Gospel Street glistens with rained on tar after the gentle morning shower. Located right next to Lingarajapuram flyover, a noisy part of town that will leave you cloaked in a pall of dust if you stand there too long. However Gospel Street is very quiet, paved with many lived-in homes. Edwin Joseph promptly calls me at 9:50, we are due to meet in ten minutes and I’m ten minutes early, “Just keep walking down the road, you’ll see me.” Mr. Joseph has walked around 30 metres from his house waiting to hail me at the crossroads. His build is a dead giveaway of his enduring passion and profession as an all-round athlete and coach, moreover, through our conversation, he finds small ways to get up and show me around the house and effectively the neighbourhood, Mr. Joseph doesn’t like sitting still.
Edwin Joseph at home
“On the pension that BEML gives me, you think I could buy such a house? I thankfully took a loan, and I rent out this portion of it too. “ he says pointing to a small attachment to his cozy home. “With the pension they give people, a man’s only option is suicide. This is after years and years of Government service.” The stymied state of BEML as we know it is dramatically different from the sectional strength of unionised public sector workers in Bangalore when Edwin worked there. “You live in HAL 2nd stage? I spent most of my time there. Those were the heydays, HAL, BEML, HMT, all of us had strong football teams too.” Most of these PSU are dying an unceremonious death at the moment. “When I joined BEML we were 6000 workers, now there are around 1000. Do you remember the strike HAL had a few months back? Twelve people were laid off, a bunch of others had to take voluntary retirement. This is their method to kill these organisations. These are skilled workers mind you, and now they want to sell it to the Ambanis. Back then, we would all march to Vidhana Soudha together to protest. And I mean every single one of us, not one worker would stay at home. Where do you see such unity anymore?”
The homes that Edwin built
A small sketch of Edwin’s life reveals a history of the city itself and all the contours it has traversed over the years. A product of the Spartan powerhouse that is St. Germain’s, Edwin even studied with World Cup winner Roger Binny. “He was a fine athlete who got into cricket. Anyone getting into cricket needs a godfather of sorts, he had that. Many years later I would tease him and say “Roger, why not get back into athletics?” and he would tell us there was nothing there. Cricket always has pushed down other sports in the country.” He takes the example of neighbourhoods of Austin Town and Murphytown, “These are poor localities and they produce the best footballing talent. But what happens? The guy gets an injury and there’s no way to go on playing and there’s no livelihood left for him. Call me anywhere, I’m happy to speak about the sad state of sports in our country” What of the new ISL format? “Money and politics, nothing else. Tell me, where can a person get hired in a company based on their footballing or hockey talent anymore? Unthinkable.” Edwin now holds athletic workshops for many corporates and IT companies as team-building exercises, something of a departure away from coaching the formidable BEML team. “These people are very stressed, so this is a great relief for them.”
A walk to Edwin’s house carries another relic of the city’s history, the calls of sparrows. Many Bangaloreans will attest to their abundance in their youth, but it would appear that they disappeared at some point, though they seem to love the airport, a good distance away from the city. “Food, water, shelter, these are things you and I need. So do sparrows. But where will a sparrow go when you take away their lakes, their trees to build a P.G, and when people don’t care to feed them.” There is a big group of sparrows twittering away at Edwin’s house, “Be gentle, don’t make sudden movements or you won’t get a good picture of them.”, I ask Edwin if it is compassion that keeps these sparrows coming back, “Yes. People need to be compassionate about animals. But one needs to be practical too. I tell schoolchildren I meet who love birds to stop putting them in these small cages, at the very least, get a big cage.” How does the average person take care of sparrows? “If you feed a man and care for him, he will come back right? Same with sparrows.”
Sparrows drinking water
A little sparrow
Edwin has been rather meticulously caring for sparrows for a little over a decade, but it all started rather accidentally. “My wife would be cleaning rice, and all these sparrows would come and eat a bit of whatever was thrown away. She got me interested in these sparrows, she passed away just last month.” Since then, Edwin has come to be known as Bangalore’s “Sparrow Man”, he laughs when I tell him his name shows up when one Google’s just that. However, the sobriquet is perfectly warranted, Edwin’s house is largely dedicated to these birds. The walls are lined up with thinai millet, and khara mixture, there is a mesh covered by coconut fronds to prevent predatory birds from attacking the sparrows, he also grows lime, orange, and hibiscus to create a more hospitable environment for them. “When I first started doing this, everyone thought I was a mad man. Now the neighbourhood is proud of me, the media keeps coming here, on days like World Sparrow day they all show up.” There isn’t a single passerby in our 45-minute interaction that Edwin does not know personally, he waves at everyone and inquires after them politely, without being intrusive. “Yes, I’m the president of the neighbourhood association and a BBMP ward member. When I moved here, there was no road, no street light, only water from the well.” In his intricately custom made mesh setup is a cavity, owing to a coconut frond that had completely withered, “I don’t want money and all, but if someone can help me get another one of these coconut fronds or suggest a better method, I’d be happy to hear about it!”
If you can, you can contact Edwin at 9141441890.
A whole drum of thinai millet.
Khara Mixture and thinai