Shevlin Sebastian's Blog, page 31

Authoritarianism is growing worldwide, says Benyamin, as his novel, ‘Al Arabian Novel Factory’ is released in English

By Shevlin Sebastian 
[His Majesty] can’t sleep. If he does sleep, he dreams of being chased through a dirty tunnel. Eventually he is caught, dragged through the tunnel like a rat is dragged out of its hole, punched and violated, and in the end, shot. At this point, he wakes up suddenly and examines his body for bruises. Where did I get shot? Is this blood? Am I in the palace or in the tunnel? He is not able to sleep again. He complains of a heaviness in his chest. Counselling and medication don’t work. What can I say, he is a coward. This is the first time he has seen a protest. I keep telling him you need to practise facing your people. But he has always lived in the palace, surrounded by flattery and luxury. 

This is an extract from Benyamin’s ‘Al Arabian Novel Factory’. The English version has been published on December 15 by Juggernaut in a beautiful translation by Shahnaz Habib. This is a sequel to ‘Jasmine Days’, which had won the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature last year. Asked what the second book is all about Benyamin says, “In ‘Jasmine Days’ I focused on the revolution in Arabia. But in the ‘Arabian Novel Factory,’ it is about what happened after that.”

In the story, Pratap leaves his family in Toronto to go to a West Asia city, which is unnamed. He is supposed to do research on behalf of an author. But his secret desire is to meet up with Jasmine, his long-ago love. During his time in the city, he comes across a manuscript which tells the story of the Arab Spring and its failure. 

As for the meaning of the title, Benyamin says, “Nowadays when a well-known writer writes a novel, it is not his effort alone. Instead, many people collect data for him. There are others who do the cross-checking. Some do the interviews. So it is similar to a product made in a factory. That’s why I called it a novel factory.” 

The book deals with the theme of authoritarianism. “In most countries in West Asia, there is no political freedom,” says Benyamin. “As for freedom of expression, it is non-existent. You learn instinctively how to behave in a repressive society.” 

But there are enlightened people who are conscious of their political rights and the need for democracy. “I have met them,” says Benyamin who had lived in Bahrain for twenty years, before returning to Kerala in 2013. “It is a torment for them that they are not able to express themselves. So they migrate to Europe and other countries and start writing about their experiences.” 

He admits that India is going down the same path. “We are reaching a situation where people are afraid to talk about what they are thinking,” says Benyamin. “This is being down unconsciously. As [industrialist] Rahul Bajaj said recently, there is a pervasive fear in the country.” 

What is most distressing is that people are supporting authoritarianism all over the world. “I feel that they have become so frustrated with politicians and their false promises that they believe a strong leader will provide all the solutions,” he says.
“But history has shown this never happens. A strong leader usually ends up becoming a dictator.” 
Asked whether a novel can do anything in the face of authoritarianism, Benyamin says, “A novel can give a warning about what will happen? So, it is like a road sign which says, ‘Danger ahead’.” 

(A shorter version was published in The New Indian Express, Kerala editions)

When fans do their bit

Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor’s sister Anshula lauds contribution from Kerala and the South for her charity Fankind 

Pics: (From left) Varun Dhawan with Amitesh and Asawari Kulkarni and Jahnvi Kapoor; Anshula Kapoor

By Shevlin Sebastian 

The Hyderabad-based youngsters, Amitesh, 20, and his sister Asawari Kulkarni, 19, are sitting poolside at the Club, Mumbai on a November afternoon chatting with Anshula, sister of actor Arjun Kapoor and her step-sister, Janhvi. Suddenly, a man comes up behind them, puts his arms around the two and says, “Hello.” They turn around, both gasp, then Amitesh gets up and says, “Hi Varun (Dhawan)” and hugs him. 

They sit around and Bollywood star Varun says, “It’s so nice to meet you. When I go for promotional events, it is impossible to have a conversation with the fans.”  

Then the siblings give a framed photo of Balaji. Varun looks at it and says, “Thank you so much. We have a small temple in the house and I’ll place it there.” Later they play a game of paintball. And Amitesh says, “I couldn’t remember what Varun was saying. I was so much in shock. This is the first celebrity we were meeting. And also the first time we got on a flight and saw Mumbai.” 

