BORI update

[Robert Goldman]

>Adheesh,


Thanks for the updates. I was a bit cheered by your news that the
damage may not have been as severe as was first feared and by your
report on how the local youth is pitching in. . An open letter on
this will be going out on Indology for people to sign.

Please do convey my concern and support to Drs. Bhate, Laddu,
Mehendale, Dhamdhere etc. etc. They have been much in our thoughts
the past few days

>  Dear Colleagues,
>
>  First of all, my sincere thanks to those who responded with support
>to the initial
>  post. unless there are objections, whenever there is something that I
>  feel is worth your attention, I will post my account for the week or so
>  that I am here in Pune.
>
>  A number of scholars have expressed a desire to set up a type of
>  relief-fund in the U.S. for BORI. Indeed, I had a chance to speak with
>  Prof. Bhate briefly about this issue today, and I also relayed to her
>  the shock and sympathies that have been expressed on-line worldwide.
>  Expressing her gratitude to the academic community on behalf of BORI,
>  she informed me that a move is in fact under way to set up an account
>  with HDFC Bank here in India which may also accept international
>  currencies. If anyone has concrete ideas as to the logistics of setting
>  up a single fund in the U.S. that may then be transferred to BORI, it
>  may be a valuable enterprise. Otherwise, we might simply be able to do
>  what has been happening here, which is to individually send checks made
>  out to Secretary, BORI, to their address: B.O.R.I., Pune 411 004.
>
>  The media coverage here, as you must be gathering, has been very
>  intense, and Professors Bhate and Bahulkar have been constantly asked
>  for interviews. Again, I should emphasize that the Marathi-language
>  newspapers and television stations have practically unanimously made
>  this their lead story in Pune for two days, and this matter is something
>  that ordinary citizens here are taking very seriously. I am sure that
>  most of you will be able to follow official developments via legitimate
>  news sources so I will skip the details of the damage estimates, the
>  police case, the dignitary visits and focus again on the cleanup.
>
>  Efforts were in full force today, and all of the massive bookcases,
>  cabinets, and furniture that was not destroyed were set upright. Most of
>  the student volunteers - and there were indeed many eager and active
>  teams of college kids from all over Pune showing up for duty throughout
>  the day - were working in the library, uprighting the metal and wooden
>  bookshelves, stacking up books, and cleaning out glass, bricks, and so
>  forth. A number of the staff focused their attention in the manuscript
>  rooms, uprighting the massive cabinets that had been knocked over like
>  dominoes.
>
>  The manuscripts, I am happy to say, were treated with care during the
>  cleanup, and, as I had initially reported yesterday, it may be of
>  comfort to note that at least the ones that passed through my hands and
>  before my eyes during the cleanup were still wrapped in cloth and in one
>  piece, with no obvious signs of damage. Being tossed around and crushed
>  under cabinets was surely not beneficial to their health, but as far as
>  I can tell, the vast majority of manuscripts have not been torn or
>thrashed to
>  any severe extent. I suspect that aside from the fact that they were
>  locked, the weight of the cabinets in fact might have been what spared
>  many manuscripts from vandalism - the cabinets, once they had been
>  toppled over onto each other, simply didn't allow the vandals to get at
>  their contents.
>
>  And so, to our surprise, the major, labor-intensive tasks of cleanup -
>  stacking books and manuscripts, uprighting bookshelves, cleaning out
>  glass and debris - were finished by about four in the afternoon, and we
>  simply couldn't think of what else to do. some students even took to
>  cleaning up trash in the courtyard and raking up leaves. Tomorrow the
>  staff will commence the more meticulous, long-term work of recataloging
>  the manuscripts, reorganizing the library, fixing broken shelves and
>  furniture, and figuring out what to do with the main (Tata) hall.
>
>  After an afternoon of being probably more in the way than actually
>  helping the staff members working in the manuscript room, I spent a good
>  bit of time talking with them in the 'other' tea room at BORI. The
>  staffers here are indeed earnest, loyal, and have done a great deal of
>  the more difficult cleanup work without any extra pay, without rest, and
>  without bickering. Many of them live on the premises, and have worked
>  here for more than a generation, so indeed for them this was an attack
>  on their home, as well as for a few of them, on their bodies. (Thopate's
>  belly is still sore!) Please be sure to thank them the next time you are
>  here.
>
>
>  Adheesh Sathaye
>  Ph. D. Candidate
>  Dept. of South and Southeast Asian Studies
>  University of California, Berkeley


--
Dr. R. P.  Goldman
Professor of Sanskrit
Department of  South and Southeast Asian Studies
7303 Dwinelle Hall MC #2540
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-2540
email: sseas at socrates.berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-4089
Fax:     (510) 642.2409