Sunday, April 28, 2013

Mumbai gets its first Shariah court to settle civil, marital disputes

Mohammed Wajihuddin, TNN | Apr 29, 2013, 12.49 AM IST

READ MORE Jharkhand|Bihar

Mumbai gets its first Shariah court to settle civil, marital disputes

MUMBAI: The city is set to get its first Darul Qaza or Shariah court to settle civil and marital disputes in the Muslim community. The court, set up by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, will be inaugurated on Monday at Anjuman-i-Islam, near CST, and will serve to fill a long-felt need of the community.

Shariah courts already function at many places in the country, such as Hyderabad, Patna and Malegaon. Here qazis appointed by the AIMPLB hear the community's various disputes, barring criminal cases, and deliver judgements. "This court will function to settle mainly family disputes pertaining to marriage, divorce and inheritance. Marriage disputes will be settled quickly and the couples will be told to either reconcile or separate if reconciliation is not possible. It will save the community much time and money as fighting cases in civil courts is expensive and time-consuming," said AIMPLB secretary Maulana Wali Rahmani.

For a dispute to be heard by a Shariah court, both the parties in the dispute will have to approach the court. If one of the parties has approached a civil court, then it will have to withdraw the case for the Shariah court to accept the matter.

Rahmani said Shariah courts do not compete with the civil courts. "On the contrary, Shariah courts will lower the burden of the civil courts where thousands of cases are pending and the judges are overworked," he said.

Senior advocate and head of AIMPLB's legal cell Yusuf Muchalla called the city's Shariah court a "significant alternative dispute settlement mechanism". "This court will decide within the framework of Muslim personal laws and mainly deal with matrimonial disputes. This is a kind of domestic tribunal set up by the Muslim community." He added that district and high courts in Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Orissa have upheld several decisions given by the Shariah courts established by the Imarat-e-Shariah (House of Shariah) headquartered in Patna. Muchalla maintained that the Shariah courts were well within the law of the land.

'Shariah courts don't compete with civil courts'

For a dispute to be heard by a Shariah court, both the parties in the dispute will have to approach the court. If one of the parties has approached a civil court, then it will have to withdraw the case for the Shariah court to accept the matter.

AIMPLB secretary Maulana Wali Rahmani said Shariah courts do not compete with the civil courts. "On the contrary, Shariah courts will lower the burden of the civil courts where thousands of cases are pending and the judges are overworked," he said.

Senior advocate and head of AIMPLB's legal cell Yusuf Muchalla called the city's Shariah court a "significant alternative dispute settlement mechanism". "This court will decide within the framework of Muslim personal laws and mainly deal with matrimonial disputes. This is a kind of domestic tribunal set up by the Muslim community." He added that district and high courts in Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Orissa have upheld several decisions given by courts established by the Imarat-e-Shariah (House of Shariah) headquartered in Patna. Muchalla said that Shariah courts were within the law of the land.

Traced: Mumbai doctor who saved Mickey Nivelli from poverty in 1952

Legendary filmmaker Mickey Nivelli's six-decade hunt for the man who rescued him in 1952 comes to an end after a SUNDAY MiD DAY reader tracks down the saviour's family

April 28, 2013

Mumbai

Shailesh Bhatia

Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction. A week after SMD carried the story of legendary filmmaker Mickey Nivelli aka Harbance Kumar’s hunt for the man who saved his life 61 years ago, an enthusiastic reader managed to trace his saviour’s family.

On reading the story, avid SUNDAY MiD DAY reader, Vijay Mumwani, a businessman from Warden Road, recalled a story his friend told him two months ago. “Norma Talker, a family friend, narrated a similar incident to me over coffee. She told me about how her father had once brought home a starving young lad, who he had found lying in a maidan and nursed him back to health. There was an uncanny resemblance between her story and the SMD article, so I simply had to inform them,” he said.

An old photograph of late Dr Joe de Sousa, who saved a young Mickey Nivelli’s (top) life when the latter was jobless in Mumbai in 1952

The ecstatic Talker family got in touch with this reporter and emailed photographs of the late Dr Joe de Sousa, his daughter and granddaughter to Nivelli. After listening to the doctor’s daugher Norma’s recollection of the events of the fateful day, and looking at the photos, Nivelli confirmed that de Sousa is indeed the man who saved his life.

Dr de Sousa’s daughter, Norma Talker (right) identified Harbance Kumar as the boy her father once got home. (Left) Talker’s daughter, Deborah

Meet the Talkers
Narrating her story at her spacious Mahim flat, Norma Talker recalled, “We stayed on the first floor of Karamchand Mansion, close to Metro Cinema. I was around 12-years-old, when one morning my father found a young teenaged boy lying unconscious in the maidan on the way to his clinic in VT. The boy was wearing tattered clothes and had probably not eaten in days,” recalled Norma, an Indian Oil Corporation retiree. Norma added that her father was always dressed in a white coat, which is probably why Nivelli had mistaken him for a priest.

