SAJAforum

CONV: Jay Mandal Explores the World with His Camera

[ See all SAJA@15 Convention & Career Expo coverage ]

EDITOR'S NOTE: In celebration of SAJA's 15th anniversary, we talked to senior journalists who have been with the organization since its early days. In these profiles, they share a bit of themselves and their association with SAJA. For the first profile, SAJA Blogger Sweta Vohra talked to New York-based photojournalist Jay Mandal.

Perhaps a bike and a passion for people is what you need to become a well-respected journalist. At the age of 17, Jay Mandal began exploring and communicating his view of the world with just his bike and amateur Kodak camera as his tools. Today, Mandal is a well-known photojournalist based in New York, who covers events all over the globe. While his equipment may have changed over the years he says, “my life’s passion has remained the same – I am an explorer and I tell stories.”

Mandal joined SAJA just two months after its inception. Over the years SAJA has become a force in the media world, and is a reflection of the influence India and Indians have on international issues. Mandal, a frequent contributor to SAJA Forum, recently was attacked when on assignment in India by Trinamul Congress activists in Nandigram. Mandal says that the support he received after the attack from SAJA members was overwhelming. (For excerpts from an interview with Mandal about the attack, please go to http://www.sajaforum.org/2009/05/indian-elections-new-york-photographer-jay-mandal-beaten-by-political-mob.html)

Mandal, a native of West Bengal, says there was no script for his career path. His advise to young journalists is that one learns the most from experiences, not necessarily from fancy university degrees.

As for the future, Mandal says that while he is an “old man with 384,000 kilometers on a bicycle”, his work is only half done. Perhaps, another few thousand miles won’t hurt.

E-mail Jay: jay[at]jaymandalphoto.com or post your comments below.

PHOTO FORUM: The Orange Men of Rishikesh, by Charlotte Purin

The Orange Men of Rishikesh

Text and photographs © Charlotte Purin

It was fitting that I met G.T. Roa (above) on the holiday of Holi, the Indian festival of color that celebrates a man’s survival thanks to his unwavering devotion to God. On this day Hindus, especially adolescent boys, throw or smear brightly colored, staining powders at anyone in the street. Despite this, I left the safety of my ashram and ventured out for sweets. Zig-zagging in order to avoid the boys, I bumped into G.T., a much-bemused sadhu, who was color-free except for the orange uniform that all sadhus wear to signify their life path. I thrust some sweets into his hands and said, “Happy Holi!” He smiled: “Come and talk sometime. I will be sitting here. I am always sitting here.”

The next day, there he was in the same exact spot. And he was there every day until I left four weeks later.  G.T. Roa is a man who left his job as a welder for the life of a monk, renouncing worldly desires for a life of devotion to God. One day he told his family he was going to the mountain – the Himalayas, refuge of seers (rishis) and saints. 

BHOPAL: Marking the 25th year of a chemical disaster

Where were you when Bhopal happened? I was at school in Madras, and we heard about this crazy chemical spill up north, at the Union Carbide plant. It was a small school, but two of the kids - also NRIs - happened to be in Bhopal. So everyone waited and waited, wondering if our friends were among the thousands who died in those first few days, consumed by that poison cloud. They were not, but it was a formative experience, and just a few weeks after Indira Gandhi's assassination (on Halloween - I remember that clearly, too) and the massacres that followed.

The spill happened in early December, 1984, but in New York they're marking the 25th anniversary starting this weekend. The events are taking place at the Brecht Forum, a lefty haunt on the Manhattan waterfront. The organizers are hoping to maintain their remarkably long vigil against Dow Chemical (maker of Napalm and Agent Orange), and will be presenting photos by Raghu Rai. Survivors of the Bhopal disaster will also be on hand.

Read on.

YOUTH LEADERS FROM BHOPAL MARK 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHEMICAL PLANT DISASTER WITH A US/CANADA SOLIDARITY TOUR.
 
