by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 11, 2006 | utpal
It is mr popples 4th birthday.. what a lovely boy he has become.. abrave heart in more ways than one.. i still remember the first time I met him, when even the men in white had given up on him.. but when I looked into his eyes filled with pain, I saw life.. and instantly fell in love..
utpal a.k.a mr p., popples, pepere and outpal to his french fans was a force to reckon with, and a great lesson in survival.. in the last three years he had to suffer third degree burns, double pneumonia, accute hepatitis A, and he never gave up..
somewhere uptal is an old soul bringing solace and lifting you up when you are down. making you laugh on the day you are blue.
But what touches me the most in this little fellow is his love for his mom, one that hits the bottle and then him, one that is the cause of fights and abuse and often an wmbarassment, but one he bravely protects and loves unconditionally..
I have often shared my utpal moments on this blog but here they, if you care to know more about this two and half feet miracle
where is the soap
as the snake waits in the wings
back to his hole
7 days on a planet
there is fish and rice
games adult play
rarely is love instant
there are no invitation cards
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2006 | Uncategorized
My heart went out to Nandini has she heaved herself down the lane, her precious books in her hand, I asked her to come and sit with me and then enquired upon what the doctor has said. This matter of fact young lady told me that she could not be operated upon till she was 40 and that she had been told to carry on doing all she did but not strain herself or carry weight..
To bring a smile on her face, I told her that according to me studying did not require carrying weight.. so she could hold on to her dream and work towards becoming a doctor.. Nandini is dying to go back to Sipaul, to her school as exam time is near. I too want her to go as the good clean air and fresh food will go a long way in helping her keep healthy..
I sat a long while trying to find an explanation for the family as I knew the reality: it was too late to repair her heart and that she would have to live with a heart beating twice as fast as a normal one.. she would not be able to do many of the things that a young girl her age does..
Later when the mother came with her uncle, I told them that her body had repaired itself just as a broken bone does if not attended to, and that it was working fine so the doctors did not want to mess with it.. nature does things its way.. I told them to make sure she studies, and not to think of getting her married.. she wanted to be a doctor. Well maybe she would be one..
I would like to see that Nandini finishes her studies and gets the support she needs to do so: books and extra tuition, and when the time comes who knows maybe she will make it to medical school.. miracles do happen if one wants them enough.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2006 | girl child
Sandhya landed up at hearfix hotel today.. a little 6 year old she needs heart surgery and her parents took all the initiatives and got her checked… something we are pleasantly surprised about as often parents give up, particularly when the child is a girl..
They tarvelled the now famous road to heartFix hotel, one that passes by all previous innmates under the benevolent guidance of my friend the God of lesser beings..
We now need to raise the 66 000 required! are you listening mr god
I hope that sandhya makes it as we were all sad to learn that it was too late for bright Nandini. Maybe when she is 40.. said the doctor .. 40 in a village in Bihar is when you are a grandmother.. I hope her family will understand that the best for her is to be able to study and get a job.. I fear they will marry her and she will have children.. and push her exhausted heart to the brink..
Nandini is condemned to a life where she will have to be careful, where breathing will be an uphill task, where she may not be able to do all she wants to.. but we must see that sandhya who is barely 6, gets a better chance in life
mr god of lesser beings are you listening..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2006 | common school
(in the previous post we tried to imagine what a child’s tomorrows may look like, if the persent situation continued; let us now imagine how things can change..)
M’s or s’s tomorrow can be safe.. but if many ifs happen! So let us take it from the top again..
Their tomorrows will be safe if a common school comes into being, if they are taught their rights and their duties as citizens; if they are taught about existing institutions, if they are taught the reality that nothing come easy.
Their tomorrows will be safe if the lure of government jobs is demystified, if they are given the right skills to return to their villages and habitats of origin; if they learn to respect Nature, if they are taught to respect one another, to celebrate differences.
But this no mean task and one has to tread slowly. Today children are still under the spell of cityLights and maybe not willing to listen. But one has to start weaving te web and using every possible to pass on messages..text books have to be rewritten and lessons that show little ramu the village cousin be shown the magic of the city by little manoj should be reversed..
A long way to go, but one that has to be walked.. one step at a time so that M’s tomorrows are safe
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 9, 2006 | girl child
M is busy learning.. he is lost in his own world, and as serious about his work as any other child.. wonder what is going on in his little head..
If we look around us, it is difficult to predict what might happen to M, who belongs to a poor migrant labour family.. but let us give it a try:
He could become be the President of India, or an unemployed daily wage labourer.. or maybe something in between, let us say the equivalent of what would be in times to come the equivalent of a courrier boy.. as that seems to be a great favourite these days..
Along the way, he may dream of being a cricketer or a film hero.. as these seem to be the few role models left.. parents and teachers have lost the right to being those one aspires to emulate.. anger and frustration can make him want to be a cop or a politician.. but the wrong kind.. and then dreams fade as reality bites, and one takes on what one can get… an infernal spiral that makes you the part of the faceless crowd..
There are other possibilities, far grimmer ones, also fuelled by dreams – of a cellphone, a dazling bike a MP3 player, a credit card, and M could then be swayed by some extremist group and adopt wrong ways and find himself part of some misguided pack.
And even if M held on bravely and continued to learn he could be one of the kids who made this chilling headline in the national press this morning: Another exam suicide…the fourth this month.
Strange that the four children belonged to different social backgrounds from the rich upmarket child, to the poor slum kid, joined on the way by a middle class girl, all united in their fear of failing..
(to be continued..)
