part time parents

part time parents

This is a morning shift class of the primary boys at our Govindpuri Centre. Yet if you look carefully at the picture you will see a little girl sitting at the back. She is Neha, Amit’s little sister and Amit is her morning caretaker. You see both parents work and there is no one to look after the little girl. So the siblings take over. Amit in the morning and Mira in the afternoon.

It works like a clockwork orange. Amit brings the little girl to pwhy in the morning and then hands her over to Mira at the school gate at lunch time. Mira then takes over and little Neha is back at pwhy in the afternoon for the afternoon shift. She then returns home with her sister. I guess for once the two shift school system prevalent in our city is of some use! Not the best option for the little child but then at least she is safe.

This is the plight of many young children in a city where early education is still not free. Many families are too poor to pay for a creche or a preschool and thus older siblings have to become parents and caretakers. The sight of a small child carrying a younger one is common in slums and shanty towns. It is time the authorities looked at the plight of children and did something. Let us hope they do.

my feelgood shot

my feelgood shot

Yesterday was my feelgood shot day. Yes you guessed right, it was PTM day at the boarding school! And yesterday more than ever I need my shot of hope, optimism and faith. So imagine my stress when the car was delayed and we has a late start. But the traffic was merciful and we did make almost in time.

We reached the school and sprung out of the car. We hastily gathered all the goodies and packets we had brought: chocolate cake and patties were the day’s treat. We also had bought extra sweaters and shoes for some of the kids as instructed on the previous day by the hostel warden. So bags and baby in tow – yes my grandson was with us – we scurried to the respective classrooms to gather our brood. As usual huge smiles and cheery hello Mams greeted us. Of course every one wanted to know what we had in the bags. After a fe minutes spent with the respective class teachers that were needless to say all praise, it was time to settle down in the sunny lawns and spend some quality time with our band of eight, after of course having opened the goodies bag. Between mouthfuls of chocolate cake we were made privy to the ongoings of this hallowed ground. There were tiny complaints, and gentle chiding. There were requests for the next visit, Utpal often being the chosen spokesperson: bring us more biscuits and dry fruits, we are hungry in the evening; Vicky’s shoes are broken; and so on. Time just flew as we sat in the winter sun listening to the chatter of these lovely kids and imbibing the happy feeling that was all around.

And as I sat there lost to the world I knew, I realised that all doubts and apprehensions that had been plaguing me for the past days just vanished. Watching these children laugh and smile made me realise more than ever that my work was far from over, that they needed me for years to come, that I had to secure their morrows no matter what it took. These children more than anyone else epitomised the spirit of why, a spirit that screamed loud and clear that no life was hopeless, that every child deserved nothing but the best and above all that the best could be theirs if you just kept on looking with your heart.

I had had my feelgood shot. It was time to get back on the spinning wheel. There was work to be done.

www.flickr.com

Any belief worth having must survive doubt

Any belief worth having must survive doubt

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.” wrote Voltaire. For the past week or more my pen has been silent, the words frozen in a tired mind. I guess this happened after the 3 D pictures of planet why landed way, bringing a strange inevitability to what had been a cherished dream for more than five years. Where I should have been jumping with joy I instead found myself ridden with doubt and apprehensions. Where I should have been furiously composing mails, blogs and proposals heralding to one and all that we were finally there, I found myself turning strangely uncommunicative and mute. Where I should have been passionately polishing and sprucing up my good old virtual begging bowl and seeking the much needed funds, I found myself reluctant and even unwilling to retrieve it from where it lay dusty and almost forgotten. Something was terribly wrong, this time not with the world but with me.

Was this not the moment I had waited for for ever so long. Was not planet why just a moment away? Had not everything finally fallen in place? Then why was I ridden with doubt. Was pwhy’s sustainability not the one and only thing I had wanted from the day the journey began? Then why was I suddenly voiceless. It was time to soul search. I must admit that I was at a complete loss and did not know what to do and where to start. It was time to call up on the Cartesian mind I always took pride in and analyze the situation.

