Meher Pestonji, an Indian journalist and social activist visited Vienna in March 2007 to read from her book "Sadak Chhaap" and to engage in discussions on child abuse, child care and prevention of abuse. Here an off-site reflection on Vienna.

A man in a seventeenth century theatrical costume stands patiently in the streets around Vienna's Stefans Platz. He holds a large album of photographs and a wad of tickets. When tourists flocking the area ask the way to the palace he points to one direction, when they ask for the Museum Quarter he points further away, and when they ask for the music hall he promptly opens his photo album.

"Look at the magnificence of the fourteenth century Palais Palffy," he says. "You will pass this red carpeted entrance hall with antique chandeliers, and above this gilted stairway you will enter  the Figaro Hall where Mozart himself performed with his sister Nanney on October 16 1762. Wouldn't you like to hear Mozart and Strauss in the same salon?"

No ad campaign could have melted the heart faster. Though the cheapest ticket leaves a dent in my budget I buy it. And wait to savour a classic Viennese evening. Later I learn the tourist office is promoting a rival concert.

The palais is not exactly what the visuals promised. The crystal chandeliers and red carpet remain but frayed and fading wall frescoes have been replaced by painted portraits. A brochure tells us that in the fifteenth century the palais was owned by Count Paul Eberhard Palffy and remained with the Palffy family till the end of the nineteenth century. It was damaged in World War 11 but re-built.

The salon seats about a hundred. Most are tourists dressed elegant-casual. One woman wears an ankle-length black lace gown with ruby-like stones descending from neck into cleavage. She greets a friend in turquoise blue with pearls the size of cherries.

The orchestra comprises a woman on a grand piano, three violinists and a conductor dressed in baroque costumes. They begin with Mozart. I have barely a skeletal knowledge of Western classical music but my untrained ear likes what it hears. An Italian opera singer in a ravishing red gown holds the audience spell-bound but the ballet dancers who follow cant keep the tempo. Then the interval.

Champagne is served as guests cluster into groups. As I examine the solitary landscape among the portraits I see some Far Easterners (Vietnamese? Japanese?) hurrying into overcoats to step into the night. I move towards the portraits of the Palffys admiring the play of light and shadow, the brushwork, the austere, regal expressions on faces, thinking  what misfits they'd be in todays cocoa cola and instant coffee world.

The second part of the programme is Strauss played in historical Bierdermeier costumes. Back in my seat I sway to Roses from the South, Tales from Vienna Woods, and the ever popular Blue Danube. The audience is on its feet, demanding more. Two encores later the conductor forcefully calls it a day.
I step into the cold Viennese night resisting the urge to waltz in the streets to strains still reverberating in my head.
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A book review from the Deccan Herald:
 
Life in the fast lane 
Cheryl D’Couto
 
A hard-hitting book that does not baulk from telling the bitter truth about life on the fringes of society, written in a simple style.
 
Sadak Chhaap ; Meher Pestonji, Penguin Books India Ltd, 2005, pp190, Rs 250.

Set in the heart of Mumbai, Sadak Chhaap is a book about street children. The protagonist Rahul is a sprightly imp who although an urchin, is somewhat different from his fellows.
 
What this difference is, is not immediately evident, but soon one realises that while the others let street life– in all its ruthlessness– happen to them, Rahul does not succumb fully to the negatives of his condition. He is ‘moral’ in the thickest sense of the term. A ‘morality’ that prevails the rigours of insecurity and extreme want.

Having left behind a painful past in a village he can barely remember, Rahul survives on a railway station with the help of his ramshackle foster family; Karim Bhai (a fruit stall owner and father figure), Bablu (his best friend) Aparna (who works at Sharan– a shelter for street children), Chameli (a flower seller Rahul has a secret crush on) and baby Kajol.

Kajol is the sweet spot in Rahul’s life. When he spots a suspicious looking package on a platform, Rahul discovers a badly burned baby. He rescues the child and develops a strong attachment for her that earns him approval and eventually a chance to better his condition and prospects through a steady job. What follows is a story of betrayal, reprisal, tough love, bad love, ‘jailbreak’, heartbreak and thin triumphs.

The story is also about contrasts and contradictions, about shaky relationships forged by something lesser than love, yet harder than steel. About snatched pleasures and simple joys.

This is not reading for entertainment. Although initially one cannot help being interested in the story, which is a sort of window to the mean streets of Mumbai– eventually this is a story in which there is no respite; no rainbow at the end of the road. It does not get better for Rahul; it gets worse.

The reader is lulled into a false sense of complacency; into believing that street life is not the hell he suspected– but later realises in full how thoroughly evil such an existence can be.

What hits hard is that drugs and prostitution are not dirty words in the street. They are words intricately linked with survival– ‘transgressions’ that are no more so.

There is no way you can blame Rahul for grabing an apple from a cart when his insides are gnawing with hunger; stealing a cycle to save bus fare, lying to keep Kajol within his reach and eventually succumbing to the lure of ‘affectionate’ paedophiles.

The only stab Rahul has at entering a tremulous ‘comfort zone’ are through these perverts who offer a false sense of security that leave him scarred (if momentarily divorced from harsh reality) and push him even more deeply into a life of torture and abuse.

Meher Pestonji’s description is pure. Like a draught of cool water on a hot day, it has clarity and a refreshing quality that leaves the reader eager for more. Like her protagonist, she is sensitive, direct and simple (in her style). But into a crowded world of hunger, disease and basic physical concerns, she also tries to bring in moral rhetoric, viz the Gujarat riots. A rather sloppy inclusion compared to other issues of addiction, child marriage and sex tourism explored in the book.

The Printers (Mysore) Private Ltd., Bangalore, India

A freelance journalist, Meher Pestonji (* 1946 Mumbay) has participated in the campaign to change rape law in the '70s, the struggle of slum dwellers' housing rights, children's rights, anti-communalism campaigns and detailed reporting on the SriKrishan Commission instituted to investigate the Bombay riots of 1992-93. When her marriage broke up, she chose freelance journalism in spite of its inherent financial insecurity, because of its ability to expand her horizons and enrich her life. She revels in the opportunities to talk to street children and film stars, to interview scientists and businesspeople and social workers.
Biographical note quoted from: SAWNET Bookshelf

Read from Meher Pestonji her article on Child Sexual Abuse here at the ZITIG