So how did the Kulkarnis meet Varun? Through a charity called Fankind run by Anshula. So you log on to the web site (www.fankind.org), and contribute money to a charity favoured by Varun called the Manavlok Foundation which works to help farmers in Maharashtra. 

The fans responded. Around Rs 9 lakh was collected over 45 days. And it was used to help set up drip irrigation projects in drought-prone areas. “There is a major water crisis in Maharashtra,” says Varun. “And the worst-affected are the farmers. I am elated to know that we have raised sufficient funds to support Manavlok.” 

As for the selection of the winner, the entries are downloaded and put on a website called random.org. “It is like a giant fishbowl and one name is randomly picked,” says Anshula. “It has no bearing on how much money you have donated.” 

And Anshula is very happy with the contributions from the South. “We have received good donations from Kerala and Karnataka,” she says. “People from South India are very generous. If they know that their donation is going to genuinely help a child get much-needed heart surgery or a good education, they are willing to donate.” 
  The celebrities who have been involved so far have been Alia Bhatt, Sonakshi Sinha, Karan Johar and now it is the turn of Ananya Pandey. Thus far, Fankind has collected Rs 14 lakh. 
Asked how she got interested in charity, Anshula says, “Whatever kindness I have learned it is due to my mother (Mona Kapoor, who died in 2012). She said, ‘You don’t grow in isolation. You grow along with the community around you’.” 

Once there was a stray dog near their house who needed surgery. “Mom said to go out and get the funds for it,” says Anshula. “So, I went to PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals), took a bunch of calendars and T-shirts and began selling these to families and friends. The money wasn’t enough so my mom put up the rest. But the lesson was that if you want to do something, go ahead and do it. You don’t wait helplessly for somebody to do it for you.” 

(The New Indian Express, Hyderabad)

A ‘Short’ update

Nigel Short, the former World No 3 in chess, talks about his friend Vishwanathan Anand, and the state of chess in India, while on a recent visit to Kochi 
Photos: Nigel Short at the Taj Malabar, Kochi; Nigel Short and Garry Kasparov played in Belgium in 2015. Kasparov won 
By Shevlin Sebastian 
It is getting dark. Nigel Short is in the Rice Bowl restaurant at the Taj Malabar Resort and Spa, Kochi. Through the glass-paned window, he stares at a few water lilies floating in the backwaters and says, “This is so beautiful.” 
Then he looks at a hotel, all lit-up because of the Christmas season, on the opposite bank and says, “Wow, nice.” 
He smiles at his guest and says, “I have had a great time in Kerala.” The former World No. 3 had come on a five-day visit to interact with players and officials and to take a coaching session for 50 players. “I was joking with the local chess fraternity that it was good I came to Kerala at the end [after stops in Dhaka, Delhi and Chennai], because if I started here I would not have gone anywhere else,” says Nigel, who has travelled to 129 countries. 
He is a close friend of Indian chess legend Vishwanathan Anand. “At one time we were on the same level but then Anand went ahead and became a great champion,” says Nigel. “I like his chess and way of thinking.” 
But Anand, who turned fifty on December 11, is suffering from lapses of concentration during matches. “That is par for the course,” says Nigel. “No one can stop Father Time. In longer games, you can play well for the first three hours, but after that, it gets tough, if you are in your forties or beyond. You are unable to concentrate with the same intensity. Most people do not realise that chess can drain you physically.” 
It can also give you a psychological blow. When Nigel lost the World Championships final against Garry Kasparov at London in 1993, it took him 19 years to see those matches again. “Once you are defeated it plays on your mind,” he says. “For me, this happened in front of a world audience. You start to get afraid and sometimes these feelings multiply. Fear at the table is very common.”
Asked whether the mind can be trained to withstand fear, Nigel says, “Sure, you can. But in the end, we are all just human beings, not machines. We are influenced by emotions. Kasparov dominated me psychologically. Sitting across him I could feel his intense determination to win.” 
Another player who has a similar determination is current world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway. Like Kasparov, he can also intimidate his opponents because of his relentless wins. As to whether there is any player who could challenge Magnus now, Nigel mentions the name of Ding Liren from China. “He has had the upper hand in blitz chess and is already World No 3,” he says. “You need somebody like Liren who does not get intimidated.” 
Meanwhile, on most mornings, in India, when Nigel switched on the sports channels, he only saw cricket, cricket and more cricket. “I thought, ‘Where is chess?’ In the newspapers there is a lot of coverage of chess,” says Nigel. “So, the interest is there, but chess has not reached a wider TV audience. I agree that chess does not have the visual appeal of, say, football or cricket, but there are innovative ways to make the telecast interesting.” 
Three years ago, there was a proposal for a chess league, on a similar format as the Indian Premier League. “There was money coming in but this was torpedoed by the All India Chess Federation because they did not have the control,” says Nigel, the Vice President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE). “India is in the top five of chess-playing countries, in terms of talent. So, I have no doubt if you remove the brakes the game will boom.” 
(The New Indian Express, Kochi)

