Bindu Menon
Calicut, February 13: In Kerala’s sports crazy Calicut, Hansaben Jayant is gearing up to usher in an India-Pakistan veterans cricket match this month-end. It’s not been easy, admits this 49-year-old avid cricket fan, who has even padded up for matches during college days. But for someone who has managed a foothold in the rough and tumble of Kerala politics by becoming the city’s first Gujarati councillor in 10 years, it’s perhaps not an entirely difficult task.
“It’ll be well worth the effort if the venture can cough up much needed revenue for the city’s sports initiatives,” says the lady who represents Big Bazaar, the biggest ward in Calicut Corporation and the city’s trading hub, a seat she managed to wrest from the Muslim League.
Sitting on the ubiquitous Gujarati jhoola at her home by the beach, an area populated by the city’s Gujarati community, Hansaben espouses her Malayalee identity over her Gujarati roots. Born and brought up here, “Kerala is my home”, she insists though she makes it a point to visit her relatives in native Rajkot every year. An active member of the Gujarati community, she celebrates Navratri with as much zest as Onam.
Daughter of a coconut exporter who settled in Kerala, Hansaben studied in Calicut and has been working as an English teacher with the Gujarati School here for the past 24 years, a job that she artfully juggles with the councillor’s one. Ample support from her investment consultant husband Jayant Kumar and two children, coupled with the goodwill that she earned in the teaching profession as well as years of social service helped her in good stead as she entered the political arena.
In a first for any councillor, Hansaben brought a touch of professionalism by opening her own office with staff so that she could be easily accessible to people. She also kept a complaint book for people to register their grievances in order to tackle each problem, ranging from rat menace to road construction, on a day-to-day basis. These efforts bore fruit when a political worker who ridiculed her candidature, came back to her after a year predicting another term for her.
Though elected on a Janata Dal (S) ticket, Hansaben says she is decidedly apolitical. But ask her if she will stand again for the civic polls and pat comes a politician’s response, “I leave it to the 7,000 people in my ward to decide.”
Calicut, February 13: In Kerala’s sports crazy Calicut, Hansaben Jayant is gearing up to usher in an India-Pakistan veterans cricket match this month-end. It’s not been easy, admits this 49-year-old avid cricket fan, who has even padded up for matches during college days. But for someone who has managed a foothold in the rough and tumble of Kerala politics by becoming the city’s first Gujarati councillor in 10 years, it’s perhaps not an entirely difficult task.
“It’ll be well worth the effort if the venture can cough up much needed revenue for the city’s sports initiatives,” says the lady who represents Big Bazaar, the biggest ward in Calicut Corporation and the city’s trading hub, a seat she managed to wrest from the Muslim League.
Sitting on the ubiquitous Gujarati jhoola at her home by the beach, an area populated by the city’s Gujarati community, Hansaben espouses her Malayalee identity over her Gujarati roots. Born and brought up here, “Kerala is my home”, she insists though she makes it a point to visit her relatives in native Rajkot every year. An active member of the Gujarati community, she celebrates Navratri with as much zest as Onam.
Daughter of a coconut exporter who settled in Kerala, Hansaben studied in Calicut and has been working as an English teacher with the Gujarati School here for the past 24 years, a job that she artfully juggles with the councillor’s one. Ample support from her investment consultant husband Jayant Kumar and two children, coupled with the goodwill that she earned in the teaching profession as well as years of social service helped her in good stead as she entered the political arena.
In a first for any councillor, Hansaben brought a touch of professionalism by opening her own office with staff so that she could be easily accessible to people. She also kept a complaint book for people to register their grievances in order to tackle each problem, ranging from rat menace to road construction, on a day-to-day basis. These efforts bore fruit when a political worker who ridiculed her candidature, came back to her after a year predicting another term for her.
Though elected on a Janata Dal (S) ticket, Hansaben says she is decidedly apolitical. But ask her if she will stand again for the civic polls and pat comes a politician’s response, “I leave it to the 7,000 people in my ward to decide.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment