Category: News & Updates

Save Every Drop… or Drop Dead

Save Every Drop… or Drop Dead

As a distinguished Indian painter and author, Aabid Surti has written around 80 books but no story so moved him as the truth about water scarcity on the planet. “I read an interview of the former UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali,” he recalls, “who said that by 2025 more than 40 countries are expected to experience water crisis. I remembered my childhood in a ghetto fighting for each bucket of water. I knew that shortage of water is the end of civilized life.”

A few days later, he came across a statistic in the newspaper: a tap that drips once every second wastes a thousand litres of water in a month. That triggered an idea. He would take a plumber from door to door and fix taps for free – one apartment complex every weekend.

He began by simply replacing old O-ring rubber gaskets with new ones, buying new fixtures from the wholesale market. He named his one-man NGO ‘Drop Dead’ and created a tagline: save every drop… or drop dead.
Every Sunday, the Drop Dead team – which consisted of Aabid himself, Riyaaz the plumber and a female volunteer Tejal – picked the apartment blocks, got permission from the housing societies, and got to work.

By the end of the first year, they had visited 1533 homes and fixed around 400 taps. Slowly, the news began to spread.

It’s hard to say how much water he has saved with his mission, given that the faucets he fixed could have continued leaking for months, and maybe years, had he not rung the doorbell one Sunday morning. But conservatively, it could be estimated thathe has single-handedly saved at least 5.5m litres of water till date.

In the summer of 2013, the state where Aabid lives is expecting its worst drought in 40 years. Months in advance, the Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan has warned citizens to begin conserving water. While ministers lobby for drought-relief packages worth millions of dollars, Aabid sees his own approach as simple and inexpensive.

As he rings another door-bell on yet another Sunday in Mira Road, seven years into his one-man mission, he says: “Anyone can launch a water conservation project in his or her area. That’s the beauty of this concept. It doesn’t require much funding or even an office. And most importantly, it puts the power back in our own hands.”

Interview: Aabid Surti, Saving The Planet, One Drop At A Time..

Garima Sharma on Mar 25, 2014

Last weekend while the world celebrated World Water Day, one man in a tiny suburb of Mumbai was going door to door fixing leaking taps free of charge, saving water, one drop at a time. Just like any other weekend. This is his story.

“HAUNTING MEMORIES OF FIGHTING FOR EVERY BUCKET OF WATER IN MY CHILDHOOD ARE MY DRIVING FORCE TO THIS DAY. WE MUST SAVE EVERY DROP, OR DROP DEAD”

Eighty years old Aabid Surti, migrated to a Dongri chawl as a child with his family. Life was tough, but what made it unbearable was the struggle for water. He still remembers how the common water tap in the chawl would dispense water for just ten minutes a day and how those ten minutes would transform the chawl into a battleground. Having spent his childhood growing up on the streets, struggling for every sip of water to drink drove him to to start Drop Dead Foundation, an NGO on a mission to save this invaluable resource that most of us take for granted. ‘We must save every drop or drop dead if we don’t’ insists Surti.

“IF YOU SINCERELY WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR SOCIETY, GOD HIMSELF BECOMES YOUR FUND RAISER.”

Drop Dead Foundation team

Drop Dead Foundation, simply put is a one man NGO run by Surti. Every Sunday he picks one locality in Mira Road where he goes door to door along with his lean team of plumbers and repairs leaking taps. As simple as this sounds, he has managed to save over 5 lakh litres of water in one year, and over 25 lakh litres of water since he started, working in just one locality of Mumbai. Consider for a moment, what we can achieve if we employ this simple yet effective technique to every house in every area of the city.

Aabid, an acclaimed writer with over 80 published books in Gujarati and Hindi, believes that “if you sincerely want to do something for society, God himself becomes your fund raiser.” He says he did not face any real challenges in beginning his work in 2007 and he continues to receive support from Rotarians and the Indian Plumbing Association. He does lament however that the government has not been very supportive in helping him grow this idea from Mira Road to other areas in Mumbai or offer support in anyway. As for finances, he has invested all the money he earns from awards towards this cause because “the money I get without labour should go towards betterment of society”.

Drop Dead Foundation plumber ta work

He explains, “We, I mean a plumber, a female volunteer and myself, have developed a process which we follow like clockwork. On Mondays, my volunteer visits the targeted building and meets the secretary of the housing society for permission. If the secretary agrees, then she puts up a poster on the housing society’s notice board, with our tagline Save Every Drop or Drop Dead. On Saturdays, through the watchman of the building, we send pamphlets that explain what Drop Dead Foundation is about, to every home. So when we arrive on Sunday morning we get a warm welcome from the members of the apartment building. Then we go house to house correcting leaky taps.”

