by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 9, 2010 | God of lesser beings
Yesterday was PTM day. A day I have come to look forward to for more than reasons than one. First and foremost it is the one and almost only forced day off I find myself taking with regularity. Come what may, rain sunshine or biting cold,the monthly trip to the boarding school has to be made. It is also the only time when for a few hours I get off the spinning wheel for a few blessed moments. But above all it my special time with what I would like to call the real India, where no differences exist, where all children grow and learn together freed of all labels and tags. So you would have guessed by now it is a day I look forward to with glee and excitement.
The morning dawned and blissfully there was no rain. Had there been rain the journey would have been a nightmare given the present state of our city!. No it was a warm day but the breeze was cool and clouds were playing hide and seek with the sun. It was also a special day as my little grandson was coming with us making the day perfect. The previous day had been spent shopping for goodies – cookies, pizza and doughnuts – and some little knickknacks that good old Maam’ji is supposed to have in her bag. This time we were also accompanied by Steve our volunteer from Cambridge and Gary a photographer friend who also brought along his vintage camera with tripod and black sheet. By the time the clock struck 10, we were at the school gate.
Mamaji our trusted trustee had preceded us and we were greeted by all the 8 children almost at the gate. Seven beaming smiles and one tiny unsmiling face. That was Manisha who had just been in school for three weeks and was still a little lost. It was her first PTM after all. I remembered Utpal’s first PTM and his tearful face and murmured words: I want to go home with you. Today, three years later he was more interested in the boxes and bags we held and in sharing all the happenings of the last month. Boxes and bags were retrieved and it was soon time to make the customary rounds: each child’s class and then the hostel after which we would all sit down and break bread – oops I mean pizza together.
As usual walking from classroom to classroom was a pleasure as every child was given a glowing report by the respective teachers. By this time most of the children’s parents had joined us and little Manisha had broken down as she held tightly to her mommy’s hand and murmured the expected: I want to go home. At the hostel the children once again proudly showed off their little beds and cupboards and once again we expressed our wonder and admiration. It was all part of the act. We spent a few minutes with the warden and were given a list of missing items: Utpal had broken his sandals and Manisha needed some undergarments. After warm farewells and see you next month, it was time to let our hair down.
We found a place to sit under a tree and boxes were opened and goodies handed out. The pizza tasted like heaven because it was laced with so much joy and hope. The cookies fared well too. It was a blessed moment. A picture perfect glimpse of my real India. There was Mullaji, Meher’s Muslim cleric uncle and Yash’s christian dad. Then the rest of us from all walks of life and both sides of the usually impregnable walls. All labels and tags had been left outside the school gates. Here we were one, brought together by our children. You cannot imagine what a wonderful experience it was. I am getting goose bumps writing about it. It was the India of my dreams come to life for a fleeting spell. I could feel the presence of my friend the God of Lesser beings.
But all good things do and must come to an end or else we would turn complacent. After a fun photo session the antique way, one that even the Principal joined, it was time to go. The spell was broken and the world awaited us at the other side of the gates. The only thing we knew as that come September the magic would be recast.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 6, 2010 | commonwealth games
I keep reading your blogs, and they keep me in touch with the real India wrote a friend recently. Made me wonder about what the real India really was. Is is it the one we desperately want to show the world, even if it means hiding all else. Or is it the one that lives in the the very places we so desperately want to hide?
In the recent weeks a saga has enfolded in front of our bewildered and helpless eyes. I refer to the now (ill) famed commonwealth games (CWG). Actually snippets of news about the aberrations committed in the name of the CWG had appeared time and again in the print media, often tucked away on an inside page, and we had not bothered. They did not make headline news and somehow did not touch us where it hurt. I mean the slums destroyed, the people rendered homeless, jobless et al, the shelters raised in the name of beautification, the children working on construction sites, the workers living in terrible conditions, the beggars being branded as criminals, the workers dying…! Somehow we were too blase or inured to even take note. It was only when we were told of instances of corruption that we somehow woke up from our slumber. Treadmills hired @ of 900 000 Rs for 45 days struck a chord in our jaded minds. How could that be, and it was our money to boot. So we needed answers about toilet paper rolls, umbrellas, and shady foreign deals. Homeless people were not up our street.
True there have been more than sufficient dodgy occurrences in these Games and the jury if out on them or so one would like to believe though it may well seem that the culprits will one again slime out as national (somewhat misplaced) honour is salvaged. Are we not masters at crisis management better knows as jugad. And then is public memory not dangerously short.
When the dust settles on the closing ceremony and the last light is switched off some realities will still remain. In a hard hitting article that I urge you to read an activist writes: In recent months, at least 100,000 of New Delhi’s 160,000 homeless people have been booted out of night shelters, many of which have been shut down or demolished in a bid to spruce up the city before the Commonwealth Games. Besides shutting down 22 of the city’s 46 night shelters, plans are afoot to raze slums, stamp out hundreds of street food vendors and deport 60,000 destitutes to their home states. Voluntary agencies have documented that as many as 300,000 more people may have been evicted from other parts of the city. Recent reports reveal that 44 slum clusters are being removed from around the roads and stadia where the athletes and the delegates to the games will travel and play. To add insult to injury, Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta unapologetically preened that since it is not possible to remove all the slums before the deadline, the government had decided to use bamboo screens to simply conceal the slums from sight.
