Eve of destruction

I do not know how many of you remember the protest song written by Barry McGuire entitled the eve of destruction. I am copying the lyrics at the end of this post and if you have 3 minutes and 42 seconds to spare do listen to the song. I guess way back in then I too was one of those who did not want to believe that we were on the eve of destruction. I was 13 when the song was written but 16 when I heard it along all the other protest songs by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and so many others. They touched my heart because I had lived in Vietnam in the early to mid sixties and seen with my young eyes the immolation of monks – one immolate himself just in front of our home – and gone to sleep lulled by the sounds of bombs that became so much a part of me that it took me a long time to get used to sleeping without the sound of that sinister lullaby. But it was the sixties and we did not want to think that we would be the ones destroying all that is good in the name of misplaced freedom, misguided religious zealots or simply hubris. Today aged 62, I am find myself believing that we are on the even of destruction, it is only a matter of time before that morning dawns. All it would take is the wrong finger on the right button and we will have no one to blame but ourselves as we crated buttons after buttons in a frenzy of megalomaniac hubris.

Yesterday a missile created by human intelligence was shot at a plane full of innocent passengers including infants whose right to live were usurped in our folly. I do not care who it was and I am sick of the usual blame games we love indulging in. A few years ago it was planes full of innocent beings that were rammed into buildings full of innocent people; then it was armed terrorist who went on a killing spree in Mumbai now it is a missile shot at a target that flying at 33000 feet. Yes we have such contraptions that can kill you in the air, across the sea and across continents. Gone are the days when wars were fought by the brave and when rulers and generals went to battle face to face. Our hubris is cowardly.

Military budgets are zillions times higher than education or health budgets. We fight over pieces of land whilst children die of hunger. We have enough arms to kill all humans many times over. We are incapable of learning any lessons because we do not want to.

Now every time a loved one takes a plane, I will spend anxious hours hoping they make the journey safely. Is this the way we want to live. Looks like it. As Barry McGuire says: This whole crazy world is just too frustrating!

EVE OF DESTRUCTION
lyrics: Barry Mc Guire
1965


The eastern world it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war but whats that gun you’re totin’?
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’

But you tell me
Over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction

Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you boy

And you tell me
Over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction

Yeah my blood’s so mad feels like coagulating
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth it knows no regulation
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’

And you tell me
Over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction

Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for four days in space
But when you return it’s the same old place
The pounding of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor but don’t forget to say grace

And tell me
Over and over and over and over again my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction
Mmm, no, no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction


mistakes, routine and unavoidable

mistakes, routine and unavoidable

Want to know the latest on the women safety issue that all our political parties have been using to get themselves elected? I guess you do so here it is from the horse’s mouth: a chief minister of a state where the situation of women is abysmal and shameful has cut the Budget of the state women’s commission but has the money for two seven-seater Mercedes cars and two Land Cruisers! This is the state where rapes are called ‘mistakes’! And the closing lines of the article left me speechless: According to statistics, five rapes occurred every day in the state, but most officials prefer to call such heinous crimes “routine” and “unavoidable”. So we have a new lexicon: rapes are mistakes, routine and unavoidable. How can any woman feel safe in this country. This is just the latest episode.

We all remember the ‘dented and painted’ ladies that a senior politician called women protesting against rape; or how we incite rape because of what we do, wear, drink etc or the places we chose to go to. Enough of that nonsense. Anyway when you are a 2 year old or a 81 year old as was recently the case I do not think what you wear, eat, drink matters at all. If you have a vagina, you can be raped.