Planet why was undoubtedly what I wanted then why was I running scared? Was it the sheer size of the images that had landed my way that filled me with fear. True I had never imagined it to be so. Was it that they did not quite fit with what pwhy stood for till now: reclaimed pig parks and garbage dumps, road sides and street corners, kerchief sized and windowless rooms. Was my dream tinged with a hubris I had not been aware of. Was a huge building needed to protect the spirit of pwhy? Or to put it another way was pwhy’s spirit large enough for such a structure. Was there a disconnect I had not been aware of whilst building my dream?It was time to find out and I did not quite know how.

That is when once again the God of Lesser beings came to my rescue, though I did not quite realise it at first. Not knowing what to do to deal with a restlessness I could not share with anyone as I would have seemed nothing short of foolish, I decided to download all my blogs and read them again chronologically. I looked for ways of doing it rapidly but not finding any – and thank heavens I did not – I set about the task of copy pasting each one individually, all one thousand one hundred and sixty six of them. And as I did, pwhy came alive in front of my bewildered eyes. I was spellbound as I read each one of them. It was a treat of all the senses.

The story began five years ago when my pen was still somewhat hesitant and naive. I found I had recorded every little moment of pwhy and though it may seem to some as extremely wide-eyed, it truly reflected the spirit of pwhy where nothing is too small or too inconsequential. Every lopsided smile was worth recording, every seemingly meaningless tear merited to be addressed. And I did with all my heart. There was anger too, at things that did not seem right but it was somewhat guileless. Every tiny achievement was recorded and celebrated and carefully logged.

As I read on I discovered how I slowly found my voice. It was strangely comforting as I had often been one to remain silent. But somehow pwhy has empowered me to start reacting and venting my feelings even though in a barely audible way. Laced in between everyday occurrences were hints of concern be it about the girl plight child, the state of education for the poor, or the precarious nature of slums. Even five years ago these had been felt and expressed. And today many were vindicated in more ways than one. Over time my voice had become louder and my words more and more mordant. Wonder why? A question I need to answer some day.

But the one thing that is woven like a leitmotiv in a Wagnerian opera right from the very first blog is my fear of the future, my angst about what would become of planet why after my exit and that is why ever so often there are references to the elusive sustainability of pwhy. But then I did not know at what price it would ultimately come and how alien it would be from what we stood for. Or was it? What where we really trying to sustain. Was it worth the tag? I needed to read more.

I spend the next few days reading he 1000 odd pages. I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that it was in no way tedious or boring. Neither was it the normally annoying drag of rereading what one has written. Far from that; at times I got so engrossed that I even forgot that I was its author! As I read page after page, the last five years of pwhy came alive in front of my curious eyes. So many things that had been forgotten along the way: the plethora of human and humane stories that brought a smile on the face; the indomitable spirit of blessed like souls like Manu or Nanhe who gave a total new meaning to life; the simple yet cogent answers to complex issues mouthed by innocent children when God simply becomes Boman (Bhagwan pronounced by a two year old) and makes you wonder whether he is not simply that a beau-Man! The list is endless, each instance confirming in its own special way that we must have been doing something right. Then interspersed in between are the concerns and disquiets be it about the plight of children in general or the girl child in particular, about education and habitat for the poor, about new feudal masters and so on and the often implied need to try and do something.

This post is not meant to be a synopsis of a thousand and more blogs. I it is simply an exercisein soul searching meant to validate a belief: the belief that pwhy is worth fighting for, that no tag is too large when it comes to giving special children the right to live and die with dignity; when it comes to helping a few hundred children build a better future, when it comes to empowering people everyone had given up on to take hold of their lives.

It is time for me to walk the talk; to jolt myself out of this false comfort zone I am sinking and to fight the last battle to the very end.

Any belief worth having must survive doubt”. I guess mine has. So help me God!