JOIN THEM IN NEW YORK AT THE BRECHT FORUM, SUNDAY, MAY 10, FROM 1:30 TO 3:30 P.M. FOR A PANEL DISCUSSION AND FUNDRAISER

The Brecht Forum is located in the West Village in Manhattan at 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets). Phone: (212) 242-4201.

The Union Carbide Chemical Disaster in Bhopal, India has killed more than 23,000 people due to a catastrophic gas leak and ongoing water contamination in this central Indian city. This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the horrific night in 1984 when a toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate enveloped the sleeping city. The Anniversary is a celebration by Bhopal survivor groups and their allies of 25 years of courage in the face of corporate crime. Two 16 year-old youth organizers from Bhopal, and senior activists Rachna Dingra and Satinath Sarangi, will be touring the US and Canada in this April and May.

INDIAN ELECTIONS: New York photographer Jay Mandal beaten by political mob

UPDATE, Wednesday, May 6, 2009:

SAJAforum spoke directly to Jay Mandal at the Kolkata nursing home where he is recovering and is in good spirits, all things considered. He is lucky to be alive. His shoulder and knee are injured, but he insists that he will be in Delhi for an assignment he's had scheduled for some time now.

Listen to a 15-minute conversation Mandal had with Sree Sreenivasan of SAJAforum:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Also available as an MP3 file

[You are welcome to repost the audio or quote from anything said in the conversation]

ORIGINAL POST, Tuesday, May 5, 2009:

Photographer Jay Mandal, a frequent contributor to SAJAforum who covers events throughout the US and India (seen here with former president Bush), was beaten up while covering an election gathering in West Bengal. From Rediff.com, where he serves as Contributing Photographer:

Bengal-born, New York-based Mandal was covering a meeting convened by the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Tamluk, Rajyashree Chowdhury. Nandigram is part of the Tamluk Lok Sabha constituency. The meeting was attended by BJP national spokesperson S S Ahluwalia among others.

Shortly after the meeting got underway, a group of men on motorcycles wearing Trinamool Congress headbands attacked the rally. On seeing Mandal photographing the attack, they pounced on him, snatched his cameras, smashed them and injured him badly.

More from The Telegraph, for which Mandal also works:

About 40 motorcycle-borne Trinamul Congress activists in Nandigram held a group of BJP leaders hostage for over an hour, thrashed a New York-based photographer and smashed his two cameras and lenses. <snip>

Freelance photographer Jay Mandal, who contributes to The Telegraph, was taking pictures of the motorcyclists flying Trinamul flags when attacked.

“Two youths walked towards the dais and jumped onto it. My flash gun alerted one of them. He came to me and gave me a big shove. I fell into a drain with my two cameras. Under the impact, one of them broke. The other was also badly damaged. I lost my glasses and without them, I am nearly blind,” said Mandal.

CONVENTIONS: AAPI's most honorable guests

I got a mass email today from Dino Teppara, the Director of Legislative Affairs for AAPI, the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (our 2007 Q&A with Dino here). It spells out the agenda for the group's Legislative Day event in DC, tomorrow. And while I've always known that AAPI is an influential group, it's useful to see just who is speaking at the day-long event:

• Congressman John Fleming of Maryland
• Congressman Jim McDermott of Maryland
• Three members of the American Jewish Committee
• Nick Rathod, one of the more high-profile desis in the White House
• Congressman Bill Cassidy of Maryland
• Congressman Joe Crowley of New York
• Congressman Ed Royce of California
• Richard Boucher, Asst. Secretary of State

Here's the group's platform for the day, which can be read in full here:

• Increase the size of entering medical school classes & residency positions nationwide
• Protect the 20/220 Pathway and keep medical school affordable
• Supporting IMG visa waivers
• Protecting Medicare and Medicaid Physician Reimbursements
• Establishing meaningful liability reform nationwide

And this is the full day's agenda:

POLITICS: Shashi Tharoor on the campaign trail

Photographer Jay Mandal sent us these highly entertaining shots of the former New Yorker and UN under-secretary general Shashi Tharoor, who is quickly reinventing himself as an aspiring Congress politician in Kerala.