How to write well

Veteran Mumbai-based editor Suma Varughese, who is holding a workshop in Kochi, talks about the principles and techniques of writing  
By Shevlin Sebastian 
When veteran editor Suma Varughese saw participant Priya Lakshmi (name changed) at her writer’s workshop in Bangalore last month, she looked lively. However, later, when they spoke a tearful Priya said, “My husband passed away a year ago. He was a wonderful person. I have not been able to get over his death.”
Suma nodded sympathetically. 
In the evening, after the workshop concluded, Priya sent a Whatsapp message, “Suma, I want to thank you. I feel alive after such a long time.” 
Suma then urged Priya to write about her husband to bring about a closure to the death. 
Now Suma is coming to Kochi to hold her workshop, ‘The Zen Of Good Writing’. It will take place on December 14 at the Kochi Business School, from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. After the workshop, Suma will continue a month’s instruction on Whatsapp. 
Asked about the usual participants in her workshops, Suma says, “It is primarily women. They have a natural bent towards language. Women tend to be more right-brained. Having said that, there are excellent writers from both sexes.”  
The participants range in age from 12-75 years. They consist of lawyers, therapists, entrepreneurs, corporates, students and housewives. “There is a widespread longing to write well,” says Suma. “This is a time where everybody has an opportunity to write in the public domain through blogs, Facebook, Whatsapp or Twitter.”  
At the workshop, Suma starts with the principles of good writing. “There should be simplicity, brevity and clarity,” she says. “You should show vulnerability, write from the heart and use words of high energy.”  
To infuse high energy you should go for dynamic rather than lukewarm words. “Instead of a ‘hot’ day, say it is a ‘torrid’ day,” she says. “Instead of ‘very nice’, use ‘wonderful’. ‘Very’ is a big, fat crutch that we use. Always use the active voice, instead of the passive. In the passive, the sentence construction is awkward and tends to drag.”  
She also teaches the participants ways and means to generate ideas. “You can use your own life experiences,” says Suma. “Or when you travel on a bus or train, listen to what people are saying. You will get ideas from their conversations. Your muse will also give you ideas. When the ideas come, you need to write them down. You can develop a habit of looking at your thoughts and asking yourself, ‘Is there an idea there?’” 
Right now, Suma says, many people are concerned about the environment. “So a story about the environment will touch many people,” she says. 
As for the common errors made by participants, Suma says, “They don’t know how to use the articles ‘the’, ‘a’, and ‘an’. They use it when they don’t need it and don’t use it when it is needed. There is confusion about when to use ‘It’ or ‘It’s’. People have trouble with prepositions and tenses. We shift tenses mid-way through a paragraph. In short, grammar trips up a lot of people. Sadly, the education system is not putting any emphasis on grammar.”  
All these drawbacks can be solved through editing. “You can amplify certain sentences, and check the spelling, punctuation and facts,” says Suma. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Am I crisp and clear?’” 
Asked for the definition of a well-written copy, Suma says, “It should have a good beginning, an engaging middle and a strong ending.” 
(The New Indian Express, Kochi)

