keeping in view the enormous problems with blogspot, blockouts and maybe to for get new energies and light the projectwhy blog has now moved to a new address, our very own..
our address is
https://projectwhy.org/blog/
we wil publishing continue on both sites for a while
For some time no I have been getting messages, some veiled, some quite direct, some even harsh about what would happen to pwhy where I to die.. let me set everyone ones mind at rest by saying that it is something i myself have been thinking of..
It is true that I have carried pwhy on my shoulders from that time the idea took seed in my mind. many reasons guided my decision and I will clarify some of them in later posts.
pwhy was is my child, one that I conceived, carried and gave birth to, and like any child it gave him moments of pure joy and deep despair. Today it has grown and I can feel the rebellion in the eyes and ways of many who are rearing to do it they way.. As every parent suffering from acute bouts of over protectiveness I have tried to hold on, but now time has come to let the nestling fly, though I can foresee many falls..
pwhy has a sound team capable of handling all administrative day-to-day activities and learning projects and even muster new teams and set up new field projects. they have enough acumen based on the maxim of rani – majboori ka naam mahatma gandhi – to find spaces no one would think of.
The enormous problem is of course the one of taking over the funding saga as till date it was entirely based on my ability to communicate on the net, something they have not yet learnt. So they now have to evolve their own ways of finding revenue sources and they have been brainstorming about it: they are excellent party and wedding planners, and the team has a rich pool of skills they can ‘sell’. I am not venturing into this operation as in the past all my ideas failed, because they were executed but not internalised.
Like a good parent, the kind I advise others to be and find difficult to go along with, I watch from the wings, turning my tongue seven times in my mouth before venturing a word, or I just make myself scarce.. Like every fledgling they will have to fall before they learn to fly.. but that is the only way..
On the flip side, we now do have a building so we are no more on the road and I will make sufficient provisions in my personal will to ensure that it is maintained and if nothing else, is run as shelter for the likes of manu and many others… that would be the worst case scenario..
But my impassioned appeal to all those who are wondering ‘what next’, is that pwhy belongs to everyone who has helped it till now and even if my mails and blogs are not there, the incredible team that made it all possible is there and all of you can take on the torch from my now tired hands….
had little sandhya survived we would have been heroes. However with hindsight and even after mulling hours into the night death is the kindest gift my friend the God of lesser children could have done for this unloved child.
I do not know if in this sometimes absurd and incomprehensible land of hours rituals are performed for a child, or whether a child is mourned at all. True that a certain amount of visible wailing and chest beating was performed but now it seems it was more as a prelude to the drama that was to unfold..
I normally do not sit in judgement for anyone, that is not the role I was given, at best I watch from the wings. In Sandhya’s case it was clear that her hole in her hear, her cyanotic hue reminiscent of that of the lord of the Gopis, her lost eyes were all a means of exploitation, a father that was simple minded, a surrogate father that was comparable to the shrewd advisors of epics of yore-years.. a strange cast..
and what role did we have to play? were we to be the ones who would rescue lady S.. maybe .. what we did not contend for is the aftermath.. the phone calls trying to feed on the memory of the poor child, extract the last ounce.. and the absurdity of it all.. hold us responsible..
once again we can see our detractors at play, those who have never wanted us to be as we can help change things and hence disturb their carefully planned lootshop.
the story goes like this.. they went to AIIMS, could not muster 61K. we helped them with the money and paid it, the child was too far gone, she died after 3 attempts by the best doctors in India, and we are responsible..
strange India…
I do not why I am reminded of Brecht’s Mother Courage as I sit today my head filled with unanswered questions the day after the loss of a human life no one really mourned. Why does Brecht’s play written in nazi germany and set in the seventeenth century, ring so true today. I read it many years ago when I still belived that life was beautiful and hope existed and I could not quite feel one with Brecht’s cynical talk about the inconvenience of dignity, the efficacy of taking (as opposed to giving or, what’s more foolish, waiting for someone to give), and the worth and/or worthlessness of human life, and the faith you might still have in human nature is challenged at every turn.
Why is it then that six years down the pwhy line it all makes so much sense.. I am too headed the Mother Courage way, albeit for different reasons, and going to be left pulling an empty cart off an empty stage after having tried and lost all..
You may wonder why I feel this way.. and I guess all of you deserve answers before it is too late. Those who stood by me without faltering because you were too few, those who waited too long as they thought there were others, those who waited for me to prove my worthiness, those who could not shed their cynicism, and those who thrive on writing epitaphs and statistics.
Any process involving change is a long one set with many obstacles and though these are not unsurmountable, they often take time.. that is something many did not understand.. to succeed in getting people to shed old ways many roads have to be tried and only a few may work out, that too many could not accept… age old traditions are so deep seated that they have to be carried like dead wood no matter how galling, that too was not comprehended and the list is endless…
That the change has to come about in a world that tends to look more and more like the one out Brecht is known to portray seems absurd but is true: personal egos clash and children die unattended at the doorsteps of hospitals, children are duped away from the right path by promises of quick returns and those trying to make a difference are sneered upon and cast aside.
You carry on for a while because some still believe, because some still trust, because you see hope in the eyes of a child, because you see pride in the eyes of those you love.. and then those very people become more demanding, intransigent at times, unaware of the weight you carry and then the cruel blow as oblivious that you are almost there, they chose to abandon you… just like that.. saying words that do the one thing that is irreversible: kill your spirit..
It takes everything you have, what you have learnt from your experience, from your elders and peers, from your achievemements and failures, from every smile you gave and every tear you shed, to muster the courage to carry on pulling the cart till the end of the show..
She tiptoed on to our planet quietly almost as if she wanted no one to notice her lest we let her walk into our hearts. She would slink softly behind her loud mother hiding her face lest you lost yourself in her huge melting eyes.. She would sit in a corner patiently waiting for us to finish whatever we were doing.. Sandhya knew she was a temporary guest.
Sandhya was what they call a blue or cyanotic baby, where the heart is malformed and the blood deprived of oxygen. Since 1944 a simple surgery called a BT Shunt can repair the damage. For sandhya’s family the cost was exorbitant, but friends pitched in and two days back she was operated upon. However she did not make it, and tiptoed back to her world this morning leaving us all bewildered and lost.
Sandhya is gone but leaves many questions that needs to be answered. I am not being cynical if I say that maybe God showed extreme kindness in taking little Sandhya away had also slight mental retardation making her future very bleak. In a country where a girl child is already a burden, one like Sandhya becomes a millstone. Moreover, Sandhya seemed to be unloved, even by her mother as was visible from the moment I set my eyes on them. Never did I see a maternal gesture, a caress, a tender word, something that wold bring hope and cheer to the forlorn child.. Sandhya was a lost case from day one..
Yet we tried, our little team who accompanied her every time she needed to go the hospital getting her a fruit juice or a biscuit and feeling rewarded by her tiny smile, and the doctors who never gave up till she decided to at 12 noon on July 14th.
So go little Sandhya, evening star, go and shine on a world where children like you are loved and cherished.. we did not deserve you
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