by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 3, 2006 | sealing
here we go again.. says the popular song.
I have been watching the tos and fro’s of the local authorities regarding the now existential question: to seal or not to seal!
To take the Shakespeare reference further we could easily say; all is not well in the State of D.. (substitute Delhi for Denmark). Is there a solution?
To understand the present situation one has to travel way back and ask a multitude of almost rhetorical questions: why the master plan which had a fair allocation for commercial buildings was not respected? Why did the local authorities happily give green signals to illegal activities? Why did the politicians promise regularisation of unlawful construction before each and every election? many questions and no answers as it is a chicken and egg situation.
For the past few days the government both local and national have been in their usual band-aid mode? One arm says yes to sealing and the other no. But what is disturbing is the pathetic excuses: a festival here, a law and order situation there. In the meantime a city is held to ransom, children cannot go to school and violence lurks at every corner.
Everybody has been caught unawares! Those who paid and retreated into comfort zones, those who received and promised, those who broke laws with impunity and those who turned their eyes away..
This crisis management situation has become endemic to our very nature with no one realising that it just delays the inevitable just a little bit longer.
The sealing situation threatens to become a hydra headed monster and no Hercules who would look for the neck and sever it. We just go on snipping the heads which grow again and again.
But one day the laws catch up and everyone stands helpless. There is a Hercules, but in this case not an individual but a complex entity covering all sides and willing to take on his or her share of responsibility and willing to lose some to set matters right.
Wishful thinking in this day and age where individual benefits are more important than collective ones, where rights are demanded but duties shunned!
Where do we go from here…
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I am livid. Do you remember Babli?
Here I was back in a comfort zone feeling smug like a proverbial Cheshire cat, thinking that with her brand new heart, Babli was sitting on a school bench making up for lost time when I was hit by another thunderbolt.
R and S came back from a field visit visibly upset. On the way they had passed Babli’s slum cluster and found her sitting on a cart selling chewing tobacco, cigarettes and biscuits instead of being in school, her little sister standing in the background.
The cart was supposed to be the father’s way of earning some money, but he simply left her there to pursue his gambling habit. Seems that it happens often as she sheepishly told us that her name had been struck of the roll of the school.
The mother spends long hours in the factory she works in and the father does as he pleases. Come tomorrow and we will set out on a remedial mission which will start with some plain talking with the impossible farthest threatening to put him behind bars if he abuses the child in this manner. Then a PR expedition to government school to ensure that she is taken back. Somewhere down the line the mother will get a dressing too.
These moments are when you just feel throwing your hands up but you stop midway and wonder how you can address the situation that actually is one of protecting children’s rights. We can carry on our crisis intervention, but there is a larger question that needs to be looked at: parents need to be informed about the laws in existence and about the importance of giving girls a good education.They should be made aware of the child labour laws and more..
The presence of little Arzoo in the background is a blatant proof of the fact that girls are treated differently as Ramu the brother goes to school.
There is so much to be done, one step at a time…
Note: two days after this post babli was back in school, and sister arzoo back at pwhy’s creche.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I have always feared comfort zones. You fall prey to them unwittingly. When things look alright, when no untoward incident occurs, that is when comfort zones appear and you easily fall prey to their lure.
This has happened time and again at pwhy though I have tried to fight it as best I could. When things are smooth you even stop seeing things as they are.
Then something happens to bring you back to earth and you feel a tad guilty looking for meagre excuses where none exist. And when it pertains to a child, then the guilt is far greater. So many little miracles have escaped my mind and yet where there for all to see.
Many of you may wonder why I have not written about Nanhe for a long time. Simply because I feel prey to the comfort zone syndrome. But a lot has happened and it is time to share with all those who have loved and supported him.
After his leg operations Nanhe has been able to stand and is slowly learning to walk with a walker. It is a huge step for this child who till recently was condemned to drag himself in a sitting position. To us who take our standing as granted it may not seem so important, but imagine what it means to little Nanhe. he can now stand with his classmates and take part in the morning exercise routine, and even dance with them.
No wonder then that the smile has got even bigger!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 1, 2006 | common school, girl child
My limousine had not come so I decided to spend some time in the creche where the big section – all between 4 and 5 – sat in a circle for its daily activity.
The past few weeks had been so hectic that I had barely found time to spend with the children as I was busy struggling to survive. But the breakdown of the three wheeler – ie my limo – allowed me that luxury. Once the children were settled and work handed out, I found myself staring at this little circle of around 15 kids and knew that there was something I could sense but not yet see!
It took me a few minutes to register what was disturbing be, till I felt hit by a bolt out of the blue: there were only 3 girls in the group!
It is true that the socio-economic profile of the early education group has always been different to the other sections. I guess that the presence of volunteers of all shades and hues and the fun and laughter that often emanates from this group made many slightly better families bring their children to us. This has been god sent to one like me as it was almost a precursor my dream of a common school as the solution to many problems in our country.
It is also true that the sex ratio of south Delhi is one of the worst – 784/1000 – but it is only today that I saw the chilling numbers it the very micro sample that is pwhy.
There are missing girls and we cannot afford to turn a blind eye. The importance and essential value of the girl child has to be restored in the minds of each and everyone.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 1, 2006 | Uncategorized
Come November and it is time for me to get off the spinning earth and look at time gone by as a rank outsider…
November never held much significance in the first for decades of my life. But the year 1992 changed it all. November took my father away and brought the most difficult closure in my life. For six long years I sought every crutch possible just to the fragile vessel of my life from sinking.
But November is also the month when life came full circle with the setting up of pwhy’s first class in Giri Nagar and somehow with the intuitive realisation that I had embarked on the last chapter of my life.
The last six years have been the most rewarding ones of my life. A barely formulated wish of paying back a debt turned into a discovery of India. What began as an effort to give Manu a life with dignity is today a throbbing project where over 500 children reclaim their right to be a child.
It is a matter of utter joy to walk every morning and be greeted by smiles and laughter filled ‘ morning ma’am’, when each child tries to get one’s attention. It is a matter of outright joy to see my staff dressed in their smartest outfit bustling around efficiently redeeming their lost identity. And above all its is a matter unqualified pride to see Manu smartly dressed sitting with his pals and solving a puzzle. And to say that just six years ago I sat in front of our one room centre trying to rid him of the maggots that infested his much abused body.
A deep sense of peace fills me as I relive these last six years, but I cannot allow myself to sink into a comfort zone, there is still so much to do. Pwhy is still a six year old child that needs to learn to survive independently.
And if I allow myself to dream about the future I see the November when pwhy will be sustained by the community itself, run by some of our ex students, the day when Manu will proudly show his identity papers as he sits in his own kiosk, earning his living with the help of his spirited younger sister.
That day I will allow myself to retreat into a comfort zone.
So help me God of the lesser ones!
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