Foodies everywhere

As Kerala’s largest food-loving community Eat Kochi Eat crosses three lakh members, founder Karthik Murali talks about its genesis and flowering

Murali Karthik pic by A Sanesh 
By Shevlin Sebastian 
One day when Murali Karthik, founder of the food group, Eat Kochi Eat (EKE), put up a post of a dosa on Instagram, chef Gaggan Anand sent a message, ‘I hate you. I am so dosa hungry.’
Murali replied, “Ha Ha come straight to Kochi. Will get you the best dosa and maybe some puttu with mutta (egg) curry also.”
Gaggan sent a laughing emoji. The Thailand-based Gagan had studied at the Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Technology in Kovalam. He was the first Indian chef to be featured on the Netflix show, ‘Chef’s Table’, won a Michelin Two-star and was voted Asia’s No 1 chef in The World’s Best Fifty. “He likes Kerala cuisine a lot,” says Karthik. 
Apart from Karthik, many people like Eat Kochi Eat: recently, the group crossed more than three lakh followers on Facebook and Instagram. “It has been very gratifying,” says Karthik, who started the group on September 15, 2015 with a Facebook post. 
“I am a foodie and was looking for like-minded people,” he says. And he has attracted a wide range of people. There are college students, couples, career professionals, and elderly people. “When the topic of food comes up, people forgot their differences and have animated discussions,” says Karthik. “I realised there was magic regarding food. We have conducted 35 events in the past four years.”  
One such event which took place recently was during Diwali. About 45 people, who paid the registration fee of Rs 100, gathered one afternoon at Bikash Babu Sweets near the Kathrikadavu Railway Overbridge. There is an eating space at the back. “We told the participants they could eat whatever they wanted,” says Karthik. And they did. The bill, for such events, usually comes with a 20 percent discount. But this time, the participants got a surprise. Owner Amit Sarkar gave the savouries for free. 
The group has also gone on road trips to Kottayam, Palakkad, Thalassery, Kozhikode and Coimbatore. In Coimbatore, they covered 12 restaurants. “We had two breakfasts, two lunches, and three dinners,” says Karthik, with a smile.
Meanwhile, a lot of material is put online. So, on Facebook, member Shoba Mathew writes about the French Toast with Strawberries. “I cannot even begin to describe how good this tasted,” she said. “The brioche, fluffy and moist, soaked in the strawberry crush, and drenched in a healthy portion of cream, came together to create fireworks in my mouth. This is a dish to be tried once in your lifetime.” 
Karthik says a small group vet the posts. “We try to encourage positive reviews,” he says. “But if they are constructive negative reviews, we put that up also. We came to know of people who went to restaurants and said they would put up a negative review in EKE, but would not do so if they got a discount. So we are careful about negative statements. I tell members, ‘Please put up information which is helpful.”
Asked about the future, he says, “Today we are the largest foodie group in Kerala. We want to maintain that position.” 

(The New Indian Express, Kochi)

How my parents made me a journalist

By Shevlin Sebastian 
Pics: Parents in their prime; the good old days of the typewriter
Throughout my childhood, my father would bring out a community magazine. So I would see him type up the hand-written articles on his Hermes typewriter. ‘Click Clack’ went the keys at high speed. Then it would be sent to the printers. They would bring the proofs and I would watch as my father made corrections in his clear handwriting using red ink. And then one day the copies would come, in neat bundles, tied with string. I would flip through one and feel amazed at how the hand-written articles had ended up in a neat and compact way inside a magazine. 
So, is it any wonder that at age 16, one morning, I borrowed my Dad’s typewriter, rolled in a piece of paper, at a table in the verandah of our ground-floor apartment in Kolkata and wrote my first words? Astonishingly, I went to the end of the page. I read what I had written and liked it. But I knew, from my father’s example, that I needed to edit it. So, I used a pencil to correct and improve the text. 
I retyped it and sent it by post to a weekly newspaper which used to come to my house. So imagine my shock and surprise, when two weeks later, the article appeared, without a single word being changed… and I saw my byline in print for the first time. It ignited a passion in me. 
My mother also played a role. A few years ago she told me a memory which would be impossible for me to recall. She said that as soon as my father, who was an entrepreneur, left for work, she would sit on an armchair, put me, a few months old, on her lap, and read the newspaper. “I could do that because you always remained quiet and still,” she said. 
So I can imagine sitting against my mother, who later became a teacher, listening to her heartbeat and looking at print. Mother and son in a loving meditative silence with the only sound being the rustle of paper, as she turned the pages. Is it any wonder that reading is one of my most cherished habits and I ended up spending my life in the print media.
Nowadays, at 10 p.m. I have a chat with my parents. The conversation revolves around the people we have met, news of relatives, and events in the newspaper. But, always, sometime during the talk, my father will ask, “Is any article of yours appearing tomorrow?” If I say no, he looks disappointed. But I am happy that, after 4500 bylines, my father, who is 93, is still pushing me… 
(Published as a middle in The New Indian Express, South Indian editions)

