for a compromise: She will change clothes but will not bathe. Babbar does not give up. In another brothel, a shy boy lying on his stomach, hears Babbar's call and pops his head down from a dark space similar to a dingy storage in a footwear store.

Passing a few brothels on both the sides of one such staircase, she reaches Kat-Katha. One by one the students start coming in, some loaded with a school bag, others just with their curiosity and amusement. Randhir (name changed), 11, is the first one in. With the air of one who owns the space he heads straight to the computer room, uncovers a machine and shows us a PowerPoint slide he made: It is a picture of a house in the countryside pasted from the internet and superimposed with the caption: "My name is Randhir. "

"We will structure the curriculum and activities but first, I want these kids to enjoy the freedom that they have always been deprived of, " Babbar says. She points out that these children and their mothers never step out of the brothels for fear of being abused.

A sex worker, 42, peeps into the room to see what's happening. Babbar encourages her to find the letters of her name, Sita, from the bits of paper printed with Hindi alphabets. She looks on as Nisa assembles Sita's name on the floor. This is probably the first time Sita has seen her name written. As Babbar coaxes her, Sita reluctantly copies her name in a notebook.

Babbar plans to open another centre dedicated to imparting vocational training to sex workers as and when funds come in while reserving the current space for kids. Some sex workers have requested Babbar to find jobs for their grown-up children above 17 who have become pimps. But because these children are uneducated and are past school age, Babbar wants to train them. Thus, Babbar's idea of Kat-Katha has organically evolved to incorporate the people associated with the brothels of GB Road.

It is 6pm. The children at Kat-Katha refuse to go home from this space which has no closing time and operates all seven days of the week. In a couple of hours, the cramped brothels will be transformed. There would be bright lights and the strains of filmi mujras will be heard through the windows. Randhir has seen his mother step out every day when it's dark, wearing seductive clothes. He says he is determined to take her away from GB Road some day.

Babbar says she has plans to spend a few nights at Kat-Katha. "It's good bonding time with the kids who then understand I am not a visitor from an NGO, " she says.

Read article here on Times of India's Crest edition website.

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The Credit Column (Outlook)

At the counter near the bank entrance, two women are helping illiterate women clients fill out their passbooks. Many other clients—again, women—stoop over women officials in their cubicles. There are no men here. This isn’t the all-women’s bank that Union finance minister P. Chidambaram proposed in the 2013-14 budget. It’s the Shri Mahila SEWA Sahkari Bank Ltd, Ahmedabad, one that has been around for 39 years.

In the late 1960s, Ela Bhatt, as chief of the women’s wing of a textile labour union, recognised the multiple problems faced by women workers and gradually organised them, by 1972, into the Self-Employed Women’s Asso​ciation (SEWA). Its founders soon realised that these working women needed savings and credit services, but existing banks weren’t keen on dealing with illiterate women, who wouldn’t know how to handle their passbooks, would arrive in work-stained clothes, often with babies in hand. So, two years on, SEWA set up a cooperative bank for women, beg​inning with 4,000 members.

Chidambaram plans to provide Rs 1,000 crore to set up an all-women bank in the public sector. SEWA Bank, in contrast, began with Rs 1 lakh, contributed by mem​​bers. Today, it has a working capital of Rs 200 crore and serves four lakh women.

Jayshree Vyas, 60, has been the managing director of the bank for 25 years. She says one of the chief objectives is to help poor self- employed women to keep out of the trap of borrowing from money-lenders. She tracks the capital-time chart of a typical client and points out how it starts with debt, moves into savings, and then on to business expansion and buying a house of their own. One example, albeit a client who’s just starting out, is Jyoti Makwana, 26, who makes and sells PoP figurines. Her working capital has come from the third loan she has taken from the bank. “At 1.5 per cent interest per month, it’s advantageous,” says the high school dropout.

But there’s more to the bank than just financial services, says Vandana Shah, 57, its general manager. She has been with the bank since 1976 and says it has been an innovator all along. “It’s only recently that the RBI came up with know-your-customer (KYC) guidelines, but we’ve been strict about that since inception,” she says. The bank now employs 250 officials at seven branches across Gujarat. But Shah remembers how a five-member team used to run the bank from the foyer of a textile unit, helping uneducated workers not only with their finances but also their personal problems.

Jaya Bhavsar, 46, a client who earns from stitching and embroidery, appreciates the personal touch. She took a loan for house repairs one-and-a-half years ago, and says the staff explains to her all the technicalities of repayment. She wouldn’t want to go to any other bank.

Much of this commitment has been won by the 150 community leaders, or “bank sathis”, who liaise between the bank and clients. Thanks in part to them, and to the staff’s attitude to clients, transactions worth Rs 1,500 crore took place at the bank over last year.