Aabid adds that he finds it very easy to talk to societies and get necessary permissions to fix leaking taps and every home he goes to, he finds a fan, friend or a smiling host inviting him forchai. He gracefully refuses, keeping only the job at hand in focus but always remembers the warmth and smiles they shared with him. As a writer, he as also found many endearing characters on his home visits which have been incorporated in his stories.

“EVERYONE EXCEPT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO HELP ME.”

Over the years Aabid has observed that while there is a general lack of awareness about saving water, it is even more shocking in the affluent localities, because there is abundance. Negligence at large scale may soon turn water into a rare resource, if we do not curb it right away. And the best part is that is it so simple – just turn off a running tap or repair a leaking tap. Aabid believes that just like we have campaigns against smoking, we need massive  campaigns at the same scale to save water. Educating children right from young age to displaying ‘Save Water’ messages before movies, all can go a long way.

He says anyone can take on the cause and start the same service in their area. “I’m an author, painter and cartoonist but I make the time every week for society, for all of us. So can you.” he urges. The needs are modest he adds, “An office premise around 750 sq. ft. at Mira Rd to work and store posters, pamphlets, stickers, banners for rallies to create awareness etc. – which is actually my  residence, a computer to collect data, salary for an assistant cum computer operator to co-ordinate with other NGOs online working on water conservation, a peon for sundry work and a plumber and a volunteer on payroll with a two wheeler. If someone calls with a leakage issue, like the fire brigade, they can rush to the spot on bicycle and correct the leaking tap.”

More power to Aabid and his team of superheroes, may your tribe increase.

You can reach him on 98201 84964 or email aabidssurti@gmail.com.

Know of other heroes in Mumbai we should know about? Write to us at story@mumbaimag.com.

Features | Kyoorius Magazine

Features | Kyoorius Magazine

 4, 2014

Origins: Dabbuji

By Payal Khandelwal

As he enters the conference room of Mumbai’s Press Club, the most noticeable thing about Aabid Surti is his salt-and-pepper beard that covers a major part of his small face. The beard somehow marvelously chronicles the number of years he has spent in creating a massive and impressive body of work spanning genres and variety. 78-year old Surti is a national award winning painter, writer, illustrator, a one man NGO (Drop Dead) and one of the early cartoonists of India, who gave us the first ever “uncommon man”, the highly popular and eternal character Dabbuji.

The term ‘uncommon man’ instantly creates a kind of a parallel or contrast with the universally known RK Laxman’s The Common Man. Before you can even mention the thought, Surti validates it. “Unlike RK Laxman’s Common Man who is a quiet observer, Dabbuji interferes in everything. Sometimes he would win, sometimes he wouldn’t.” Now declared a prodigy, Dabbuji had quite a dreadful time when the cartoon series was first launched in 1956-57 in Gujarati. While Surti was quite hopeful that the cartoon would click, it was flooded with negative letters and responses week after week. He wanted to give it 4-6 months but the deluge of criticism made him shut the door on it, temporarily.

Dabbuji got a fresh lease of life again with Bennett Coleman & Company Limited’s (BCCL) Dharmyug magazine. And that was the beginning of a very long and charmed life. At that time, Dr. Dharamveer Bharti had come on board as the editor of Dharmyug, and being a nationalist, he was very adamant on bringing indigenous Indian cartoons in the magazine. Most cartoons that were being published at that time were western including Phantom, Tarzan, Mandrake the Magician, etc. “They tried all the major Indian cartoonists of that period including Mario Miranda but they all suffered the same fate in the Hindi belt as I did in Gujarati with Dabbuji,” says Surti. He wasn’t a very popular cartoonist then, and thus he was called last. He was working with another BCCL’s monthly magazine for children called Parag where he published a cartoon series Dr. Chinchoo ke Chamatkar, which taught science to children through humor. When invited by Dharmyug, Surti decided to translate all the rejected Dabbuji’s strips in Hindi.

