by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
In a few days the destinies of two little women will be transformed forever. Spirited Babli is busy packing her bag for boarding school and spunky Meher will soon be undergoing the first of a series of reconstructive surgeries to repair her maimed hands and scalded face.
It was almost four years ago that Babli came into our lives. I remember her frail body and thumping heartbeats as if it was yesterday. I also remember her determined voice as she asserted time and again that she wanted to be a policewomen. Babli was born with a congenital heart defect and needed surgery. What endeared her was her will to live life at its fullest in spite of her debilitating disease. Babli was operated upon and the holes in her heart mended. We heaved a sigh of relief and thought that things were now back on tracks for little Babli. How wrong we were as this was just one of the many false starts in this lovely child’s existence. Six months after her surgery Babli was seen one day manning her father’s ware on a cart while he played cards near by. Needless to say we were livid. We ensured that Babli return to school and set about finding a long term solution for this lovely child and her dreams. We found an organisation that we thought would accept her but once again fell victims to administrative imbroglios. One more false start. Babli’s dreams seemed to be in jeopardy.
But as I have always held, there is a God of lesser beings who watches on his children and intervenes in unexpected ways, usually when all seems lost. A set of complex and unexpected circumstances led to our setting up our foster care programme and needless to say Babli was our first choice. And in spite of many hurdles Babli is now ready to join her boarding school.
I am no crystal ball reader or star gazer but I know that Babli is about to take her first steps into a whole new world where everything is possible. True the road is along one but knowing our little woman of substance I know she will come out a winner.
There is another little woman whose life is about to change. Meher hopped into our lives a few months ago and from day one she heralded loudly that she was there for all to see and acknowledge. Her maimed hands, her scarred face and bald pate were no deterrent as she made it all up by her larger than life presence. Severely burnt whens she was but a baby, Meher had no real morrow. Her completely destroyed hands ensured that she would not even be able to make it through school. We were all worried and somewhat helpless. But our God of lesser beings was at work as once again a set of unforeseen circumstances made the impossible possible.
In a few days Meher will have the first of a series of reconstructive surgeries that will not only give her back the use of her hands but also take care of her face and scalp. It will be a long journey again but one that has to be taken. But it does not stop there, Meher needs a real future, one where education is the real cornerstone. So if the God of lesser beings is truly at work, the day will come when this little woman will also take the road to boarding school and begin her tryst with destiny.
Meher and Babli are true survivors. Nothing can break their indomitable spirits be it a heart full of holes or a maimed body. They hold on to their dreams with alacrity and make sure you dream with them too!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 15, 2009 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was St Valentine’s Day. Sadly it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons with moral brigades out to chastise lovebirds in the name of religion, culture and misplaced morality. Once again the media has had a field day defending the right to love and so on and as usual politicians and other have jumped in the fray and given their two penny bit.
It is true that St V’s day is often equated to romantic love, but are there not other forms of love that need to be celebrated and extolled: the nurturing love of a parent, the affectionate love of a friend and above all unconditional love, the one that you give without expecting anything in return, the one that is often expressed in covert ways and furtive gestures. St V’s is not simply about candy boxes and heart shaped cards, but about the most wonderful gift given to mankind: love.
A simple message from some dears friends dropped in my mail box. It simply said:
It’s Feb 14th, and here in Europe it’s Valentine’s Day, a day when people show their love with flowers, chocolates, champagne, jewellery, etc. Instead of spending money on those things, we’ve decided to make an extra donation to Project Why, to share a little love with the beautiful children of pwhy. The words were not only touching but reflected the true meaning of days such as St V’s.
To answer those who rabidly profess that St V’s is against our culture and tradition one would like to say that any celebration of love cannot negate any values or heritage. The most one would concede is that it has been commercialised to the hilt but is that not what ails our times. On the flip side maybe it is not such an outrage to be reminded to show one’s love for those we care for most and often take for granted or praise one that deserves to be acknowledged.
What makes me see red is the undue importance given to such a trivial issue be it by politicians, media or even supposedly educated citizens. What happens to the same troika when real aberrations take place be it the slaying of a girl child, the burning of a bride or simply the sight of a young child used as child labour by the family next door. I had to agree with a participant of one the innumerable love debates aired yesterday when he blamed the media for abetting the moral brigades simply by giving them the exposure they craved for.
Why can we not look at S V’s day as one when flower sellers will sell a few more flowers and each one of us will remember to take a little time and salute those we care for and love.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
I have often talked about the lure of comfort zones, and the ease with which we sink into them. For the past too long now I have kept away from the day-to-day activities of pwhy. What began as a very conscious and intended decision turned unwittingly into a habit .
I remember early days when I use to check myself from jumping into my three wheeler and setting off to one of the pwhy centres or from picking up the phone to call and find out what was happening. The reason for my voluntary absence was to enable the staff to taken on responsibilities, make decisions and become truly empowered and I must admit that they did a great job making me slowly redundant. True I was informed and briefed about everything and all important decisions were never taken without my consent, but as time passed I realised that everything was going the way I wanted. I had trained my team better than expected.
Was it not what I strived and hoped for. And yet I must confess that there were times when I missed the good old days when one was forever on the field and in the thick of things. My new avatar as the one stuck in front of a computer screen playing with numbers and keeping them in check was not what I had envisaged for myself! So recently when a spate of visitors and new volunteers came to pwhy, I decided to be part of the grand tour!