Lopa Raval, the cashier at the head office, says the work gives her satisfaction, and recounts one Saturday afternoon when a woman came crying to the bank after the counter had been shut, seeking withdrawal of money for her daughter’s hospitalisation. Of course, the bank obliged her.

As Raval speaks, an announcement is being made for clients to subscribe to the New Pension Scheme (NPS), for which the bank is an aggregator. But long before the NPS, SEWA Bank had tied up with Unit Trust of India to create a pension scheme for its clients, who otherwise wouldn’t have saved for old age. It had been inaugurated by Chidambaram. A case of grassroots inn​​ovation and initiative beating government. Of the minister’s proposed all-women’s bank, Vyas says she’d like to wait and watch, for “we are yet to see whether it will reach rural areas and whether its systems will suit poor women”. SEWA Bank could perhaps give them some valuable lessons.

Read article here on Outlook website

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Not 'just friends' (Femina)

In an overflow of emotions, Monica Geller could barely finish her sentence when she went down on one knee to propose to Chandler Bing: “I am so lucky to have fallen in love with my best…” Monica, did you mean “best friend”?

Yes, she did. But that was the television series Friends. In reality, many women clearly demarcate between friendship and love. They think they can be just friends with their male friends and they can’t befriend those they want to be romantically involved with. For example, Aditi Misra, 29, says she can either be friends with a man or she can be attracted to him in the “other way” but not both together. And she has different reasons for each. “I am friends with men because we are in the same place or because we share common interests like sports; but I date men because I am attracted to their looks or qualities.” Similarly, to Anjali Jhaveri, 29, who is married to her high school sweetheart, her husband was always more than a friend. “In my mind, my husband was never a ‘friend’ because he fit into all the criteria I had wished in my life partner,” she says. She adds that her male friends have always been just that.

Dr. Sanjay Chugh, a senior psychiatrist of the country, reasons, “Women perhaps find it easier to categorize or label the relationship for it brings in clarity and keeps the boundaries in place which might add to a certain sense of security.”

Even when the relationship changes its category or label; in women’s psyche, once a friend always remains a friend. When Rumana Hussain, 28, was proposed by Suhel Khan who she always thought of as her buddy, Hussain accepted the offer. But she still considers Khan to be more as her friend than her husband. Likewise, Dimpy Shah, 28, also thinks that she shares a friend-like relationship with her pal-turned-hubby even after delivering a baby. “We still share secrets with each other and have the same kind of fun that we used to have when we were just friends,” she says.

Hussain and Shah were wooed by their male chums but there are examples in real life like Monica of Friends who fell in love with their guy friends. A case in point is Alefiya Bhatia, 25, who on spending one on one time with her friend realized that the relationship had potential to evolve more. “We were just great friends for three years when we hung out in a group,” she says. Now that she is married to her best friend for about two years, she thinks of her husband as a friend first. Jaina Shah, 27, seconds the viewpoint. She also considers her friend-turned-lover-turned-hubby to be “friend first, husband then.”
Dr. Nimrat Singh, a human behavior scientist, says, “The attitude of ‘friend first’ is probably knitted in women’s want to not lose the equality that is characteristic of friendship while avoiding the hierarchy that is intrinsic to marriage.”

In contrast to most women’s compartmentalization; in most men’s Venn diagram, friendship and love can intersect. Although many men say that they are just friends with many of their female friends, they also add that they can be more than friends with at least few of them. “I am attracted to some of my female friends but I just admire, respect or like to converse with the others,” Karan Mahajan (last name changed), 28, says. He adds that he cannot think of getting involved in a romantic relationship with the latter because of various reasons like culture mismatch, incompatibility in value system etc.
However, Amol Gupte (name changed), 25, differs. He holds the extreme viewpoint that there is definitely some level of attraction between a boy and girl for them to become friends. “I don’t know if the attraction between a male and female is the cause or effect of friendship, but there definitely exists some attraction between the two,” he says. He admits that he is attracted to all four of his female friends. “It’s like hedging the bets,” he chuckles.

Dr. Chugh deciphers the logic behind men’s psyche: “Men perhaps go with the ‘try your luck’ philosophy more than women. They are willing to keep their options open and go with the flow.”

Unlike Gupte, the answer to “Can men and women be just friends?” is not so black and white for Aman Gandhi, 28, who succinctly replies, “depends.” First of all, he says that it depends on whether a boy and girl spend time in a group of friends or one on one. “Unlike in a group, if two friends of the opposite sex spend a lot of time interacting on a one on one basis, I have seen that mostly they hook up,” Gandhi says which jingles with Bhatia’s story. Furthermore, he says that within a group, the ratio of boys to girls also significantly plays into determining whether they will be just friends or more. He gives the example of the institute that he is a graduate from. The ratio of boys to girls was so highly skewed towards males that Gandhi guesstimates most of the female students would have dated at least once.