From Arun Ram in the Times of India:

At the core of his agenda is his own demystification — to break out of his high-profile image and present himself as a Keralite who can hold the common man’s hand and say, in Malayalam, that he is the best bet. He insists that you speak to him in Malayalam.

‘‘I’ve begun to forget my English,’’ he quips, as he enjoys a quick breakfast of appam and stew at his mother’s house. Beginning his day’s campaign from the Udiyannoor Devi temple at 8 am, Tharoor is the typical Malayalee, in white shirt and mundu, drinking holy water from the priest as if it is the elixir of his success. As he walks past, giggling women whisper about his handsome looks. Tharoor does charm.

And from IBN:

Both Tharoor and his constituency are new to each other and added to that is the language barrier.

His Malayalam is not very fluent, but he takes that more as a challenge than a handicap.

Tharooor assures rural voters that their voices would be heard in Delhi both in English and Hindi. He is also spending more time reaching out to them.

"Well I think you can see me talking to the common man. But in my case because my experience has been a bit different, people seem to think that I can thrive only in air conditioned offices. I want to prove them otherwise," says Tharoor.

A little controversy over the national anthem, from Outlook:

In his complaint, human rights activist Joy Kaitharath had alleged that on December 16 last, Tharoor had interrupted the national anthem after a public lecture at Kochi. He took a microphone from the table and directed the audience to stand the way people do in the US with their right palm placed on their chest instead of the attention posture followed by Indians so

Tharoor told reporters at the court premises that such an incident did not take place and the allegation was a lie.

Financial Express:

HEALTH: How bad is India's used-syringe epidemic?

Recycling may be virtuous but in India it can also apparently be fatal. The country's seen an unsettling surge in incidents stemming from used medical waste, including a deadly hepatitis outbreak earlier this year; in Gujarat, the police arrested "100 medical scrap dealers and 22 doctors" last month after 70 people died from hep B and another 240 were infected.

The World Health Organization estimates that "300,000 people die every year as a result of dirty syringes in India." And a survey by the private Indian Clinical Epidemiology Network estimates that more than 30 percent of needles used in India are reused.

The issue of dirty Indian syringes has received a fair amount of attention lately:

• UK's Times: "Used needles are causing a health crisis in India"
• The AP, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Tainted used syringes, repackaged and sold as new, blamed in deadly Indian hepatitis outbreak"

So, how bad is the problem?

We put the question to a couple Indian health experts:

• Dr. Niranjan Saggurti, a Senior Program Officer at the New Delhi office of the Population Council, a group that works on HIV and other health-related projects among vulnerable and low income populations in India.
• Anita Raj, an Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health

Dr. Saggurti doubts the 300,000 figure is accurate but agrees that the number is definitely on the rise:

"It is good that the issue on use of dirty syringes came into forefront in India now, but I believe, it had been the practice for several decades and it did have major impact on public health.  It is easy to critique government and health facilities about the use of dirty syringes in India; but the challenges to monitor the control measures on such issues remain due to its population size."

Saggurti said the reuse of used syringes is not only common in urban low income communities but also in rural India. "This practice is commonly seen among unqualified doctors or doctors who provide services to the patients at a very low cost," he said. 

POLITICS: The Case of Varun Gandhi and the Fake Degrees

At just 29 years old, Varun Gandhi is widely regarded as a rising star in his political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP, which could sweep to power in India’s upcoming national elections when the results are announced on May 16th, is a Hindu nationalist party with a history of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Recently Gandhi caused uproar when he was caught on tape using such rhetoric. In the aftermath it was discovered that he had lied about academic credentials from the London School of Economics (LSE) and the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), both constituent colleges of the University of London.

