the other kind of blast
“I go to my friends place where we play cards and have a blast” says a young citizen of delhi in today’s morning paper.
“ I have lost about 10 000 rupees in three days but will make it up” adds another.
They are both between the age of 15 and 20.
I sometimes tell children around me, that in our day and times we have a two-caste system: one that has money and one hat does not have money.
This often said in a light vein.. sometimes tinged with cynicism..However the last year has brought to light many incidents that somehow seem to prove me right..
In search of the elusive 4000 people who would part with the even more elusive one rupee-a-day, we tried to establish contact with groups and institutions where we thought we could find what we sought. Colleges, well frequented coffee parlours and boof stores, large offices and much more. Everywhere we were saddened to see that no one was interested in parting with what does not even buy you a quarter cup of coffee, for a cause!
This post is not meant to be a sermon or discourse or a blame game.
But we must realise that masterminds of 29/10 need executors and these come from within us, often because young people living in the same city on the other side have dreams and aspirations but no one to fulfill them. They often suffer humiliation and need outlets to regain their misplaced dignity.
It is for us to decide whether we will give it back to them or leave them to the wolves waiting in the wings..
The answer is ‘education’ and that little rupee does just that!
all is well on planet Delhi
There is something about India…
It all began as a grim day, fuelled by the ability we human have of conjuring the worst when the door bell rang and f a tiny voice said ” maam kahan hai” – where is maam -. For an instant I wondered whetherI had lost it and was hearing voices!
Then in came mr popples holding his father’s hand. Nikhil – the dad- had some work to do at my home and mrp had come along. mr p’s dad , or rather the one who has given a name to this child conceived during a drunken brawl, is a carpenter, just like the father of a very special being we all know..
His constant babble, as he settled to share breakfast in the kitchen, suddently dispelled the gloom around and brought us all back to normalcy. So after a hearty breakfast drowned in dollops of tomato ketchup, or chutney as mr p calls it, I decided to go out and shop.
I must say one was apprehensive of finding empty markets, but this is India and people had decided not to give in to fear. Somehow they understood that this was the only way to defeat the purpose of terrorist attacks . Normalcy had to return and even in the affected parts, shops opened after the authorities cleaned up the debris in record time.
The citizens of Delhi took charge of their destiny and set aside the feeble sugestion of keeping markets closed. It was heartwarming to see that everyone held the same discourse: we have to carry on as if nothing had happened.. yes we do mourn those who lost their lives, but this is the only befitting way to tell them that their lives did not go waste..
Delhi today sprung back to normal, with determination and a spirit that needs to be saluted.. and maybe mr p. decided to come and show me the way!
morning has broken…
The morning after has broken, the sky is just lighting up and soon the sun will rise…
Nature does not wait for anyone or change its course with the flavour or mood of events gone by.. does not get influenced by the gore of the media or the empty words of sympathy of those who are maybe the ones in some way responsible for the situation. Nature carries on..
Many messages waited in my mailbox this morning expresing concern and anger and seeking answers to a multitude of questions, questions for which I too seek answers…
Women and children died in yesterday’s bombs, many are still fighting for their lives… The state machinery is runing helter skelter for answers as the opposition is sharpening its knives and waiting to pounce..
The media is playing and replaying the same gory unedited scenes in the hope of raising their TRPs, not realising that with each replay it is sending messages of hate to one community and fear to the other thus giving more fuel to divisive forces .. the rumour mills are afloat enjoying the sinister show with barely concealed glee..
The masterminds, safe in their anonymity, are enjoying the show, and the nameless and faceless backers are counting the profits of the renewed sales of their macabre ware…
The rich will shun markets and tell their kids to do the same for a while… the poor will have to overcome their fear and set out to earn the food for the day.. the foreign friends wil shun our land and though the big business will survive, the livelihood of many will come to naught…
Such dastardly acts can only be answered by not giving in to fear, by going on with one’s life with renewed determination… by refusing to listen to the half baked information .. by spurning with disdain nd contempt those who want to benefit by such acts..
Are we not in the habit of assigning to karma what we cannot explain, cannot or do not want to face.. often as an act of weakness.??
Why can we not for once use the karmic explanation in a positive way and get on with our lives.. continue to trust those we have till a few seconds before the lound bang.. can we not for once look with our own eyes and see that the picture that is appearing on the screen is the same one over and over again, can we not for once think with our own minds and understand who will benefit and who will suffer.. can we not for once be true and honest citizens of this land that has now for too long borne the burden of man-made division..
Can we not fall in love with India and do what is best for her?
blowin’ in the wind
Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
wrote Dylan in 1962..
I guess he never could have imagined that more than four decades and innumerable deaths later we are still counting.. even the wind must have got tired of blowing an answer no one heeds.