Who am I?

On a recent visit to Kochi, Professor Cathy Greenblat talks about her career about photographing dementia patients and end of life care in Kerala and elsewhere
Pics: Helper Didi with Ashwani. Photo by Cathy Greenblat; Cathy Greenblat. Photo by Arun Angela 
By Shevlin Sebastian 
When the US-based Professor Cathy Greenblat, noted photographer on ageing, dementia, and end-of-life care, presented her visiting card, there was a surprise. On the back was a photograph of an elderly sari-clad woman who was gripping the elbow of a young woman. Both were smiling widely, but with eyes closed. In front of them was a magazine. It seemed they saw something that was very funny. 
“Mother and daughter,” says a visitor, looking at the image. 
Cathy smiles and says, “Everybody says that. But no, it is a caregiver, Didi, with a patient, Ashwani who is an advanced stage of Alzheimer's Disease at a day-care centre in Bangalore.” 
Cathy says she liked the photo because there is an emotional connection between the two. “It was such a joyous moment,” she says. “Whenever I look at the photo I feel happy. I want to spread this happiness. That is why it is at the back of my card.” 
Cathy had come to Kochi as a guest speaker to present a photo exhibition called ‘Arts, Hearts and Minds’ during the three-day international conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, ‘Ubodh’, organised by the Centre for Neuroscience, under the department of biotechnology, CUSAT. 
Since 2001, Cathy has been documenting the story of people living with dementia in nine countries -- India, USA, Japan, France, Britain, Dominican Republic, Germany, Monaco and Australia. 
And she has met all kinds of interesting people. At the Silverado Senior Living Alzheimer’s community in Escondido, California, she met a woman Hilda who could not remember whether she had lunch or what day it was. “When Hilda, who looked lost all the time, sat down at a piano she could play 400 songs from her memory,” says Cathy. “Music is one of the things that stay the longest in the mind.”  
At Silverado, Cathy realised that having Alzheimer's was not a disease that signified it was all over for the patient. “I saw people who were reading newspapers, doing things with flowers, having conversations, sitting at a table and eating with china, glasses and silverware,” says Cathy. “It was so different from what I had experienced in my own life.”
When her grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's he was put into a residential community for people with dementia. There his only activity was to watch TV. “He was a brilliant man who loved to read and talk,” says Cathy. “But they said he could not do anything anymore. This was flawed thinking. Later, my grandmother and mother suffered from the same disease. People have the idea that Alzheimer's takes a big bite out of your brain. But it is more like a mouse nibbling at a big piece of cheese. You lose your capabilities little by little. Our job is to look for what’s there. So I wanted to help change the mind-set, by photographing the best examples of dementia care.” 
In Kerala, Cathy spent three weeks taking photographs at the Neighbourhood Network of Palliative Care run by Suresh K Kumar at Kozhikode in 2008 for a project on end of life care. Then she met Dr Jacob Roy, who had founded the Alzheimer's and Related Disorders Society of India. “I went to Kunnamkulam where Jacob had put up first care home for Alzheimer’s patients in Kerala. There were about 10 or 12 residents and I took several pictures,” she says.  
Asked whether people react the same across countries, Cathy says, “Yes, they do. They need to feel that they are cared about, that they are not treated as stupid. They want to do things that are meaningful for them. They can go on excursions. In one home, some of the men would be taken to a local pool hall. They liked hitting the balls, drinking a beer and looking at pretty women.”   
Earlier, Cathy had a brilliant academic career. She is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Jersey, where she served for 35 years. The author of 15 books, she has lectured in the USA, Latin America, Europe, Russia, Africa, the Philippines, China, Australia, and Japan. “But since my retirement, I have been lucky to find another fulfilling career as a photographer,” says the 79-year-old. 
(The New Indian Express, Kochi)

