by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
We have just finished the shradhs or days that have been allotted to our departed souls. Every faith has such days, for some it is a single day for India it is two weeks.
To me these days mean much more than the sated gesture of feeding the poor. It is a time for introspection within yourself, a time when as no festivity is permitted, you are compelled to assess things and thus is also a time for closures of what did not quite work right, be it a relationship or a work situation.
It is also a time for healing, what cannot be changed, and accepting things that you have not been able to. For me it was a temporary checking out to assess what I had been able to do. Everyone of us does his or her best. True we win some, lose some and play our roles in the best way possible of getting our share of catcalls and kudos.
When you reach your twilight years, somehow you become a little more compassionate and a little less censorious and can look at things better. And you are surprised to see that what emerges of your soul searching is often absurdly simple. I took time off to write a series of letters to Popples that turned out to be a life credo that sums up much of what I have learnt.
It was also when a series of extraneous circumstances led me to compel my team to assess the value of what they were doing and to take measures to give it durability in time, or if not to have the courage to sign its closure.
I will get my answers soon and it will be a new beginning. But what is important is that this time it will be seeded in solid soil and hence will have the ability to withstand the blows that may come its way.
Ps: in case anyone is interested in reading the letters, pls mail at anouradha.bakshi@gmail.com
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 24, 2006 | reservations
The airing of video images of AIIMS student’s burning Dr Ambedkar’s books sent a chill down my spine. Images of a doom-laden future flashed by my mind.
The reservation issue is going out of hand and unless it is addressed by non-political citizens our land may become unsafe. I would like to ask the students who committed this horrendous act whether they remember Dr Ambedkar has being the main author of the very constitution that allows them to express themselves, albeit negatively. I would like to ask the pro reservation students whether they realise that no child asks to be born in a particular family? Can I ask them to remember that all Indian children are born in the same way, after a gestation of nine months and are protected by the same laws? And finally can I ask them where this hatred will lead in an already electrically polarised society.
I have seen that a mere fight between two ladies over the issue of a petticoat to dry turned into a caste riot in seven minutes. Is not the duty of educated and supposedly high caste students to heal rather than aggravate. Can I also ask the students to look at their other caste peers with their heart and not with borrowed vision and find if there is anything to hate. Or in a gandhian way can I ask these angry children of India to take one tiny dalit baby and give him or her the same childhood and teen years as they had and then to see whether they are still worthy of hate.
My mind boggles at all the questions that are choking me. I am neither pro nor anti reservation. I just want every child to be given the same opportunities and then find his or her place in the sun.
is that asking too much?
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
The de-recognition and thereby shutting of over 1000 schools in karnataka as they did not comply to a law passed many years back brings to fore once again the reality that education and the welfare and rights of children ranks very low on the political agenda of our country.
After the festivities a myriad of kids will find out that they do not have a school left. The debate of mother tongue versus English is an adult’s debate, children follow what they are told to. True that an English divide exists in our country but then can one forget that after 60 years of linguistic debate the problem of a national language has not been solved.
Today many parents living in slums plunge in their meagre pockets to get their children, sadly often the boys, in to what boasts to be an English medium school, even if it is a commercial teaching shop where no one speaks English.
When Ataturk decided overnight to change the Turkish language script as he felt that the children of his country did not need to be burdened by two scripts, he was traveling in the future.
Of the many commentators who spoke on the issue, one rightly felt that all children should go to the same kind of school where maybe 3 subjects could be taught in English and the other 3 in the regional language. makes sense to me, as I agree totally to what the same person said when he pointed out that those speaking the loudest on the issue have their kids study in up markets English language school!
When I came back to India after 16 years of living in other lands, it was a matter of pride to say that you had scored low marks in your lower Hindi paper, and all Hindi speaking peers were called Behanjis or Bhaiyyas.
I have always been comfortable speaking Hindi as my mother devised the best way to teach a child growing in a host of lands her mother tongue: she just spoke Hindi to me from day 1 and I was very surprised to know that she did she did speak English when I was six!
The great English divide has to come to a long awaited end, but it can only come when the upmarket people accept to send their children to the government run school down the road!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 23, 2006 | utpal
It is appalling how adults use kids. Before little Utpal went to school a posse of family and relatives took advantage of all the goodies provided.
It is but obvious that one could not help him at home without including the others, directly or indirectly. A ceiling fan bought to ensure that he did not play with live wires provided breeze to everyone.
Now with Utpal safely in school and his mom well into recovery and at the doorstep of a new life, the bunch of profiteers that include innumerable new aunts and uncles and surrogate parents decided to use half-sister Durga.
So a man who is not a father suddenly discovers paternal feelings and send the poor child to get the pennies needed for his next bottle, and when she does not get them resorts to beating her on the streets.
Even I, who normally find to seek in some recess of my mind ways to condone almost everything found this behavior unforgivable. So Durga too goes to a residential programme where I hope she will make up for lost years and before someone realises that she is almost a woman and could be sold!
All this is extremely disturbing as when caretakers become predators no child is safe.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 23, 2006 | Uncategorized
When I look at little Komal who can barely see or hear, I wonder how long it will take her to learn the value of words.
I am sick and tired of words: words of praise, words of anger, words that hurt, words that hang without meaning, words that vanish into thin air as they are uttered.
Someone said: Words should be used as tools of communication and not as a substitute for action”.
Frankly I have started to doubt everything I hear. My inbox is filled with words that remained words for as soon as they need to be translated into action, a myriad of reasons spring from nowhere as grim deterrents. The one reason that seems to always be at forefront is mistrust.
It is a sad reflection of our society that we are ready to mistrust everyone and everything. We stop looking with our own eyes, be they that of the heart or that of reason, and conveniently apply the a foregone conclusion. So even if you have shown staying power of over six years and adequate results, helped children stay in school and repaired broken hearts, you are still not be trusted. And why should you, everyone around is screaming the contrary, be it our rulers or our peers.
A quirk of fate has suspended one of our main accounts, and it is strange that rather than fight it tooth and nail which is what I would have done barely a few months ago, I have almost welcomed it. It has enabled me to put my team to the test and find out whether they have understood that you have to fight for your right and prove yourself. No remuneration for the past two months and a challenge thrown to them of meeting half the running cost if they want me to check back in again or they risk having their sections closed down.
Much as the story of the wolf that never was till the day it actually came and no one turned up, it has taken them some time to realise that unlike the past, this time it was for real.
Unless everyone realised that they are responsible for what happens around them, change can never come. So shock therapy is sometimes needed.
What will be the outcome only time will tell. The worst case scenario is another trip to the labour court aptly prompted by hidden enemies, but how has always become used to it, the best is my team taking on the responsibility of collecting funds and moving out of their torpor.
I wait and watch from the wings, a sometimes amused smile on my face..
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