Delhi was rocked by three bloody bombs blasts… one exploded just a stone’s throw from project why.. and I ask who died: simple people doing their last minute shopping, just in time to meet the yearly tryst with ‘dhan teras’ the day on which even the poorest of the poor buys at least one ustensil for his home… women who waited for saturday evening to do their last minute shopping, buy their Lakshmi and Ganesh idols, and the lamps and crackers their children must have demanded..
People die every day… but what makes one angry is when they die as a result of extreme cowardice, used by fellow human beings to espouse their agendas – in the name of religion or man made divisions.
I guess the God in whose name such dastardly acts are committed has no option but to bow his head in shame..
We were all looking forward to next week when festivals of two religions were to be celebrated; do we realise that tomorrow one community may look at the other with mistrust, anger, if not hate..
New agendas of hate will be found, new ways to further divide what was beginning to heal.. What makes me shudder is that masterminds manage to fuel simple people to execute these heinous crime… and they are the ones who ultimately pay for them.
When I look around me I can almost sense the optential executor: the misunderstood adolescent who is beaten at home, the young slum kid humiliated by his school teacher, the young man spurned by his girl friend’s family.. and waiting in the sinsiter wings are those who will take over these weak minds and use them..
Are there lessons to be learnt?
The first one is not to give in to fear and to carry on living a normal life – that is the short term lesson. But there is another one – a long tern one – one that we are trying to fulfill in our little way.
apocalypse why….
Many a times I have wondered why funders are reluctant to fund running costs and staff honoraria.. I always felt it was because administation costs were heavy; to my mind project why did not fit the picture, as our salaries went to the slum people and above all we were creating new job opportunities..
I got my answer when a net friend visited pwhy recently and elucidated the matter. She heads a small employee funding group within a large organisation and has been engaged in helping out development work in many countries. She told me that at the outset they had funded running costs, and even though they had been assured that it was for a limited time, they had actually found themselves doing this year after year as there was always a valid reason and one does not leave children in the lurch. She added :” they just became dependant on us”.
For me it was like the dropping of the proverbial penny!
The glove fitted.. was this not what was happening to us, where many of the pwhy team were sinking into a false comfort zone, and some of us were seeking help over and over again saying that this would be the last time!
It would be untrue and unfair to say that we did not try ways to sustain our activities. Over the past years we have like many other NGOs made our share of candles, paper bags, jewels, jute bags, recycled paper copy books.. but in a saturated market we were not able to go beyond a few ‘pity’ sales!
We realised that unless a local market within the community was found, such efforts would not be suficient to sustain project why’s activities.
We were aware that the funding solution had to be found within and that is how the one-rupee idea took seed. A quick calculation of the number of dwellings that surround us – mostly middle class homes- showed us that a simple rupee a day frome each one of them would see us through.. but then someone had to walk up the stairs and knock at doors…
The problem lies elsewhere.. we can go on harping on the lack of concern and heart of the rich around us, but we cannot close our eyes to another factor which contributes to our lack of success: I will simply call it the government job syndrome and it ails most of the slum work force.
The same people who toiled in the fields and in their homes from dawn to dusk in their villages, feel that once they reach urban lights they have earned the right to get a salary without any effort or commitment..
One of the reasons I guess that has delayed the real take off of the 0ne-rupee-a-day campaign is this passive and non-productive attitude.. there are some people who have realised the futility of such an attitude and that is why the secondary section is almost self-sustainable.. but that is not the case with all..
So what does one do, carry on bringing doses of oxygen with the dangers of having sources – however friendly and supportive – die out, or take an extreme action, just like the one a sensible parent would take with a child who has set on a wrong course.
In our situation it would be to stop all activities unless all beneficiaries – staff and parents – do their bit.. Let us say bring 50% of the ressources in cash or kind..
It is not an easy thing to do– just as it is not easy to throw a child out in the cold to teach him how to deal with life.. but it seems more and more likely that this is the only way left..
What is left to be decided is when…
pandora’s box
with much fanfare we launched our ‘project why star raffle‘: what better place than an upmarket girls college’s diwali mela to do this!
the prizes were well adapted to the page 3 crowd: a tete a tete meal with a famous bollywood star, a make over at a star beauty parlour; we had even got some smaller prizes that we thought we would draw every hour..
the ticket was priced at 30rs!
At the end of the day a very crestfallen team counted the loot: 500rs . Needless to say they had decided not to draw any prize!
The table next to ours had a young rookie tarot card reader. She made over 10 K!
But all is not lost, let us not forget that hope still lies safely within Pandora’s box.
please keep planet why busy, but happy…
Got a lovely ecard from a dear friend of project why: Nauko
I always get energy and rest at the same time when I visit your Planet Why.
It’s one of rare occations when I can feel happy in Delhi.
Please keep the Planet busy, but happy.
Nauko is from Japan and has been a regular volunteer with project why for over a year.. and a faithful one.. she comes and goes and has her own little projects with different sections.. often we only realise she came much after she has gone; she has found her place.. and fills it gently, quetly and with lot of love..
