by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
o
The world celebrated Xmas. In a tiny lane of an urban slum in Delhi a bunch of very special kids did too. Just like children all over the world they wanted a Xmas tree and nothing could stop them.
Nothing to write home about, some would say, but what if I told you that each and every child in this little group is different: some have remarkable minds locked away in useless bodies while others try to make sense of the world with limited means. Some are condemned to a world of silence while others live in immobility. Oops I forgot to tell you that all of them have never known the thrill of opening a present and have only survived on hand me downs!
But somehow the Xmas spirit is such that it breaks down all barriers so we were not surprised when we saw them storming to the terrace in search of a potted plant, any one would do. In the most remarkable example of cooperative effort and armed with bits of papers, cloth and heavens knows what else, they set out to create the most beautiful tree I have ever seen. True it broke all conventions, but while doing so it set its very own and these seemed closer to the Xmas spirit.
This tree was imbued with the purest form of joy, it was one that needed no borrowed trimming or expensive decoration, even a discarded old white sock looked pretty as it dangled in the blowing wind and as they proudly posed for the customary picture, the air was redolent with the abundance of giving that emanated from this humble tree.
I do not know whether anyone of them knew about Xmas and its significance, but somehow they had intuitively grasped its ever essence.
Isn’t that what xmas is all about!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 24, 2006 | common school, reservations, two indias, utpal
Xmas has always been a time of joy and giving, of cheer and even miracles. As you grow up you stop believing in Santa, but there is always the anticipation of finding out what the little packets around the tree contain.
My xmas gift came a day earlier and in the most unexpected way. I had gone to fetch Utpal from his boarding school and attend his PTA! His teacher handed me his result and as I read it I realised that this was undoubtedly the most beautiful Xmas present one could get.
57/60 were he marks he got and an appreciation that included the word ‘excellent’. To some, my reaction would seem silly as Utpal is only 4+, but those who know him and have followed the journey of his life, this piece of paper is much more.
What a story of survival it has been. Barely 9 months ago Utpal had lost everything that makes a child secure and safe to the demon of alcohol. He had no home, no mom, no extended family and no support. Previous to that fateful day in April 2006, he had survived third degree burns and lived a life where each evening meal and night’s sleep depended on whether his mom had tippled nor not. Strange visitors, descents by cops and drunken brawls were usual occurrences.
When we found a school that would take him, there was an initial resistance: Utpal did not fit any mold, did not have the appropriate labels and social origins. But a young director took on the challenge and we waited with bated breath.
Six months and two school terms later, Utpal showed us what survivors are made of: he has a great support network in school ranging from the gently forbidding gatekeeper, to the class XII students and includes the hostel staff, the kitchen staff and even the principal. He still had one more point to prove, the one that rebuffs all the divisive policies that are kept on the boiler by dubious agendas and bear names like reservations or affirmative action. In the right environment, and with a peer group that cut across social and economic backgrounds, little Utpal topped his class in an English medium boarding school.
I have always said that the answer to India’s is a common school where children of all origins would learn together and from each other. Then each child just like little Utpal, will have the ability to make his place in the sun. It is not by creating a parallel school system, or by handing out a few seats and a few grace marks to humbler children that we will solve the now suspect education for all dream.
Utpal was an ideal candidate for begging at a red light. Drunk parents, a nicely scalded body and yet and incredibly beautiful face, and endearing ways. A little help from Mr God , and lots of help from friends who held on to our dream with us, made it possible for little Utpal to vindicate project why.
As I hold his result sheet in my hand, I stand very tall and believe in miracles!
merry xmas to all!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 23, 2006 | sealing, two indias
As winter sets in in India’s capital city, once again we get reminded of the existence of 2 Indias. While one is busy preparing for highly westernised festivities, the other is huddled around makeshift fires simply trying to survive.
This is India a land where extreme situations are now jaded realities. Today’s news bulletin was a stark reminder if that. While the first item was about 5 districts of Maharashtra a stone’s throw away from India’s buzzing commercial capital Mumbai, battling famine the other was about the latest fad in that very city: home delivered meals for our canine friends!
What was disturbing about the first item was that while the District Magistrate had declared a state of famine, higher authorities have simply deferred their decision till January 15th. I wish hey also had a recipe for deferring the pangs of hunger felt each day by any normal human being. This famine was caused by excessive rains that washed away and destroyed the paddy crop of the poor farmers of that region. The next crop is many moons away.
