Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.
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Extract – Part 1

Sindoor and Sex

Yashwant was looking out of the window at some policemen in the garden, spread out on the grass under one of the trees.  ‘Tell me, are any of those cops down there good-looking?  My eyes are so terrible.  Was this Hari character good-looking?’

That is not quite the point.  In a society where this kind of thing is so hush, hush, how is an eighteen-year old girl going to know how to protect herself when she is picked up by some much older man?  I just don’t believe that she is going to give Hari a little speech about using a condom, and no, none of them are good-looking.  They are just a bunch of very ordinary cops with little moustaches minding their own business under a tree.’
Yashwant continued to peer at the group, narrowing his eyes to try and focus.

‘Of course, she should insist on a condom.  I think the one on the left is nice.  What do you think?’

‘Of course she should but she won’t necessarily because she is afraid and believes that HIV is just for queers, prostitutes and street junkies.  No, he is not remotely cute, just thin.’

‘Homosexual or gay, not queer.  I think you are under- estimating how pushy Indian women are.  Yes, he is definitely cute.  I am beginning to focus now.’

Sourish was less distracted than Yashwant when his turn came for comment.

‘Are there any rules and regulations about what I can and cannot say when it comes to writing about sex?’

‘No, no, as long as it is not puerile or gratuitous.’

‘And what does The Indian Express regard as puerile or gratuitous?’

‘Indian politics.’  Sourish broke into his great belly laugh.

‘No, no, really, you know the sort of thing.  As long as it does not come across as being pornographic, unless you are quoting someone in context, then we can just star anything too bad to give a general thingy.’

Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.

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Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily

Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.
Buy this book from amazon.co.uk

Extract – Part 2

Sindoor and Sex Continued..

There was very little gratuitous ‘thingy’ when the article was printed.  It came out under the headline ‘Safe is Sexy’ and seemed innocuous.  Uncleji Harry did not get a mention.  The facts, figures and comments were alarming but they were twinned with two big colour pictures of laughing crowds dancing in holiday-camp settings, the text’s impact lost amidst what looked like good clean fun.  I had not said anything but I had assumed that the picture desk would go for a contrast – an image of an HIV clinic or one of the AIDS awareness campaign posters that were on the hoardings, something to act as a visual jolt.

Even with this soft approach readers were disgusted by my insinuation that their dewy offspring could be dabbling with a disease associated with what one commentator described as ‘tarts, tramps, drug addicts and the sexually perverse’.  The AIDS awareness bandwagon was rolling but it was not necessarily giving the right message.

The director of a sexual health helpline in Delhi had read the article.  She was concerned and depressed that some of the advertisements that were ostensibly promoting AIDS awareness were actually adding to the confusion and she rang me.

‘You know there is one advertisement, just your typical kind of ad painted up on hoardings in the standard way.  It shows two men leering at a woman in a skimpy skirt, smoking a cigarette.  To your average man a girl in a short skirt with a cigarette means one thing, fast, flash, easy and Westernized.  Some callers responding to that ad have told us that they are safe because they do not sleep with such types of women.  But the fact is that “such” types of women are not available to “such” types of men and neither are “such” types of women the only ones who could give them the virus.  One of our great problems is that apart from prostitutes and gays, who are beginning to realize the impact, every other sector of society seems to feel that it is immune because they are too poor to go to prostitutes, too clean to get infected or too rich to be touched by the virus.  Every day we feel that we are at war, not against HIV and AIDS but against the prejudice and ignorance.’  She took a deep breath.

You know we had a case recently where a young woman was in a government hospital suffering from AIDS and they put a placard at the end of her bed saying “Bio-hazard”.  You know the ward boys, the ayahs and the nurses were treating this woman as if she was an untouchable.

Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.

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Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.
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Extract – Part 3

Sindoor and Sex Continued..

Families with AIDS sufferers are experiencing rampant ostracism.  They are boycotted, thrown out of their jobs – the sort of treatment meted out to criminals.  What does that say about this country?  All we hear the whole time is how modern we are becoming, joining the computer age, the space age, whatever.  But look at this, we are creating a horrific new kind of caste system because of our basic ignorance.’

Her use of ‘untouchable’ was a surprise.  Here was a woman fighting the prejudices of society, yet she still deferred to the order of the caste system when it came to finding a simile for what the public viewed as the detritus of humanity.

