Pensha

I met Renuka Shahane last year when she was in the city to promote her directorial venture 'Rita'. --- It's hard to believe that the demure and soft-spoken Renuka Shahane was a 'crazy' teenager or that as a child she used to pick up stray cats and bring them home. Talking to YB about her childhood, Renuka laughs, “My brother and I drove my mother mad by bringing stray cats home everyday. It didn't last very long because my mother put her foot down.” A student of King George School (now Shri Chatrapati Shivaji High School), Renuka as a child spoke Telugu and not Marathi. “My father was in the Indian Navy and we were stationed at Vishakhapatnam port. I spoke Telgu till I was five. Only after returning to Mumbai I learnt to speak Marathi. Now, of course, I am extremely fluent in the language,” says the popular TV star. Renuka who had dabbled in Marathi theatre as a student never intended to become an actress. “ I was very fond of children and I wanted to become ...

I did this story for the women's supplement under 'Community Connect' slug. People reading this....please help if you can. Headline: A Part of the Whole “ Life is like a jigsaw puzzle. And we are the pieces trying to fit in. Each of us has a place; we just have to find it,” says Meena Bedarkar of the Nirmalya Trust. Bedarkar founded the trust so that the visually, hearing impaired and paraplegics could 'find a place of their own' – in this case, employment. “ All over the world, parents worry about their kids. 'Who's going to look after my son/daughter when I am dead and gone? Will they find a good job?' This concern is more pronounced in the parents who have challenged kids. Hence we decided to start vocation units for these youngsters and adults and also act as a placement agency,” says Bedarkar, who's daughter, Tanuja, is a spastic. The trust, which was founded in 2005, supports nearly 1,000 persons with disabilities in both the urban and rura...

I had done this story on the Day of the Deaf (September 26) and International Week of the Deaf (which is the last week of September). I loved talking to Deepti Kelkar, the hearing impaired artiste. Some of her paintings are really good. I have not included the complete interview in the story. --- On my first day in the senior college, I saw a new, pleasant-faced girl sitting on the first bench in the classroom. She looked a bit upset after the first class and I wondered why. For the next week or so, it was the same pattern. One day I went up to her and asked what was troubling her. Asawari Bedge, my new friend, told me that she was deaf. She had to sit on the first bench so that she could lip read the lecturer. That was my first meeting with a hearing impaired student. And, I suddenly woke up to the fact that the 'normal' youngsters like me were unaware of the needs of someone like Asawari. Asawari was one of the few lucky hearing impaired people – she could hear and speak ju...

First-time author Leela Gour Broome's Flute in the Forest is everything that Leela stands for. We at Young Buzz, are fortunate to have had a brief introduction with Leela the musician, the dancer, a farmer and nature and wild life enthusiast and also a writer-contributor-artist. All these facets are present in Leela's first book, Flute in the Forest. Is Atiya Sardare, the 14-year-old girl, based on her? No....no...Atiya is not based on me or anyone else. I have just picked bits and traits from adults and children I have met and interacted with during the Nature Trails programme. Atiya was always there at the back of my mind....the other characters were written to shape Atiya's personality. The book is set in a forest reserve in South India, where Atiya's father Ram Deva Sardare is a Range forest officer. Thirteen-year-old Atiya is like any other girl or student of her age, except that she has polio and walks with a limp. She finds school boring and monotonous. Since s...