Jhaveri relates to Gandhi’s experience. She changed her school in the 11th grade to one in which the ratio was skewed like above. She says that guys popped the question ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ very casually and frequently. “After knowing a girl for as little as two weeks, the boy would ask her out,” Jhaveri recollects.

Men may communicate their interest in their female friends from the time range extending from now to never. Gandhi belongs to the former camp. “Rather than imagining stuff, I directly ask the girl I like if she likes me too,” he says. He cites avoidance of time wastage as the logic behind his approach. However, Arjun Agarwal, 26, has never been able to tell his female friends about his love interest in them for the fear of screwing up the friendship. Holding the middle ground, Mahajan says he makes sure that the girl is also interested on the basis of his observation of her body language over a considerable period of time.

Irrespective of when men express their feelings to their women friends, they gauge if the feelings are reciprocal by taking all kinds of cues from whether the girl laughed at their stupid jokes to whether she touched her hair while talking to them. Filmy, isn’t it? Remember Raj debating whether Simran loves him or not based on whether she turned back to look at him before boarding the train in DDLJ. Gupte discloses how he figured that his female friend that he was attracted to didn’t like him: “She always talked about how she would be so conscious about the way in which she dressed before someone she loved and she turned up to meet me twice in pyjamas.”

But these interpretations may not always yield accurate conclusions. Agarwal thought that his lady love was also attracted to him because she accepted to go for dinners with him alone. But it turned out later that she was not interested in Agarwal in a lovey dovey way. Rather she was social with everyone.
Dr Singh suggests, “Men’s interpretation of women’s attitude and behavior towards them is more a projection of what the men want to see.” A recent University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire study finds that men overestimate the attraction their female friends feel towards them. Dr. Singh affirms that the overestimation could be due to misinterpretation of such cues.

Luckily, things worked out for Raj because Simran who glanced at him before boarding the train had similar feelings. But there have been instances wherein one-way feelings from the boy have put the friendship in jeopardy. When Pearl Gandhi’s (first name changed), 27, childhood friend approached her with the proposition of love, Gandhi who did not share the same feelings started ignoring him. “I thought if we met, his feelings for me would never die down,” she says. Now, Gandhi and her friend are not pally like before. On the other hand, when Naiyya Saggi, 28, came to know that one of her friends was attracted to her, she got concerned about dealing with the issue without losing a good friend. After telling him that she did not share the same sentiment, she resumed treating him like just a friend pretending nothing happened. “I laughed it off in front of him telling him that he would get over the silly infatuation soon,” she says. Saggi adds that after few weeks of awkwardness between the two, the friendship returned to normalcy. Agarwal concurs that when the girl he invited on romantic dinners acted oblivious about his feelings; his crush on her vanished after a while along with the friendship remaining restored. “I am sure she knew that I liked her because all of our friends knew,” Agarwal says with a confused look.

Dr Singh says, “If a person gets over heartbreak easily, possibility is that the intensity of feelings was not strong enough.” Dr. Hansal Bhachech, a prominent psychiatrist of Gujarat, specifies, “For majority of men, friendship with the opposite gender equates to sexual attraction.” The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire study explains why. The lead author of the study, April Bleske-Rechek is reported to have said on www.dailymail.co.uk that because platonic inter-sex relationships are a relatively new concept in the history of human evolution, men are still controlled by their mating instincts.

Gupte reveals a conversation he had with two of his friends at a club: “I asked them if they would have a one-night stand with the female friends they were attracted to. One of them said he would do it with all of his female friends while the other said he would do it with all but one.” Scary, isn’t it? Nevertheless, there are also guys like Mahajan who try to take friendship with their female friends to the next level only if he is serious about it on a long-term basis.

The debate about the costs and benefits of friendship between men and women will go on for ever. Yet guys and gals will continue to be friends and sometimes more than friends because as Chandler put it before Monica: “You make me happier than I ever thought I could be.”

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The power of Three (DNA After Hrs)

It does not take much to notice what’s common between The Three Stooges, Dil Chahta Hai, 3 Idiots and the latest Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Yes, the ‘three’ factor.

Have you ever wondered why a cast of three protagonists is so popular in movies? We have always been flooded with trios not just in movies but also in novels and fables like The Three Musketeers and Three Little Pigs. Well, the rule of three—the principle of things that come in threes being more effective than any other number—may be the rationale behind the characterisations, but does the theory work in real life and if yes, in what ways?