It’s all about being unique

The ‘Sanyog’ music band, comprising Indian, Iranian and Polish musicians enthralled an audience at a concert at Kochi  
Pics by Albin Mathew 

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Very soon into the ‘Beyond Kochi Sounds’ music concert by the ‘Sanyog’ band at the Kerala Museum, on October 12, the audience is soaked in a wide variety of sounds: the violin, saxophone, cajon, drums, tambourine, piano, mridangam, hand cymbals, khanjari and the maraca. This comes as no surprise when you look at the band members: Iranian pianist Hami Keivan, a Polish saxophonist Jerzy Maczynski, violinist Apoorva Krishna (all three of them have just completed their Masters from the Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain), and Bengaluru-based Carnatic musicians Vinod Shyam and Sunaad Anoor. 

Young Apoorva has been the driving force behind Sanyog. Asked what Sanyog means, she says, “A confluence of world genres, a collaboration, or a coming together.” 

The group met for the first time at Bengaluru just three days before their Kochi concert and jammed together for ten hours at a stretch. The majority of the compositions were created by Apoorva, while there were two works by Hami who played the melodies of one of Iran’s notable composers, Abol Hasan Sabā (1902-57), as well as Iranian jazz while Jerzy played Polish jazz, again on two works. 

And for Jerzy, it has been a startling introduction to India. During a break in rehearsals, at Bengaluru, he wanted to have black coffee. So Vinod took him, along with Apoorva, on a scooter. And as Apoorva, said with a laugh, “This was the first time Jerzy was seeing a cow, a horse, a few dogs, potholes and too many buses, cars and auto-rickshaws on the road.” 

Jerzy nodded and said, ‘Mind-blowing. I didn’t know how to react. But I love Indian culture.” 

“And Indian women,” interjected Vinod. At the hotel where they had the coffee, he was taken up by the dusky beauty of the waitress.     

Meanwhile, at the Kochi concert, Vinod started singing a konnakol (vocal syllables) ‘Taka Dim, Taka Dim’ and, as the saxophone and violin joined in, it became a hypnotic chant. Many audience members swayed their heads from side to side or tapped their feet. 

Yes, the audience lapped it all up. Says Alphons Joseph, Mollywood music director: “Apoorva is a trained Carnatic violinist. Since she went and studied at Berklee, she could bring a wide range of musical genres in her compositions. And she did it so well. I was also very much impressed by the piano-playing of Hami. Thanks to him, I was able to hear a new type of music from Iran. Even Jerzy played very well. All the genres mixed even as they retained their individual identities. It resulted in a new and unique sound, which was very attractive. An analogy would be of different colours being mixed together and a new colour gets formed.” 

Guest Captain Suresh said it was an innovative and mellifluous ensemble. “Five very talented musicians who together kept us mesmerised.”      

Earlier, during a pre-performance chat, the Carnatic musicians said that it had been a challenging time to get a wavelength with Hami and Jerzy. “Some musicians have said that if you know Carnatic music, you can play any music,” says Vinod. “But that is not true. You have to learn, you have to work.”

Adds Apoorva: “Since I belong to the East and have studied in the West I understood the difficulties for Vinod and Sunaad. The sounds are very different. But then all of us were out of our comfort zones and improvising as we went along.” In fact, one composition at the concert was a jugalbandi that was a marvel in improvisation.  

