invisible but impregnable

invisible but impregnable

kiddies
An incident occured today that set me on a strain of thoughts about matters that one often brushes away with great words…

It began with a call from an acquaintance who runs an upmarket nursery school with her mother a lucrative entreprise where fees rose from 300 rupees a couple of years ago to a mind boggling 1200 at present..

She wanted some help so I decided to drop by.. we chatted for a while.. and she told me how the numbers of students had dwindled with all big public schools having opened their own nursery section.. after the customary cup of sweet and weak coffee she asked me if I would do her a favour.. could I take the grandson of Saroj, the almost instututional ayah of the school, in project why… he is two and a half..

I said I would and got up to take leave… a worried Saroj walked with me to my waiting three wheeler and told me that the child had been in a creche till date, but had walked out of it and got lost.. she wanted a safe place… I told her to bring the child..

As I drove away , it suddenly struck me that the child could have easily been taken into the little school was it not for what I call the invisible but impregnable walls (IIV) that surround us, though many are blissfully unaware of their existence..

How could little Monu or Vijay or Abdul rub shoulders with the upmarket bacchas.. it would have cost the mother-daughter duo to have Saroj bring the little one.. knowing them, he would have sat quietly and imbibed everything around him.. but that would have meant crossing the IIV a line that could beat any LOCs…

Never mind if Monu or Abdul or Priya were born in free India and enjoy the same rights that their peers from across the border… never mind if their mummies would work extra hours making ‘pieces’ for the local exporter and pay the 1200 rs. Some do pay upto 600 to the english medium school aptly called Mother Kesari or Budding Flowers where no one speaks english..

And if a Monu or Abdul or Priya’s mummy did gather the courage of crossing the II wall clutching her purse with the fee amount, dressed in her party best: she would be shunted away by a clone of our erstwhile Saroj..

It is all a matter of invisible and impregnable walls…

I know for one that Saroj will henceforth not do it…

How do we get the mother daughter duo to change…

You guess right.. i have something in my mind…

a ladder of hope

a ladder of hope

pottynagar

Class is over.. the climb down the rickety ladder will take them back to their day-to-day existence .. but today has been different.. the children have stars in their eyes..
no metaphor here..

Today’s class was about the earth, and the plantets, and the milky away all brought alive by Sophie who ascended these very steps globe and laptop in hand to open a new world to these little kids.

Time stood still in this tiny, airless room where it is almost difficult to breathe, as twenty pairs of eager eyes crowded around the screen. The excitement was palpable.. the mood serious.. just as it should be in any place of learning…

So what if it is a tiny room up a rickety ladder.. a little effort makes it a ladder of hope

a very simple secret

a very simple secret

fox
a mail dropped by in mailbox this morning. it was from someone i did not know..

It began woth the words: “I’ve heard a lot about you from A. I’m skeptical, as always, about all good things. And yet, I wish I could meet you and be involved in what you are doing.”

Many questions came to my mind, but what disturbed me the most was the way in which mistrust had permeated our lives with consequences that one is even aware of…

Nutan had a debilitating cardiac problem. She needed medical care and in all likelihood complex surgery. The family was told to arrange for 110 000 rupees before investigation would start. Now Nutan hails from Bihar and is one of the poorest of the poor, but there was no other way: It seemed that earlier many patients had left without paying bills so no one was to be trusted! Today we were told that Nutan may not need surgery and will soon be reunited with her children… Just imagine what would have happened had the money not been found…

One of the main obstacles that lie in our efforts to garner funds for project why, is the mistrust people feel towards charitable organisations, and their unwillingness bordering refusal, to give us the now almost elusive one rupee and thus the chance to prove our worthiness. Now imagine if we had not shown trust when Nutan, or Arun or Raju or all those who came to us and turned them away..

It seems that a world in a hurry to accede to material things draws comfort from applying labels to everything, not finding time to view each case seperately, and making up its own mind.

I would like to share a simple secret with them, the one given to a mythical little prince by a simple fox: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The Little Prince, Antoine de St Exupery.

Maybe we should learn all over again to look with our hearts..

hit the bottle.. hit the child

hit the bottle.. hit the child

jeetu

Jeetu is not yet 5.. but he has experienced in his short life more than many would imagine.. He came to us two years ago.. a frail child with huge sad eyes who clung to a man that we thought was his grandfather..

We learnt that it was actually Jeetu’s dad and that his mom had died of TB a few months back.. We took Jeetu on, and helped his father set up a small vegetable cart.. all seemed well.. or so we thought..

Jeetu was a quiet, withdrawn child in desperate need of love and care. Slowly we saw the first smile, and the first friend and we felt relieved.. then slowly there were changes: a belligerent behavior, a new found hostility, then bruises and to our horror we discovered that the father had hit the bottle.. and was hitting the child!

We tried to intervene… threats, pleading.. nothing worked..everynight the man came back drunk and took out all his frustration on the poor motherless child..

A few days back we were told that the old man had got remarried.. our reaction went from dismay to alarm to relief as we thought that the presence of a woman would maybe help the situation.. we just hoped for the best.. maybe the old man’s violence towards his child was an unexpressed sexual need… we kept our fingers crossed…

But there was more to come…

Yesterday Jeetu did not come to the centre. The previous evening his father had been taken to the police station as it appeared that the woman had been bought for five thousand rupees and had made a complaint following a fight…

We hope that the matter is solved amicably, as otherwise Jeetu’s father may find himself in prison and Jeetu in a state run institution..

Another why… but where is the answer…

preeti’s lunchBox

preeti’s lunchBox

plunch

Some of you know her, some of you have read about her.. she is real and she is Preeti.. the one whose granny wants us to give her rat poison, the childwoman the family wants to wish away.. she is also the one that eats insects because she is micro-nutrient deficient!

Her dream: to be a mother..

Like all special and blessed children, she has a lot of love to give, only no one to give it to…if you come by do not be syrprised if she hugs you tight…

Preeti was born in a land where a girl is rarely truly desired, and a disabled one finds her way at the end of the line.. be it food or medecines.. she never gets her share… yet children like her bear no malice at all…

As I sat wondering how project why would survive, and whether all this endless struggle was worth it , Shamikaa stomped in.. holding what looked like a crumbled piece of newspaper: almost incoherent in her speech she opened it and therein lay a few grains of rice held together by some brown gooey stuff… it took me some time to understand that this was what Preeti’s family had sent as her lunch…

I was speechless as one emotion after the other took hold of me… anger, sadness, shock .. hurt. And in that moment I realised that I had to continue to fight for project why’s survival if it was only to ensure that for a few hours a day Preeti was surrounded by love and care and was treated like a human being… with dignity and respect..

And if that was not enough, my heart missed a beat when I heard that Preeti had been very uspet when she was told to give the packet away.. remember it was the lunch her mother had given…

On more why had to be answered…

Note: project why gives lunch to the special children, but we feel that parents need to assume their reponsibilities and hence ask them to pack a meal.. neddless to say it is often far from ideal!