Our land has many ways of explaining such occurrences, the favourite being karma. Suffering is directly proportionate to the good deeds you have done in the past. However what about some investment in insuring your future? True that come winter we receive some phone calls offering blankets or warm clothes, but that is in no way sufficient. The problem is endemic and the solution need to be long term.
If the two Indias have to coexist that bridges of understanding need to be built. It is only if they both prosper that our land will be safe in the future. This is something we do not seem to understand as has been amply proved by the quasi total absence of funding from our own city. Maybe it is a way of blanking out reality, an attempt to wish something away by not acknowledging its existence.
Such an attitude is bound to have dramatic consequences. The recent sealing of shops has resulted in loss of employment and more is on the anvil. One must not forget that desperation and hunger can lead to extreme actions as one has seen with the swelling numbers of farmer’s suicide. It can also lean to crime in cities and threaten us all.
The writing is in on the wall, maybe it is time we took our blinkers off…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 21, 2006 | sealing
I happened to be standing at the gate when the cotton carder went by. Hearing the high pitched sound of his carding bow was a Proustian experience as it brought back a flood of long-forgotten memories.
There was a time when you could plan your day with almost clockwork precision just by listening to he sounds of the passing hawkers. There use to be many in our street: the vegetable and fruit vendors, the cobbler, the kabariwalahs the best recycling man ever. There was the man repairing jewels, the one who sharpened your knives and even one to clean your ears. Not to forget the toy vendor, the ice cream seller and so many more, each with their own calls that brought the street alive. Some were perennial, others seasonal, but to many like us they became familiar faces that were part and parcel of our lives.
Today there but a few, particularly in up market areas where forbidding gates with placards barring entry to hawkers have sounded their death knell. And with it the end of many small jobs that fed families and many trades that will soon be forgotten, trades that often use to be passed on from father to son.
I recently spent time with a shopkeeper friend whose shop came under the sealing hammer and who will move on the a mall miles away. His shop sold a medley of items; a great place to buy that gift one often remembered at the last moment. Over the years one had established a relationship with him and his family, seen the son get married and witness the birth of the grand child. Many recipes, and pieces of advise were shared, not forgetting the cups of tea! As I left the shop, my precious packet tucked under m arm, I realised that it would people of my generation who would feel the loss the most. The shopkeeper will find a new life in his squeaky clean mall, and will soon have a new clientele; for him it is a matter of survival. But we, the middle-aged middle-class middle everything individual will find ourselves disorientated.
I do not see myself trudging to an impersonal mall miles away for that gift. An appropriate amount of money in an envelope would have to do.
A was filled with sadness as I saw that one more chapter of our lives was ending. We had no option but to adapt as best we could and we would ultimately. But as I looked at the face of the brave cotton carder, now aged and tired, hoping that someone would stop him, I imagined the numerous evenings when he would have returned empty handed and his family would have slept hungry. At his age he had no other option and had had to fight the advent of polyfill quilts alone and bravely.
In our rush to embrace modern ways, do we realise the price that needs to be paid.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 18, 2006 | ghaziabad girls
The Jessica Lal verdict is out. It took a long time coming. Wonder why as she was shot in a place filed with Delhi’s own page 3.
For seven years we were almost mute witnesses to a mockery of justice where the entire system connived to save the killer who was a is said in today’s parlance well connected. Muscle and money power went to town and after six years or so those who had brutally ended a young life were set free for want of evidence!
Jessica was not a known person but she suddenly became the girl next door and somehow a city felt threatened. That is when civil society woke up from a long slumber to show its might. And it dis. Notwithstanding political connections or arm twisting of any kind, the existing machinery set out to redress a wrong and it did. Even the last ditch effort of a high profile lawyer who took the now jaded route of turning the victim into an accused failed miserably. The killer was found guilty. Jessica can now rest in peace.
This case has restored one’s faith in the judicial system but it has done more than that. It has shown that civil society is a force to reckon with. True that J’s case was a high profile one, that she had a spirited sister who refused to give up and give in. But this whole fight will come to naught if we as a society do not realise that our role goes beyond high profile cases. We today have the proof that we have the power to change things, to redress torts and thus to make a difference but with it comes to responsibility of reaching out to those who are invisible, and remain voiceless.
There are many unknown Jessicas who have been abused or killed. There are numerous families who hope for justice but do not know how to get it. There are many killers at large who are protected by the system. They need civil society to take on their cases and see that justice is done.
Let the Jessica Lal verdict be a verdict of hope, a verdict that makes us believe that things can change, one that rids us of our inertia and drives us to act. Then maybe the little Ghaziabad girls too will get justice they so deserve!