This morning I was shocked to read about a 6 year old being assaulted within her school in Bangalore. What really made me fall off my chair was when I read that Bangalore school says it not responsible for children’s safety. What the hell. Parents send their children to school because they feel that the children are safe within the school. The school is an up market franchise sort of thing, something I gall at, and the child was assaulted by the fitness instructor and another man in the school’s gym on TWO DIFFERENT DAYS. Another school Director states: that although the school has more than 60 CCTV cameras installed in its premises, such incidents are inevitably bound to occur on campus. And he goes on to add: Nobody knows the minds and the intentions of offenders who harm and assault the children. The school managements in most cases are not able to identify predators who are potential offenders. The government should draft stringent punishment against such offences and create a fear psychosis amongst offenders. Only harsh punishment can prevent such incidents to an extent in school premises. Wow. I am floored. So we as parents or guardians should accept the fact that our child could be molested, raped etc in the school to which we pay hefty bounties till the state creates a fear psychosis in potential rapists. How the hell does that work. And I left the best for the end the management spokesperson tells the agitated parents: if somebody is found guilty of raping, let him be hanged.  I would like to ask this man how he would feel if the little girl was his daughter or granddaughter.

There is something terrible wrong and it is time we addressed the problem and stopped circumventing the issues and procrastinating.

Today’s news: a nine year old was raped by her neighbour in Badaun, the same place where two cousins were allegedly raped and hung on a tree. It is in the state where Mercedes cars are more important than a woman’s safety. And in that very state a woman was tortured,  and murdered and her body found in a school building. These are the repass our politicians call routine, unavoidable and mistakes. What else can I say.

An empty armchair and a  thousand words

An empty armchair and a thousand words

Sometimes a simple picture can say more than a thousand words. This is a snapshot taken by one of our kids during a photography workshop. I presume it is the picture of his home, a home he is a proud of. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to see that this is a tiny space and I can tell you with certitude that it provides shelter to at least six souls. You do not need to have a super mansion to be house proud and I have been surprised and touched to see how much pain the lady of the house takes to make her seemingly hideous hole look like home, more than certain uber rich homes I have visited where you are scared of sitting on the outrageously priced white sofa and where you try and look for a personal touch and find one. I guess page 3 people might recognise the interior decorator.

But a slum tenement is personalised to the hilt. In this case you can see the minute ‘garden’ with a tree and small plants, the clothesline strung across what one could call the ‘courtyard’. I am certain that inside there would be shelves with sparklingly clean vessels and containers with food items; a bed cover on the sole bed, the multitude of nails on the mail each with its designated use: school bags, clothes of each one of the inhabitants and so on. The walls would have some pictures pasted on it, often of Gods and there would also be a tiny shelf with some decorations pieces picked up at the equivalent of the dollar store – the china bazaar – or the weekly mart. There would also be a TV with its own shelf.

In this picture what struck me was the empty armchair. It seems it has been left deliberately so as the lady of the house is seated on another one next to it. Probably the empty one belongs to the husband and is not be to be used. In all probability the man of the house is a drunk and like all of his kind resorts to violence at the drop of a hat or in this case were he to know that someone dared sit on his chair.

But to me the empty chair seems to have a far deeper and subtler message. It looks like the chair lies empty waiting for hope and unfulfilled dreams. It perhaps states, in an almost tragic and mournful manner, the aspirations this family must have had when they left their native village to seek a better future for their children and how they were dashed. But is also proves that they have not given up and that maybe someday someone will come and sit on this armchair and conjure all the miracles that none of them dare express.

At what cost

At what cost

It has been a long time side I spent a sleepless night. Yesterday was one such night. Even at the nadir of R’s illness, I still slept, albeit restlessly but slept nevertheless. Last night I was haunted by the image of a lovely young child, though she is now a teenager standing outside her class for the whole day: her crime – her parents had not paid her fees. The reason: they were going through a financial crunch. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that for the last seven hers they had not failed to do so. This child, as child she will always be to me, is still under the ambit of the ill conceived, ridiculous and absurd right to education as she is not yet 14. Let us not forget that in India, come your 14th birthday, you no longer have the constitutional right to free education.

