Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Friday, March 16, 2007

surely you're jockin, mr arputham*

meet jockin arputham. he is the head of national slum dwellers federation and sparc.
read his interviews here and here.

he is one backside kicking leader.

as we have been on this resettlement campaign over the last 2 weeks, it was a natural corollary to meet him. due to my court hearing today, my colleagues met him today and reaffirmed my favourable impressions.
this even though, 4 years ago, he had botched up (or did not help unbotch) a resettlement project in goregaon east (from kurla where i was working with a girls' school). and he had reneged on some promises for promoting use of common spaces for schools, etc.

he has made fairly big promises based on our big promises. so lets see if both of us are able to live up to them.

p.s. - the court ruled in our favour today, finally. matter is over now. april 30 granted.

* plagiarised from surely you're joking, mr feynman

2 comments:

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

hey good one! I reiterate offer to help in stuff like talking to the women & planning things.

csm said...

kbpm - now it time to plan for the resettlement.
still in planning stage. involved tons of money and hence thinking a bit.

still wonder if he is talking in the air a bit.

thanks for the offer. will be useful and will use. mostly once they move.