1200-page Marathi Bible sold out in just 20 days

1200-page Marathi Bible sold out in just 20 days

CAMIL PARKHE
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 AT 10:08 PM (IST)
Tags: Bible, Francis D'Britto, Rajhans Prakashan, Marathi
Subodh Bible, a 1200-page Marathi edition of the Bible translated by Fr Francis D'Britto and published by Rajhans Prakashan, has been sold out within 20 days after publication, setting a new record in the 200-year-history of Marathi edition of the scripture.
The Marathi Bible, priced at Rs 1,200, was made available at a discounted rate of Rs 750.
Anand Hardikar, editor of Rajhans Prakashan, said that the new translation of the Marathi Bible was released in Vasai in Thane district on June 20 and 2,000 copies have already been sold in different parts of the state.
The publishing house has decided to print a second edition of the translation and advertisements seeking booking for the copies would be released this Sunday, he said.
The exact number of the copies of the next edition would be decided on the basis of the response of readers, Hardikar said.
Rev William Carey had first published a part of the Bible in Marathi in West Bengal in 1807. This book was one of the first printed in this language.
Hardikar said that although some of Rajhans Prakashan's books have been sold in a record period of less than a 10 days, this overwhelming response for Bible's edition was not expected. The publishing house had not sought pre-publication booking of the edition, he said, and added that the copies were sold at various centres of the publishing house in Pune, Mumbai and elsewhere.
The overwhelming response to the new Bible edition is attributed to the popular writing style of the translator, Fr D'Britto, whose other books in Marathi have won readers' acclaim.
Incidentally, this is the first Marathi edition of the Bible released by a non-religious publishing house. It is the only second edition translated by a single individual. Pandita Ramabai had single handedly translated the entire Bible in Marathi 90 years ago.

Ideal Khap Panchayat

Ideal Khap Panchayat

CAMIL PARKHE
Friday, July 23, 2010 AT 09:25 PM (IST)
Tags: Khap Panchayat, Gawaki, Camil Parkhe
What is wrong in having khap panchayats or other bodies to set norms for members of a particular community? Some recent events in north India have brought a bad name for such "extra-constitutional" bodies. Jati or jamat panchayats have been a characteristic of ancient Indian society and they have served their purpose well. The genre of the khap panchayat itself should not be condemned per se.
I recently read a souvenir, commemorating the 50th anniversary of a "gawaki" (a sort of a khap panchayat, shall we say?) in the Vasai taluka of Thane district. I was pleasantly surprised to know that a body framing rules for its community members can also play positive roles. The Pali Wadwali Christian Samaj "gawaki" of three villages -- Wadwali, Gorodi and Karijbhat -- established in 1959 has framed rules for its members to come to the aid of those in mourning following a death in the family, to felicitate successful students and to honour senior citizens on reaching age milestones like 60, 75 or 80 years.
The "gawaki" is empowered to impose a penalty in the form of fines on persons who fail to abide by its rules. To this date, its authority has not been challenged by any of the members.
Incidentally, people who follow the diktats of the "gawaki" are no illiterate persons. The community is generally called East Indians and claims to be the original inhabitants of Mumbai and Thane. Most of them are financially sound and many of them travel to Mumbai daily to earn their bread.
One of the gawaki rules is that at least one male member in each family must rush to the house of a bereaved family in the village within half an hour of the death and also attend the funeral whenever it is held. The "gawaki" offers incentives to those who contact community members on the demise of a member, may be Rs100 as petrol expenses.
Those who fail to turn up at the house of the deceased and for the funeral have to pay a fine of Rs50. The members of the bereaved family are thus saved the trouble of running around to secure the death certificate and make all the arrangement for the final rites at the church and the cemetery. The survival of the "gawaki" for 50 years speaks volumes for its utility. There are more "gawakis" functioning in other villages in the Vasai taluka. I wish the tribe of such "gawakis" may increase elsewhere too in the new avatar of housing societies, and associations of employees or communities.