The young Gandhi is an asset to the BJP because he is a high-level defector. His family is a political dynasty in the Congress Party, the secularist party currently holding on to power with a thin majority in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament). His aunt Sonia Gandhi is currently leader of the Congress. Additionally, his grandmother is the late former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Congress) and his great grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first Prime Minister of India (Congress). After a family feud, Gandhi and his mother joined the BJP in 2004. (He explains his conversion to the BJP in a 2005 interview with the BBC.)

In contrast to his usually soft demeanor when speaking to the media in English, Gandhi recently made a series of fiery Hindi speeches in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, where he is the BJP’s candidate for the Lok Sabha. In them he threatens violence against Muslims, saying for example that after the election the “Lotus Hand” (the BJP’s emblem) would cut the throats of the “circumcised.”  That is of course a derogatory reference to Muslims that has more or less the same effect as the ‘N’-word in American politics. A video is available here from IBN, and it is not pretty to watch.

OBAMA: "Did you have something to do with that?"

Times Now correspondent Simrat Ghuman was "walking on air" after President Obama called on her to ask a question during his news conference at the G-20 summit in London. (Is it just me, or does that number seem to change every year, and entirely without warning?) Apparently, Ghuman was so high in the clouds that she couldn't help but interrupt Obama's answer:

QUESTION: Hi, Mr. President.

OBAMA: How are you?

QUESTION: Thank you for choosing me. I'm very well. I'm (inaudible) from the Times of India.

OBAMA: Wonderful.

QUESTION: You met with our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. What did you -- what are you -- what is America doing to help India battle terrorism emanating from Pakistan?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, your prime minister is a wonderful man.

QUESTION: Thank you. I agree.

(LAUGHTER)

I agree.

OBAMA: You know, did you have something to do with that?

(LAUGHTER)

You seem to kind of take credit for it a little bit there.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: We're really proud of him, so...

OBAMA: Of course. You should be proud of him. I'm teasing you. I think he's a very wise and decent man and has done a wonderful job in guiding India, even prior to being prime minister, along a path of extraordinary economic growth that is a marvel, I think, for all the world.... [link]

Must-see video of the entire exchange (including Obama's full response) is above, and the rest of Obama's answer appears after the jump. No word on whether Prime Minister Singh is now "walking on air" as well. However, the next time someone tells me that Sree Sreenivasan and Arun Venugopal are "wonderful men," I'll be tempted to interrupt and say "thank you."

Unfortunately, Ghuman's pride in her Prime Minister stole some of the media oxygen from the actual response to her own question. However, as the Associated Press notes, in his response Obama said that "in a nuclear age, at a time when perhaps the greatest enemy of both India and Pakistan should be poverty, ... it may make sense to create a more effective dialogue between India and Pakistan."

INDIA: Shashi Tharoor runs for Indian Parliament

 

We don't usually write about contests for seats in India's parliament, but it's also not usual for a New Yorker of 20+ years to run for one.

Shashi Tharoor, one of the best-known Indian writers today, and runner-up for United Nations Secretary General in 2006, has announced his candidacy for the Lok Sabha seat from the capital of Kerala state, Thiruvananthapuram.

Tharoor, who has been the most frequent guest speaker at SAJA in its 15-year history, is taking a break from the world of books and diplomacy. From PTI a few minutes ago:

Former U.N. diplomat and Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor on Saturday filed nomination papers from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency.

Mr. Tharoor filed the papers before District Collector Sanjay Kaul at the collectorate here.

Congress leaders, including former MP from the constituency V.S. Sivakumar, MLA N. Sakthan, District Congress President Mohan Kumar were among those who accompanied Mr. Tharoor.
CPI's P.Ramachandran Nair, BJP State President P.K. Krishnadas and BSP State President A. Neelalohithadasan Nadar are the other main candidates in the fray.

The graphic above is from Tharoor's new campaign site, ShashiTharoor.in, which is different from his personal/books site, ShashiTharor.com.

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