 

“It picked up right from the first week. Why did that happen and what was the psyche behind it, I haven’t understood till date. It has become a legend now and wherever I go even today, especially in North India, there are die-hard fans of Dabbuji,” he says. The inspiration for Dabbuji’s stories emanated from a keen observation of everyday life, says Surti. “Wherever I was, at a party or on the road, I always kept my ears and eyes opened. If you are fully aware, ideas are scattered everywhere.” He lovingly narrates an incident as an example. Once he was sitting in the verandah of his house doing some work while his children were playing around. A man came from another city to meet the creator of Dabbuji. He pointed at Surti and asked Surti’s son, “Who is the gentleman?” Confused by the question, the young boy quickly reverted, “He is not Gentleman. He is my father.” And that little joke found its way in one of the strips.

After the debacle it suffered at the hands of the Gujarati readers, Hindi Dabbuji found unique and strong followers including various writers, Amitabh Bachchan and spiritual guru Osho. Surti narrates, “A lot of writers weaved Dabbuji in their text. One writer, in his story, wrote ‘Aisa lagta tha ki us shaks ko khuda ne nahi, Dabbuji ne banaya hai.’ (It seems like that person wasn’t created by god, but by Dabbuji.) Osho was probably the biggest fan. Whenever his sermon got boring, he infused them with humor by referring to Dabbuji.” As a conscious effort, Surti used to create Dabbuji’s jokes at two levels. One level was obviously for children and the other was for adults to interpret. There was once a strip created especially for Eid, where the protagonist has bought a halal chicken to create a dish. But the moment he leaves the market, an eagle snatches it from his hands and flies off to a terrace. After witnessing this, Dabbuji starts dancing. Bewildered by his reaction, people ask him as to why is he dancing after losing the chicken. He explains that while the eagle might have taken the chicken, the recipe for the dish is still with him. Osho interpreted this on a whole different level during one of his lectures. He said that today people, like the eagle, are sitting with the chickens of different religions, but the actual recipe is with a saint.

 

Apart from Dabbuji, Surti is also credited with another interesting superhero series Bahadur, which was created for Indrajal Comics in 1976. This was based on one of the biggest problems of that time, the bandits’ attacks on various villages in India. The basic premise of the creation of Bahadur was more or less similar to Dabbuji, which was to create an indigenous character. What a lot of other comics were doing at that time were just more or less copying western characters, with exceptions like Pran Kumar Sharma’s Chacha Chaudhury, VT Thomas’ (Toms) characters Boban and Molly for Malayala Manorama, Amar Chitra Katha (which is a whole other genre) and a few more. And thus, both Dabbuji and Bahadur (and some other characters created by Surti like Inspector Azaad and Shuja) are important creations in the whole scheme of things. They were a part of the small group of fiercely original and Indian comics. Bahadur, born and brought up in a completely Indian context, was considered to be at par with western superheroes.

 

While each strip of Dabbuji was drawn and written entirely by Surti, for other cartoon series, he worked along with various figuredrawing artists (Late Govind Brahmania, Ram Mohan, Pratap Mullick, etc.). He told them the basic techniques and then followed it with instructions. For this, his stint in the Hindi film industry came into play where he had learnt various techniques including storyboarding, editing, etc.

Surti, who does cartooning (and even writing for that matter) to support his first love — painting, had a rather intriguing start to this art. In the 1940s, he narrates, when the Second World War soldiers used to take trains from VT (Victoria Terminus station in Bombay) after alighting at the Gateway of India, Surti along with other kids used to run after them to get some goodies that the soldiers would usually throw out. One day somebody threw out a comic book out of the window of the train and the children fought for it. One of the tattered pages that became part of Surti’s bounty hunting was a page with a Mickey Mouse drawing on it. He went home and copied the cartoon and then kept copying it over and over again. He was about 7 years old at that time.

To close the fascinating loop on Dabbuji, we ask Surti as to what’s the future for the series now. All the old and faded Dabbuji strips are now being refreshed (or remixed, as Surti calls it) on Photoshop and are being turned into a series of albums by the National Book Trust (NBT). One of these albums has already been published, while others are in the making. Surti used to get Rs 15 for one Dabbuji strip when it started and the last payment he got for it byDharmyug was Rs 250. For the new “remixed” Dabbuji, Surti commands Rs 2500 as his fees. Interestingly, NBT is also publishing a lot of other work of Surti’s including some new children’s story books. Reviving Dabbuji is indeed a great step by Surti and NBT. This will make sure that Dabbuji doesn’t transform into moldy and dusty archives in gradually diminishing libraries and can be easily handed over to the new generations in the formats they prefer.

 

This article was originally published in Kyoorius Magazine 18.