SISTER REKHA IS FIRST WOMAN PROFESSOR IN CHURCH IN INDIA

SISTER REKHA IS FIRST WOMAN PROFESSOR IN CHURCH IN INDIA

CAMIL PARKHE
Thursday, July 22, 2010 AT 11:57 AM (IST)
Tags: Rekha Chennattu, Church, women professor, JDV, Christanity, India
Sister Rekha Chennattu, a nun belonging to the Religious of Assumption congregation, has earned the distinction of being the first woman professor in the male-dominated Catholic Church in the country.
Sister Chennattu, who has been teaching Bible to the priests-in-formation at the Jnana Deep Vidyapeeth (JDV) located on the Nagar Road in the city was recently promoted to the rank of a full-time professor with the approval of the Vatican.
Speaking to Sakàl Times, Sister Rekha said that it was indeed an honour to be elevated to the rank of professor at the JDV, an institute where would-be priests from across the country and from abroad take lessons in theology.
Sister Chennattu said that there are only a handful of Catholic women professors teaching Bible in Rome and elsewhere in the world. “It is heartening to note this number has been on the rise in the recent past,” she said.
Sister Chennattu, who hails from Kerala had worked for a year among tribals in Nashik district. She had joined the JDV teaching faculty as a lecturer on scripture in 1996. She has a licentiate of the Rome-based Pontifical Biblical Institute and also holds a doctorate in Biblical studies of the Catholic University of America, Washington DC.
Father Malcolm Sequeira, spokesperson for the Pune diocese, said that it is an honour for Sister Chennattu to be the first woman professor on Bible at the prestigious Jnana Deep Vidyapeeth.

Christians hail caste inclusion in census

Christians hail caste inclusion in census

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20100513/5741562463657674903.htm

CAMIL PARKHE

Thursday, May 13, 2010 AT 01:23 PM (IST)
Tags: CBCI, Church, caste, census, Christianity, Dalit Christians
PUNE: The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the apex body of the Catholic Church in the country, has welcomed the government’s willingness to include caste in the national census.
The CBCI has said that the move will facilitate identification of the dalit Christians - the erstwhile untouchables converted to Christianity - and help them get benefits extended to dalits belonging
to other religions.
In an interview to a Christian website, Fr Babu Joseph, CBCI spokesperson, welcomed the Centre’s proposal and said that since caste remains a social reality, there should be the “actual picture of people belonging to a particular caste.” However, such data should be used for ‘our long term aim of removing caste’ from society, he said.
The Church, which does not endorse casteism in its community, however recognises existence of dalits in its fold and has been demanding that they should be given all the concessions given to dalit Sikhs and Buddhists.
Fr Malcolm Sequeira, spokesperson of Pune diocese, has said that mere religious conversion does not bring any changes into the socio-economic status of the dalits. Therefore, dalit Christians should not be discriminated on the grounds of their religion. Fr Sequeira said that the census form should have two separate columns for caste and religions, so that even dalit Christians or dalits of any religion may be able to specify their caste as well as religion.
Tribals from northeastern states converted to Christianity continue to get quota meant for scheduled tribes even after conversion. This benefit is not extended to the dalits Christians, formerly belonging to various scheduled castes.

Great orators vanish

Great orators vanish

CAMIL PARKHE
Sunday, July 11, 2010 AT 12:00 AM (IST)
Tags: Shivajirao Bhosale, Orator
Newspapers in Maharashtra prominently carried last week the news of Shivajirao Bhosale's death. Bhosale was a former vice-chancellor, writer and college principal for several years. But it was the orator in him that was the highlight of all the news stories, obits and editorials. Professionals like teachers, lawyers and preachers have to constantly put their oratorical skills to test and only some of them stand out as good orators. As a reporter in Aurangabad, I had covered Bhosale's week-long lecture series on
"Dnyaneshwari." The innumerable members of the audience were left spellbound each day with his oratorical skills.
Acharya Atre was undoubtedly the greatest orator among the towering personalities who led the Samyutka Maharashtra movement in the 1950s. After Atre, humorist P.L. Deshpande mesmerised the Marathi-speaking audience. I had attended a three-day lecture series delivered by this popular writer in Goa. On the first day, I had managed to secure a seat reserved for journalists in the packed hall and experienced his power of oratory. The next day, I had to hear him standing in the crowded passage that led to the rows of seats in the hall. On the last day, the hall was packed half an hour before the speech. I could only hear P.L., not see him.
Shivshahir Babasaheb Purandare is among the veteran orators Maharashtra has produced. There were many other personalities whose lectures drew thousands of people in various cities. Keertankar Govindswami Aphale, editor Madhav Gadkari, writers Ram Shewalkar and Y.D. Phadke are some of persons whose oratory skill impressed masses.
As I went through the obits on Shivajirao Bhosale, I wondered who are the gen-next orators who can step into his shoes. There are scores of orators from various fields. But none can draw people in as large numbers as Atre, P.L., Bhosale or Purandare did. Of course, this is no reflection on their oratorical skills but an outcome of the changing era. In the present age of 24-hour news channels, live and reality shows, and entertainment, how many people would visit a hall and listen to a speaker for over two hours? And how can an orator hone his oratory skill without a constant feedback from the audiences? The future may bring in many popular orators but they are unlikely to reach the stature of Purandare, Bhosale, P.L. Deshapande and Atre. Titans in the field of oratory with a large following may well be a thing of the past.