Shankar Mahadevan, who makes a very successful musical trio with Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa feels there are merits in being a trinity. “It is a much better model for decision- making,” he tells After Hrs on phone from Mumbai. The trio, Mahadevan believes, is able to arrive at decisions by voting and applying the majority rule. There are no deadlocks here, he says.

Melven Castelino, the vocalist and keyboard player of the band Cool Boyz comprising three guys, buys Mahadevan’s argument. In times of dispute over anything from rehearsal timing to the order in which songs are performed, they are able to reach a majority on account of being an odd number.

Being three even enables a “better interaction” than being part of a duo—a process, which precedes decision-making.

While a threesome makes sense for logistical reasons for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Cool Boyz, 3Ds (Teen Dost) employ division of labour and the specialisation approach to their advantage. For Rajan Jain, Jai Ahuja and Jayant Kam- lani who run the restaurant 3D’s in the city, the result is a strong synergy.

“If one plus one makes eleven; one plus one plus one makes a hundred and eleven,” Ahuja says. Jain, he elaborates, is adept at operations, while Kamlani takes care of fund- management and he is the pub- lic face of the business.

Alpana Kedia, Priyamvada Raniwala and Renuka Kedia of Ada also credit the allocation of work to their success. The trio has been organising exhibitions in the city for the last seven years. It is said that a family that plays together stays together. But they are a family that works together!

But what is it particularly about three? Dr ID Gupta, a psychiatrist, dismisses the occurrence of trios on screen as a mere ‘coincidence’. However, Dr Nimish Mittal, who himself has two close friends, guessti- mates, “Maybe two is too less and four is too much.”

Although it is said that ‘two’s company, three’s crowd’; for some having two close friends is like having a back-up. For example, Swati Dhariwal says, “When I was newly married, only one of my two best friends was in the same boat,” she says. She adds that she is grateful the rule of probability worked for her and she had at least someone to relate to rather than having just one friend, who could have been unmarried to boot!

Exemplifying Dr Mittal’s second hypothesis of four exceeding needs is Cool Boyz. Castelino says that in addition to him, a drummer and a guitarist in the band fulfil their musical requirements adequately. Other than redundancy, there is a certain phase for in- vesting in relationships, says Ahuja, 34. He says a staunch no to a fourth member joining their group. “Our phase to experiment has passed,” he laughs.

Call it aversion to adjacent evens or some other logic; three seems to hit the sweet spot for many. ‘Rhythm, vibe and sound... Three individuals meant to be together’ goes the legend on Shankar-Ehsaan- Loy’s website. And it certainly seems to hold true.

While Dhariwal and her two girlfriends have been together for 18 years; Castelino attributes their being in the industry for 20 years to the tri-power they are. “Even the Beatles did not last that long,” he exclaims. Touché?

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My rendezvous with royalty (DNA After Hrs)

On our second day in the city, my husband and I were excited to try this restaurant ‘X Mahal’ as part of exploring the city and its culture. While food may be my husband’s motivation; I had clearly visualised the golden gates of this palace. Then, I imagined, a durbaan— wearing a turban and thick moustache—opening the car-door. After being welcomed with tilak and sweets, I anticipated we would be given a tour of the property: its sprawling lawns, its 108 suites, and of course, the pristine pool. Then, I thought, we would be escorted to the dining area to sample traditional Rajasthani delicacies.

My day-dreaming was interrupted by frequent stops—to find our way to the ‘Mahal.’ I told my husband, “It’s a palace, darling. We can’t miss it.” When people on the street directed us to go through patli galis, I laughed to myself, “What do they know about the Mahal.” After going back and forth and left and right, our wheels landed in a stinking swamp surrounding the restaurant. Jumping across to the pavement, we arrived. On entering the restaurant, a waiter wearing chappals emerged. His first words were “Abhi sirf South Indian milega.” My husband, who had come in with pure culinary expectations, asked to be seated. “Kahin bhi baith jao,” came the bored reply from the waiter. At least, we had the luxury of space.

After a couple of days,we were invited to a distant relative’s house, name of which was affixed with ‘mansion.’ “It seems we have really wealthy relatives here, darling,” I said. I was hoping to
make connections in this city of many palaces; palaces which make the entire city carry that burden of heritage. It turned out that the ‘mansion’ was a dilapidated apartment building which was apparently built when elevators were not invented.

Why do people name their establishments the way they do? Is it to fool tourists or their own selves? Or ‘Mahals’ and ‘mansions’ are so weaved in their conditioning that such exaggerations in nomenclature are built into their sub-conscious? Or is it a competition they know they have lost but their spirit is not allowing them to accept so?

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