Now in the case of this child I agree that there had been an inordinate delay in clearing dues and that the school too has the ‘right’ to claim them.The question that arises is: at what cost? Let us also grant the school the fact that they did wait for ‘some’ time before taking out their big guns. But again the question arises: what are those darned big guns. One would accept reminders but humiliating the child is nothing short of abhorrent, unprofessional and unacceptable. Collecting school fees should not and cannot be akin to resorting to tactics employed by wily debt collectors and over and above all should be matter that remains within adults; in this case between the school authorities and the parents or guardian. At best the child could be called to the office of the counsellor or principal, no one else, and gently and humanely asked about her home situation. I know of a school where the same problem arose and the child shared the family situation. A deal was struck between the Principal and the student: should he get 80% in his next results, his fees would be waived for the rest of his school years. Needless to say the child kept his side of the deal.

In the case of this young girl the big guns were brought out and the arsenal was a slew of actions aiming at humiliating the child in the school amidst her peers and friends. She would be asked loudly when she would pay her dues, notes were handed to her in front of the class, and the ultimate weapon was to make her stand outside her class for the duration of the school hours. Imagine a sensitive, mature young girl standing alone for no fault of hers. This seems to me like something out of the Middle Ages. I cannot begin to imagine what went through her head. All I know is that it kept me awake and seething the whole night.

I also felt responsible as this beautiful child was born in front of me and till she went to big school, she was part of my daily life in all ways possible. It is also because of the importance I gave to good education that her brave and proud family tightened their belts till it hurt to send her to a good school.  For seven long years they did so. It was only because of a death in the family and health expenses of the elders that the boat rocked.

I have questions and the first one is whether any kind soul in the school, someone who understands children and their psychology ever ask her gently how things were at home? Whether they thought of a solution that would not hurt the chip? Whether they understand how humiliating a teenager can scar her forever in ways that can never be healed? That they can change the family equation and the equation between the child and her parents? No Sir! They simply what their pound of flesh as education is no more about teaching but about making money.

When I heard that this baby girl had to spend a day in the corridor of her school, watched and riled by one and all, I brought out my bug guns. A few phone calls, emails and SMSs later the deal was done. We would take over the remaining costs of her education. Was she not one of Pwhy’s first students!

I have asked her family to keep her at home till we sort things out. Apparently a late fee of FIFTY RUPEES a day is charged. Imagine how it translates if you are months late! Some Shylock! We will also have a chat with the authorities and tell them gently how we feel and more than that remind them of how deeply hurt a child can be in such circumstances. She will return to school when all is settled.

When I gave her the news late last night, I could feel in her simple Thank You, a range of emotions I cannot describe. They brought tears to my eyes and made me hate myself for not having acted earlier.

I am deeply thankful to all those who accepted to sponsor her education. God bless them all.

back to school

back to school

Project Why’s incredible 3 musketeers are back to school. This is what happens to you when you perform impeccably and have learnt whatever the old biddy could teach you. Over the past 14 years now I have tried to the best of my abilities to share and teach all the tricks of the trade to these incredible trio. The problem is that I failed miserably on one front: fund raising. In my defines I will say that it was because the fund raising model I adopted was entirely based on skills that are impossible to share: personality and writing. I know the model was flawed but it was the only one that worked for me and gave good dividends. The one epiphany I thought I had conjured and that would work for everyone could not see the light of day. I am talking of Planet Why: a green guest house coupled with a vibrant children centre, the proceeds of which would have run the project. We bought the land, got the architectural designs and feasibility study but were unable to raise the funds to build. Along the way we tried many sustainability options that failed. I think that maybe they failed because I did not have the skills needed to push them through. Now with time not on my side, I must pass the baton and thus Rani and Dharmendra are attending a one week fund raising workshop and I hope it will give them the ideas we so need and that they are able to fulfil better than me.

Shamika is back to school today. This is much more the closing of a personal journey that began when I accepted that my daughter leave school and train as a special educator. Over the past 15 years or so she has been working with special children and interned in organisations in France but she could not get admission in any course as she did not have a school leaving certificate: experience is not counted in India. Last month though the Gods finally smiled at me and she got admission in a course on mental health opened to people with a Masters degree! I know she will shine.

I am one proud woman!