http://72.78.249.126/SakaalTimesBeta/20100711/5079870340311480905.htm

Nehru the gardener was my inspiration

Nehru the gardener was my inspiration
CAMIL PARKHE
Thursday, June 24, 2010 AT 12:00 AM (IST)
Tags: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Gardening
When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was jailed in Ahmednagar Fort during the Quit India movement, he utilised the prison term to pen his magnum opus ‘Discovery of India’ and to create a rose garden at the historic fort of Chand Bibi. Nehru had no idea as to how long the British rulers would keep him in that prison. But that did not deter him from growing a rose garden there - an act that has inspired me immensely in the past few years.
As a student in Goa, I had developed a garden on an open space near the staircase leading to our hostel. But at that time, I had not known about Nehru’s experiments in the garden.
After marriage, I moved from Deccan Gymkhana to Chinchwad. The large open area in front of our building beckoned me whenever I stood in balcony of our third floor flat. One July morning, I started cleaning the area near our housing society’s water tank. The place had vegetation tall enough to hide buffaloes which roamed there. Next week, I bought a pickaxe and other gardening equipments.
It was then that my wife asked me what I was upto. She could not imagine me cleaning up that dirty place and planning a garden there, especially when the land was not even ours. It was then that Pandit Nehru came to my rescue. “Nehru, a towering leader of his time, made a rose garden even in a prison. So what’s wrong if I develop a garden near our society’s building?” I asked her.
The Nehru example did the trick. Thereafter my wife has never objected to my gardening. Working in a garden which was not even ours was not easy. I was aware of several pairs of eyes watching me scornfully from nearby flats as I cleaned weeds, watered the plants and drove away buffaloes. It was the image of Nehru working in the prison that helped me to carry on. Soon, I developed a garden on that land with many flower plants and some tall trees.
Recently, we shifted to a new building nearby in the same colony. Here, too, the large open space near the building beckoned me. This time, there was no hesitation on my part. I have been developing a garden on this no man’s land, nurturing the saplings with my head held high - thanks to Pandit Nehru !

Football on home turf

Football on home turf


Sakal Times

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20100617/4855837917579914042.htm

CAMIL PARKHE



Thursday, June 17, 2010 AT 04:54 AM (IST)

Tags: Football, television, sport, opinion

I was at home in the evening on my weekly off. My daughter, now in the crucial 10th standard, was also at home as her tuition teacher had given her a holiday. After long, animated chats with friends in the building, she returned and exclaimed, “What’re you doing? The entire world is going crazy over World Cup football and you haven’t switched on the TV?” Soon we were glued to the television set, watching with excitement the moves by South African and Mexican players.

I am no sports buff. I don’t understand the technical terms, rules and nuances of various sports. The other day, a junior colleague stared at me in sheer disbelief when I asked him whether a leading cricket star was a lefthander. But when world cup cricket matches or any prestigious cricket tournaments are on, the cricket fever grips me too. I find myself joining the crowds in shouting, advising some top players how they could have played the shot better and telling anybody ready to listen what the captain should do at that particular stage of the match, without really knowing anything about the game.

Now the father-daughter duo was absorbed in the football match. Suddenly I found myself on home turf. After ages, I remembered how passionately I had played football during my college days in Goa. I was a much-sought goalie when the two captains would begin selecting teams.

As the players intercepted the ball, dribbled it past a couple of rival players, passed it on or tried to head it; as they ran into the rival player rather than the ball, kicked some player with adroitness calculated to put the referee into two minds, I provided a running commentary for the benefit of my daughter. We spent the next hour enjoying the match with much excitement. It was intermingled with my expert comments, which left my daughter much impressed. To me it was a throwback to my school and college days full of fun and joyous abandonment. As I recounted those small details to my daughter, we suddenly developed a new bond. After a while, my wife returned home, interrupting her gossip session with the neighbours to find out what had excited us so much.

She too was hooked on to the game. World Cup football matches have now eliminated the unending family wrangling over the control of the TV remote. The three of us savour a common television programme, besides the CID and some popular serials.