Desi News Corp - Index

Desi News Corp - Desi News - June 2009 - Index

How a desi Canadian is helping
bring cheer to a Kolkata slum
Jayshree Hela came to Kolkata’sFakir
Bagan slum from
Lucknow and is happy to
learn I have family in Lucknow.
“Tab toh hum rishteydaar hue!
(then we are family),” she responds,
and calls me didi (elder
sister).
But Jayshree is even more
happy to learn that I am calling
from Canada, for she is very fond
of Canadians and Americans.
That’s because a Canadian
and an American are working
to bring better health services
to the residents of Fakir Bagan.
Srivatsa Marthi was around
19 when he began interning
with an organization that dealt
in micro finance in South India.
While in India, he had the
10 Desi News June 2009
opportunity to visit Kolkata
where he met Noah Levinson,
the young American co-founder
of Calcutta Kids, an NGO
working to bring maternal and
child healthcare to some of the
city’s poorest.
“I fell in love with the city,”
says Srivatsa. “I loved the grassroots
work Noah and his team
were doing.”
He returned to Canada,
completed his undergrad in
Economics at the UofT, and
went back to Kolkata.
“It was a chance to work on
a project where I had a decisionmaking
role. To do cutting-edge
work – there is no sustainable
model in this field. It was a
chance to be really involved and
see real time results, not work
on a project report that would
get filed away! To get real field
experience.”
Now 23, Srivatsa has been in
Kolkata since 2007 and is called
Badsha by everyone in Fakir Bagan.
“That’s because they can’t
pronounce Srivatsa!” he laughs.
He spends his days in Ward
No. 15 in Fakir Bagan. It’s where
Dominique Lapierre based
his book, The City of Joy.
It’s an interesting place, says
Srivatsa, with many layers.
“There’s the social layer: You
see people chatting, making
jokes, having chai, kids playing,
etc. The kind of things you
might see in movies. You get a
sense of community, family, and
it’s very heart-warming. But
there’s the dark side – gender
inequity, very high rates of alcoholism
and violence.
“There’s the economic layer:
families have low and unsteady
income streams, lack of access
to pretty much any formal
financial services, lack of ability
to invest in their children
or in a business.
“Our slum is almost completely
Hindu, and it just feels
like religion is practised so
organically here. Perhaps ‘practise’
isn’t even a good word to
describe what religion means
here. Interestingly, the neighbouring
slum is almost completely
Muslim... communalism
lives on.