(Circled) Dr de Sousa’s home in Karamchand Mansion near Metro cinema, where he provided food and shelter to Mickey Nivelli, aka Harbance Kumar, in 1952

“My mother, Miquelila, was told to cook something to feed the young man, who was made to sit on the terrace,” added Norma, who identified Nivelli’s photograph on the front page. “But he was much younger when dad brought him home.”
“My mother has narrated this story to us repeatedly. Each time we would playfully tell her change the topic. Who knew the future course of events would be so fascinating?” wondered Norma’s daughter Deborah. Taking after her granddad, Deborah’s compassion is evident from the eleven dogs she provides a home for. She also supplies regular food and medicines to numerous strays in the neighbourhood.
Nivelli overjoyed
When Nivelli received the email with the photographs, he was overwhelmed. “I am crying as I write this. All those memories have come back. I do not have to go to a church, temple, mosque or a gurudwara to get a glimpse of god. I saw it in the good that people did for me. My heart is filled with gratitude and loyalty,” he wrote in response.
“It is too much of a coincidence to ignore. Gazing at the eyes of Dr de Sousa’s photograph, I do see the same kindness which had struck me when I first saw him,” he stated, adding that Norma was right his age. “At that time my moustache had not sprouted yet. The photograph with Shammi Kapoor is about four or five years after that incident. I had collapsed due to lack of food and fatigue when a priest-like man dressed in white took me home and from the compound shouted to his wife to make some food, even before I could crawl up to their first floor flat,” he recalled.
The good Samaritan
Norma recalled that bringing destitutes home to nurse them was common for her father. “He once brought home a tuberculosis patient, a scary ailment at that time. TB was his area of expertise and he was able to nurse him back to health. He even got home a man who had stab wounds after a local hospital refused to admit him, much to the anguish of my mother, who was scared of the consequences if the patient succumbed to his wounds in our house. But my dad could not bear to see human suffering,” she said.
Ironically, Dr de Sousa’s patient list included Bollywood greats like Nargis Dutt, Kamini Kaushal and even Dev Anand, who he was in close contact with, until his recent sudden demise. Nivelli has been close to the Dutt family too. The Dutts, he claims, invariably stayed at his apartment when they visit New York.
An extremely grateful Nivelli concluded, “I do not want to forget those days and I do not want to fail to thank those who reached out. Thank you SUNDAY MiD DAY.”

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Confessions Of A Thug

Meadows Taylor

Rupa & Company, 01-Jul-2002 - Fiction - 547 pages

Confessions of a Thug is a tale of crime and retribution. Set in 1832 in India, the story lays bare the practice of the Thugs, or deceivers as they were called, who lived in boats and used to murder those passengers whom they were able to entice into their company

Confessions of a Thug - a crucial book

An adventure story about Thuggees with a thuggee as its fascinating hero - or antihero. Taylor's book helped propel the still-continuing wave of popular western interest in the cult.

Philip Meadows Taylor: his stories of Indian life are surprisingly free of condescending western racial and cultural stereotypes.

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Confessions of a thug (1839)[read on line]

http://archive.org/details/confessionsathu00stewgoog

W. H. Sleeman - Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official-CLICK AND READ:-

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15

Friday, April 26, 2013

1838-TIMES OF INDIA BOMBAY WAS BORN,AND OTHER PHOTOS OF BOMBAY(NOW MUMBAI)

Thursday, April 25, 2013

1838 -TIMES OF INDIA BORN

An illustration of "The Times of India" office building near Churchgate in Mumbai in 1950.

TIMES OF INDIA BUILDING-THROUGH THE AGES -

Churchgate Street, now known as Vir Nariman Road, in the Fort area of Bombay was taken in the 1860s to form part of an album entitled 'Photographs of India and Overland Route'. Churchgate Street runs from Horniman Circle at the east end to what was originally named Marine Drive at the edge of the Back Bay. Churchgate Station,
Church Gate Street, Bombay.

'Times of India'] Building, corner of Elphinstone Cir. - 1880 - Genl. Nassau Lees, Proprietor.-Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1880-
['Times of India'] Building, corner of Elphinstone Cir. - 1880 - Genl. Nassau Lees, Proprietor.

['Times of India'] Building opposite St Thomas's Cathedral, connected with Elph. Cir. [Elphinstone Circle] - July 1898 - Kane, Bennet & Co.--Photographer: E.O.S. and Company Medium: Photographic print Date: 1898-

THE BOMBAY FORT

VIEW INSIDEBOMBAY FORT;GUNS READY OVER THE FORT WALL

http://www.old-print.com/mas_assets/full2/P1220853/P1220853436.jpg

BOMBAIA (BOMBAY IN PORTUGUESE)-16TH CENTURY ENGLISH FORT IN BOMBAY

FORT BOMBAY WITH FORT WALLS 1850

PHOTO BELOW SHOWS:-
THE ORIGINAL CHURCH GATE(GATE NEAR ST.THOMAS CHURCH WHICH CAN BE SEEN IN THE BACK) OF BOMBAY FORT ;LATER CHURCH GATE RAILWAY STATION GOT THIS NAME ;AS IT WAS BUILT NEAR THIS GATE.
THE FORT WAS BUILT AGAINST ENEMIES;SUCH AS PORTUGUESE AND SIDDI SHIPS
THE GATE HAD A BRIDGE BUILT, OVER A MOAT, FILLED WITH WATER ;TO PREVENT ENEMY SOLDIERS

SIDIS ATTACK AND DEFEAT ENGLISH IN BOMBAY-1689 A.D...