We went from one place to the other, spending a few minutes at each location. Everywhere we went we were greeted by cheery faces, huge smiles and loud good mornings or afternoons. Classes were filled to the brim and surprisingly tidy and everyone was busy. My mind could not stop itself going back to the day when it all started and to the tiny jhuggi where a handful of kids sat quietly learning their first English words. I could not have imagined then that nine years later over 700 children would be part of the pwhy family. I felt an immense sense of pride laced with immense gratitude. What a journey it has been!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 10, 2009 | Uncategorized
I always enjoy Utpal’s PTMs. For those few hours I get off the spinning wheel, cast my woes aside, forget about funds and balance sheets and set out for the day with a song in my heart and a spring in my ageing and aching feet!
It is always exciting to set out early morning for the long drive and the journey is filled with happy thoughts. Yesterday was one such happy day. We reached school in time and the first task after a few hurried hellos to the guard and staff was to reach his hostel and find him. As always we were greeted by the posse of small kids crowding at the door, each on the look out for his or her parents. Utpal was among them in his read hooded shirt, a tad shy as his warden looked on. After a few minutes spent with his warden it was time to set off for the day. First stop his classroom where we needed to collect his report card. Once again he had done us proud. After a further few minutes spent with his Kamala Ma’am who showed us his craft work and drawings, it was time to fly the coop for a few hours. As always I asked him what he wanted to do and promptly came the answer: pizza khana hai (i want to eat a pizza).
In the car, Amit who had come with us handed him over a box with some cake that he had got from home. Utpal opened the box, a big smile on his face, and then looked around expecting someone to hand him over a spoon. Needless to say we had forgotten to get one. Utpal looked at us with a mischievous smile as he said: should I eat it as my horse does! We laughed our guts out and took the box away telling him we would get him a spoon later.
At the pizza parlour, Utpal regaled us with his usual antics. He sipped his drink his eyes closed and his hands behind his back, danced to the blaring rock music, ate his pizza and ice cream and fed us some too. Time flew, as it always does when one is happy. It was time to leave. Next stop the local grocery to buy his monthly tuck. Biscuits, peanuts and dates where the choice of the day. Then the dreaded moment arrived, the drive back to school. We were going to leave him earlier than usual as I had some work in the afternoon. In the car I gave him the little packet of toys I had bought earlier and that lay hidden in my bag: a small car, a yoyo and some other trinkets. Utpal was all excited as he explored the bag and opened each item. He started telling us what he would do with each of them.
We reached school and he got out of the car his precious packets in his hand. As we set off to walk him back to his hostel, three little boys who were sitting in the school ground whispered: they did not even feed him anything, they just took him out and bough him some things. To which Utpal quipped back: I ate pizza.
We reached the hostel and needless to say the lump in my throat was on there on cue, and the burning in my eyes heralded the dreaded tears, but Utpal the survivor par excellence was already busy with his pals making plans for the remaining part of the day. He had moved on and I realised that it was his way of showing me that all was well and that I could move on too!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 8, 2009 | manu
For the past one year now a motley crew of six have been sharing a home. For the past one year they have learnt to live together, love and respect one another and have shared some unique and wonderful moments. Funnily of all our programmes and projects this is the one that never got a proper name: from foster care, to children’s chance, to happy home each always falling short of what it truly was. Even its genesis was complex. Does it lie in the dream conjured silently almost a decade back when I first lay eyes on Manu, or in the almost clinical vision of social change foisted upon us by a potential saviour who came and went leaving unfulfilled dreams in our custody. Or perhaps in both.
In a few days or weeks at most, four of these children will leave the safety and comfort of their little home and begin a new life in boarding school. And in a few days or weeks at most we will need to find a new option for their their three remaining roomies: Manu, Champa and Anjali. And as they enjoy the last days of their time together, I find my pondering about the year gone by. Was it only a year back that I sat vehemently opposing the idea mooted by our erstwhile potential funder who wanted to include what he called a foster care cum scholarship programme in our planet why vision? As he juggled numbers and worked out projections, I sat stunned wondering how anyone could play with children’s lives in such a way. To me the whole approach reeked of social engineering, something I could and would not accept. But beggars cannot be choosers and at that precise moment the person in question was willing to back our own dreams and vision for the future. One had to find a via media, and one did: a small trial programme with four carefully selected children in order to assess the viability and validity of the proposed project.
Things did not turn out to be what we had hoped for, and the person disappeared leaving us holding the dreams of these four kids in our hands. There was no going back even if we could not even begin to fathom how we would pull this one through. We walked into uncharted territory boldly and bravely if I may say so. The little foster care programme began in earnest. The four children – Babli, Vicky, Nikhil and Aditya – were sent to a small prep school where they learnt was would be needed to take the big plunge in a world normally reserved for the privileged. They surpassed themselves and past the litmus test: their entrance examination to the boarding school. Today they are all set to join it, once we manage to muster the funds needed for them to do so.
While the children played by the rules and never faltered, we began the uphill task of finding people who would help us fund the education of these incredible kids. Easier said than done as we came up against unbelievable opposition. What we were doing was crossing the invisible line and that was anathema to many. But we have not given up hope as to us it would be anathema to send our little slumdogs backs to the slums. Wish we had a millionaire show where we knew all the answers.
The story does end here. As we sat wondering about how we would manage the days ahead, we realised that once the four kids have left us, our present premises would be too big for the remaining three inmates. The obvious choice would be to rent a smaller flat and hence save some pennies too but oh daring yeh hai India and people do not rent homes to disabled human beings and Manu, Champa and Anjali belong to the kind our society rejects and would like to wish away. For the past weeks we have been looking in vain for alternative accommodation. It looks like we may not be able to find any.
As I sit in what looks like a twilight world I ask myself a simple question: where do they go now and wait for a miracle to come my way!