Take a moment and ask yourself where these hundred of thousands of people have gone. What has become of them, of their families, their children. All in the name of beautifying a city for a 14 day show. Are the few medals we may or may not get enough to justify this? One look at the city makes you wonder whether anything will be beautified at all. I am sure we would get medals for numbers of potholes and dug roads if there were any. And do you hide slums behind bamboo screens or any wall simply to conceal them from sight as our Chief Secretary says. Slums are an intrinsic part of the city and if the powers that be are so ashamed of them why has nothing been done to house the city’s poor who Mr Chief Secretary are not second class citizens but precious vote banks nurtured over the years by hungry politicians. Off with their heads seems to be an easy way out but we are not in wonderland!
All this talk about national pride is making me balk. What national pride when 5000 children die of malnutrition every day and rains rots in the open for want of granaries. Something is terribly wrong. So I ask again what is the real India? Is it the one our heartless leaders want to showcase in spite of everything or is it the one beyond the bamboo screen. For me it is the later. The one that carries on living in spite of all odds and is a lesson in courage, dignity and above all forgiveness. We simply seem to have forsaken them.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 4, 2010 | manu
Last week Radha returned to pwhy after two months spent at the village. We had missed her and were thrilled to have her back. We soon realised that her holiday had not been that wonderful as most of it had been spent in cast from neck to toe! For those of you who do not know Radha, she is a little girl who has OI (Osteogenis Imperfecta) better knows as brittle bone or glass bone disease. This means that even a small tap can break the little girl’s bones. In all her nine years Radha has been in a cast more than 50 times! Her situation is difficult to handle under the best of circumstances so you can imagine what is its like in a tiny hovel or in a a village where no one knows about such ailments or really cares.
And yet Radha is full of spunk and her smile is enough to melt the hardest soul. But sadly since her return the smile is missing and even if does make a fleeting appearance at times, it is tinged with sadness. We were soon to discover why. It seems her mom has been talking about her plight to all and sundry within the little girl’s earshot: she does not have long to live, what is the point of investing anything in her! The brave little girl hears it all and her smile wanes slowly till it vanishes to reappear only for brief spells.
We had visitors two days ago and Radha agreed to dance and like always she danced with her heart and like always we were transported to another world where the sun never stops shining and only all that is good prevails. The magic was short lived and the dance was ephemeral. The smile that had accompanied the dance disappeared and Radha went back to her place, her face drawn. The moment was heart wrenching.
The next morning Radha did not come to pwhy. She had had fallen in the night and broken a bone. Not only that, the Xray attendant at the hospital had not handled herwith care, and while placing her on the Xray table had broken a second bone! We were livid but helpless in a land where suing for malpractice does not exist. Prabin the special class went see her and came back aghast. Little Radha was in terrible pain and of course the mother had not bothered to purchase the prescribed painkiller. The little girl sat on her mom’s food cart, covered with flies and in agony. We had to do something and we did. We brought Radha ‘home’, or rather back to the centre where she would stay with Manu and his friends, at least till the time her cast was off.
She is now at our foster care and will stay there as long as needed and of course she will be handled with utmost care and love. When I look at Radha and at most of her classmates, the need for Planet Why becomes more than a necessity. For many parents these children are a burden they often do not quite know how to handle. They lack sensitivity and understanding and are unable to offer the enabling and loving surrounding such children need and as they grow into teenagers and then adults they become more and more alienated and suffer in silence. Planet Why would be the haven they silently and intuitively pray for and I for one will leave no stone unturned to ensure that their prayers are answered.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
Delhi is soon to lose one more of its wonderful landmarks, one that is as fleeting as its sunrise at dawn: its three flower markets. Wonder at whose alter they are being sacrificed? I do not know how many of you have actually imbibed the wonderful experience of this buzzing riot of colour and fragrance. It is truly unique and pure magic. Roads which are normally choked with fumes, get transformed into a carpet of shades and hues and then when the clock strikes nine, all vanishes just like Cinderella’s attire! And the flowers begin their journey to the four corners of our city: some into flower shops, others to roadside vendors, yet others to your doorstep in the shape of the daily garland that adores your house deity. These flowers touch the lives of each and everyone of us.
True this happens on public land, but so what. These markets add beauty to a city that is turning into a concrete jungle by the second. Could one not just legalise them? Soon these wonderful places will shut down and be shifted to the outskirts of the city next to, hold your breath, the meat wholesale market! And what about the livelihood of all those who work in these markets? How many families will be uprooted? But then who cares. The powers that rule this city have proved time and again that they are heartless. This is just one more instance. Will we for once raise our voices and fight for these markets or as is always the case, will we just sit and watch silently?
Yesterday was PTM day. A day I have come to look forward to for more than reasons than one. First and foremost it is the one and almost only forced day off I find myself taking with regularity. Come what may, rain sunshine or biting cold,the monthly trip to the boarding school has to be made. It is also the only time when for a few hours I get off the spinning wheel for a few blessed moments. But above all it my special time with what I would like to call the real India, where no differences exist, where all children grow and learn together freed of all labels and tags. So you would have guessed by now it is a day I look forward to with glee and excitement.