‘People I have spoken to were shocked by what you wrote, you know, and all you were doing was giving them the official figures and some of the hazards of having a blinkered attitude towards the virus.  I wish you had been much more aggressive.  You see it is easier for you because you are a Westerner, it does not leave such a bitter taste for people.  They can still take it in but keep it at one step removed.  Can you imagine the panic if we released the unofficial figures on the virus, if we told some of the real stories and exposed some of the VIPs and Bollywood people who are HIV positive?  I am glad that you wrote the piece but we need that kind of stuff in every paper, every day, until people just cannot ignore it.

‘This is one of the times when I really wish we could take the example of the West, you know, give the whole thing a profile led by stars and politicians to show that nobody is immune.  You see no one is really brave enough to be the first one to admit that they have AIDS because that means all the dirt in their past will come out at the same time.’

Two days later there was a report in The Indian Express about a young man called Tarun (not his real name, you understand).  He had been admitted to hospital

He was suffering from jaundice among other infections.He was admitted to the casualty ward, where he had to share a bed with another patient for a day.  Scared that Tarun might be deprived of the little attention that he was getting, the family did not inform the doctors of the

infection.  But on the advice of an AIDS counsellor, the family told the doctors of the situation. Shockingly Tarun was immediately taken off the bed and put on the floor, where he lay for a week without any appropriate medical care.

‘The attitude changed so drastically, that is what was so humiliating,’ said a member of Tarun’s family.  ‘They wrote the words HIV positive on the case chart in big bold letters.  But more painful was the contempt in their eyes, it was just too painful.’ After a week, the next Saturday, the doctors said that Tarun would have to be shifted to AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science).

‘There the staff simply told us to come in on Monday. He died on Sunday, at home,’ said a member of Tarun’s family.

On World AIDS Day in December 1997, while Tarun’s family grieved, the Minister of Health gave the massaged figure for HIV

cases in India – 70,000 as against five million.  Nowhere in the announcement was there any mention of AIDS being spread by homosexual contact.

While the AIDS workers raged at the veil of silence, residents of the archetypal stomping grounds of the great emergent Indian middle class frowned and moved on, popping down the road to catch the latest Hollywood offering, MIB – Men in Black, at war with a huge man-eating cockroach from outer space.  It seemed a good enough distraction from the fear and ignorance hovering just outside their homes.

At Jodhpur Apartments, Ram Kumar was itching for a fight.  I was his victim.  He complained loudly to Yashwant.  I was accused of ordering tea whensoever I pleased.  Even Dhan Singh, who had burnt his hand making rotis and so was not in the best of moods, decided to have a gripe.  Tea once a day did not seem so demanding.  Ram Kumar was shouting.  Yashwant stood, one eyebrow raised.

‘Has she mistreated you?’ Yashwant asked.

Ram Kumar was silent.

‘I wish she would.  When will she learn to take my advice?  I may have to buy her a whip to beat you.’

Ram Kumar smiled.  I fled from the room.

Depressed by AIDS and tea I went to join the crowd at Men in Black.

The gentleman who sat next to me in the rustling, nattering gloom of the cinema first ploughed his way through popcorn, patties and cola.  Then he looked bored.  The show had only just
Begun.  He squirmed in his seat before lifting one side of his ample posterior.  I held my breath.  What emerged was a cellular phone.  The gentleman was ‘becoming bore’ as he informed his friend on the phone.  Anyway, the great big bug on the screen had reminded him to call about getting the number for pest control that they had talked about over pakoras and whisky just the night before.

MIB, Men in Black, and vast exploding cockroaches, for the MIB – the Moderately Incomed Blasé.  AIDS day was just another day for the Delhiites, not just another day for Tarun’s family.  The AIDS workers banged their drum and people walked on by, pressing their cellular phones to their ears.  But there was also something else in the air, something much more palatable.

Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.

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Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.
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Reviews

“Justine Hardy’s Scoop-Wallah is Delhi through the eyes and ears of a young English journalist who loves her and all things Indian. Justine’s feel for color and texture and the expressions in the eyes of her subjects radiates the story of a year spent working on an Indian daily newspaper. Ambitious to cover serious stories, she is, as a young woman, sent out to polo matches and society weddings. She fills in the gaps with her explorations of the real city, finding light and color even in the slums through the work of one former high-flying journalist who now runs schools in the slums. Like all travel literature, this book is mostly about the author whose passion and exuberance survive any challenge.”
Reader review on Amazon

Scoop-Wallah – Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.

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