Keeping a paternal eye on the group is Murali Krishna, the father of Apoorva who is also doubling up as the manager of the band. “Innovation is key,” he says. “The sound compositions have never been heard before. The saxophone is combining with the violin and piano. It is a judicious mix of Indian classical, Iranian classical and Polish jazz.” 

Murali pauses and says, “This is the music of the future. It will be accepted by the people because cultures are uniting and music is at the forefront of this change.”

Hitting the 2000 mark

Dear Friends,
Just to say that I have reached a personal milestone.
Published my 2000th bylined feature article in The New Indian Express.
My career total is about 4500 bylines.
A very grateful thanks:
To the management
Group Editor GS Vasu
Sunday Magazine Consulting Editor Ravi Shankar
Resident Editor Kiran Prakash
And to my colleagues across all editions in Kerala, South India and Delhi
Also:
To my former bosses and colleagues.
To my family for their love and support.
Thank you very much

A steely resolve

Police chief Manoj Abraham received an award on behalf of Kerala Police at an Interpol conference in France for the work done by them to fight the menace of child pornography        By Shevlin Sebastian 
Manoj Abraham, Additional Director-General of Police was feeling upbeat. He has just returned after participating in the 37th Interpol specialist group on crime against children in Lyon, France. More than 250 experts from 70 countries took part. In his speech, he explained that the Kerala Police Cyberdome had a campaign called Operation P-Hunt to ferret out paedophiles, administrators of porn groups and makers of films. In the past eight months, the police were able to register 38 cases and arrest 650 men through the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences and IT Acts. Manoj got sustained applause. “These figures were unimaginable for them,” he says. 
And the organisers were so happy they gave a prize to recognise the superlative efforts of the Kerala Police. It was presented by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. On the plaque it was printed: In recognition of your outstanding leadership in protecting children all over the world’.  
It had been an enlightening four days for the police officer. “I also experienced a wrenching feeling after listening to the speeches,” says Manoj, who is a father of three young boys. “There were cases where paedophiles were waiting for a child to be born. They want to do sex with infants and children till the age of 15. It is a sickness. There were cases where fathers had raped their daughters. Grandfathers had raped granddaughters. One man raped his daughter as well as his granddaughter.” 
What impressed Manoj at the conference was the resolve shown by the West. “They said we will fight till a child can live as a child,” says Manoj. “It is their determination that impressed me. The governments, as well as private companies, are spending millions of dollars on developing software to identify these people. And when they saw our efforts they said they would give the software to us for free.” 
Because of their stringent attitude as well as tough laws, many Western paedophiles travel to the East and other developing countries to get sex. In a place like the Philippines, in exchange for money, they can do the deed without any fear of the police or local society, who turn a blind eye to what is happening. “They also go to tourist places where they can hide in the presence of many visitors,” says Manoj. “So Kerala is an attractive destination for them. Which is why we are on high alert all the time.” 
Meanwhile, the demand for online child sex videos is insatiable. The police chief says it is mostly done using the mobile phone. “And it is usually somebody close to the child -- parents, siblings or relatives,” says Manoj. “Around 70 per cent is within the household. And the rest are from the immediate vicinity. Very rarely are children kidnapped for filming. It would be as low as 5 percent.”  
What was an eye-opener for Manoj was to realise that what he experienced in Kerala was what law enforcement faced everywhere. “So, even in the West there are instances of fathers raping their daughters and this is also happening here,” he says. “Education or no education, rich or poor, sexual crimes against children are happening everywhere. And so, there has to be a global effort to finish off this menace.” 
Boxes: Transmission of Child Sexual Abuse Materials Dark Net Social Media --  Telegram, Whatsapp, Omegle and Chatzy (anonymous chats)File Hosting Services - Drop Box, Google Drive  
Cyberdom Police FindingsIn Kerala, child pornographic content is shared through a Telegram Channel named ButterflyThe administrator is called ‘MLPM’. He was managing 35 porn groups. The total number of members was 38000.
Police Cyberdom PartnershipsFive Academic InstitutionsSix Government agencies  12 NGOsStudentsBanks Kerala State Mission 800 ethical hackers250 mobile technicians 
(The New Indian Express, Kerala editions)