Sep 3, 2011

BELOW PHOTO SHOWS

CHURCH GATE STREET OF BOMBAY FORT

[INSIDE VIEW] THE CHURCH GATE ALSO SEEN IN THE DISTANCE.

THE SECOND SHOP FROM CORNER IS 'BOMBAY TIMES1859: Bombay Standard and Chronicle of Western India merges into The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce to form Bombay Times & Standard ^{--NOW KNOWN AS TIMES OF INDIA NEWSPAPER}'[A PALANQUIN IS PARKED IN FRONT OF THE OFFICE ,ALSO A CAPARISONED HORSE

BELOW:-ENGLISH SOLDIERS CAN BE SEEN WITH RED SHIRT ,NEAR HARBOUR GATE .
THE UMBRELLAS OF MANY COLOURS WERE USED BY THE RICH, MORE AS FASHION, THAN AS SUN SHADE.MANY PALANQUINS ALSO SEEN

Scotch Church, Court-House, and entrance to the Dock-Yard [Bombay].--Photographer: Scott, Charles Medium: Photographic print Date: 1850--THE ICE HOUSE NEXT TO THE CHURCH (DOMED STRUCTURE);WHERE ICE IMPORTED BY SHIP WAS STORED;TILL ICE MAKING WAS DISCOVERED ;NEXT BUILDING IS LAW COURT

Photograph from 'Views in the island of Bombay' by Charles Scott,1850s. This is a view looking north along Apollo Street from the Apollo Gate towards the dockyards entrance on the right. The Scotch Church stands in the left foreground, with Hornby House beyond. The classic Georgian style Saint Andrew's or Scotch Kirk was completed in 1819. Hornby House, which initially began as a residence to the Governor Hornby, served as the Law Court until the late 1870s when it became the Great Western Hotel. Between this building and the church, stands the domed Ice-House, erected by subscription in 1843 for the consignments of ice which were imported regularly and sold to the public. When ice began to be manufactured in Bombay the Ice-House lost its purpose and was used as a godown until it was demolished years later.
A PALKHI WALA (PALANQUIN CARRIER)CAN BE SEEN SITTING NEXT TO THE PALKHI ;NEAR CHURCH STEPS.THE ROAD LEADS TO THE 'CHURCH GATE' OF THE BOMBAY FORT WALL

http://oldphotosbombay.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-ice-came-to-india-1833.htmlBombay Castle--Aquatinter: Baily, James (1810-37) Medium: Aquatint, coloured Date: 1809

AN ARTICLE ON 'THE WILD BEASTS OF BOMBAY'1770 T0 1863

above photo of malabar hill forest;below matunga forest 1850's

1783. — The Governor and most of the gentlemen of Bombay go annually on a party of pleasure to Salsette" to hunt the wild boar and royal tiger, both of which we found here in great plenty. — Hector Macneill.

1806, December 17th. — Two gentlemen at 7 a.m. riding towards the bungalows of General Macpherson on the Island of Salsette, near the village of Coorla, two tigers came out of the jungle as if ready to spring, crouched, and were observed to betake themselves to the jungles and hills of Powee, fifty yards in front of the horses.

And in this connection two persons on November 4th were carried off by two tigers from a native village nearly opposite to Powee, near the high road leading from Sion to Tanna. The natives believe the tigers are human beings, and have gold rings in their ears and noses.

One native's body they had sucked all the blood out of it, otherwise not eaten. They took away a herdsman driving his flock.

1819, — There were in all only three deaths recorded in India of Europeans from snake-bites in the years 1817, 1818 and 1819.

1820, December 23rd. — A large lion killed within eight coss from Ahmedabad.

1822, February 9th. — A tiger on Malabar Hill came down, quenched his thirst at Gowalla Tank, and ran off over the hill between the Hermitage and Prospect Lodge. Prints of its feet were distinctly visible this morning.

1828. — At Colaba Ferry a huge shark was observed in proximity to some bathers.

1830, January 13th. — A large hyena is prowling about Malabar Hill on the western side between Mr. Nicol's residence and Vaucluse, " as good sport as a Mazagon tiger." — Bombay Gazette.

1839, June 25th. — Lieutenant Montague, at Colaba, returning from mess, put his foot in a hole, received a slight wound which in twenty-five minutes carried him off. Some jurors thought it was from the bite of a serpent.

1841, September 15 th. — A man bitten by a snake on the Esplanade.