Nauko says she feels happy on our little planet.. and I agree with her. As you land on planet why, you have no option but to leave your problems behind, actually they seem quite insignificant as a child grabs your hand and another wishes you.. the smiles you get are enough to wash away all that ails you, at least for a while..
You get engrossed in the day’s activity and hear about all the news: sapna has started walking, and babli will soon be operated upon and the twins are now talking and farzana got an 80% in english.. the excitement is palpable as everyone has something to share..
the tailoring unit is in place and there are great bags to sell.. and a raffle too.. you try to catch up with everything and by the time you are ready to leave you realise that you are feeling good and have reconnected with a part of yourself you had forgotten existed..
apocalypse when….?
ominous title I agree but do we all not have to face a day of reckoning, a day when all questions will have to be answered with utmost and painful honetsty
As I browsed through the thousands of photographs of life on our planet looking for one that could ‘illustrate’ this post, I realised that there is not a single sad snapshot, every picture is one of hope and happy thoughts…
So I decided to take a picture of our one and only mr popples and remove the colour..
If project why was simply a journey of self realisation then I could simply retire satsified with a job well done: five years of school success for tens of scores of kids, heart surgeries, lives saved.. more than enough brownie points for a life time..
But was this why it all began… is this how debts are paid back.. is this how children are treated: mere commodities for personal agendas..
The reason for all this soul searching is my stubborn refusal for a large sum of money which bears a tag: to be used to purchase a piece of property… it is of course given in good faith as a means to ‘save’ money but everything in me is pushing me away from this option..
It is hard to explain why.. but somehow it spells doom and the end of what project why stands for..
I have been at sixes and sevens trying to explain this to all concerned but my conviction is deep seated: in todays India we need options that can not only be multiplied, but that can stand alone irrespective of extraneous factors.. we need to make the journey from recipient to donor, from PL 480 to Katrina, in every field.. and that is only possible if all the parts of the whole respect that spirit..
If project why wants to be model that any community of socially and economically under-privilegd parents can truly emulate, then every every aspect has to be so crafted as not to need outside support.. and that is why a simple option as the 0ne-rupee-a-day has to be made a reality.. I agree that it may take time and several mutations (be it raffles or such things), but once it has been proved and tested then the final transition has to be made, when each community looks after its own..
The model we craft has to reflect the reality of the community it caters to and answer its hope and aspirations.. but above all it has to instill in each one the feeling that (s)he can be in charge
Yes there has to be an end some day: the optimist one would be when a community is fully empowered; the other extreme would be when we accept closure after having been truly convinced that we tried everything..
But let us not forget that even as I write these words, there is a whole bunch of people, the ones that steer project why today, who are sufficiently empowered to carry on their way!
a war renewed each day…
“Life” says Oriana fallaci “is such an effort. It is a war renewed each day’ and she goes on to say :”To fight is much better than to win, to travel much better than to arrive; once you have won or arrived you feel great emptiness… and have to set out again, create new goals..”
Lettera a un bambino mai nato, Rizzoli, 1975, translation by Shepley published as Letter to a Child Never Born, Simon & Schuster (New York City), 1976.
Often when I am confused, perplexed or unable to explain certain things to myself. i have found grat solace and moorings in the writings of Fallaci and once again I find myself looking for answers..
Five years ago I decided to create project why.. 20 kids some english classes and a journey I could not begin to imagine.. five years down the line .. 600 kids, 100% results, 40 new jobs for people thought unemployable, social barriers overcome, dignity restored for special children, women empowered, three heart surgeries and one on the anvil, a child saved from third degree burns, women empowered.. not a bad track record
And all this at minimum cost, no frills, no unecessary expenses.. so where is the hitch
Simply to get the 130 000 x 12 x 5 Rs that were needed to reach there.. the innumerable refusals, the promises unkept, the empty words of admiration never followed by a simple gesture..
One has lost count of the number of mails sent, lost count of the number of times one had to explain why one did not take the usual road, lost count of the time spent explaining what seemed so obvious if anyone were to take the time to realise that education had to be perennial and endure, and be free of the moods, flavours and trend of the day and thus all resources had to follow suite..
Some did understand and a wonderful network of people from the world over have supported us and infused into project why, a magic that has allowed it to live on .. but these are small islands of hope, little bouts of oxygen and not the lungs needed..
More mails are written, more ideas mooted and then just when you think you have got it, the refusal, the impersonal decision makers who do not want to take a risk… or prefer the conventional options..
Why does project why not want to take the conventional and accepted funding ways.. many reasons but let me just say the following:
Which funding head allows one to educate, care for special kids, repair a heart, reach out when needed..
Were we to accept the conventional ways then all the ‘teachers’ would lose their jobs as they would not meet the stipulations and yet they are the ones who have got consistent 100% results from class I to XII for five long years..
Were we to accept the conventional way we would have to increase our administrative costs to fulfill the complex paperwork..
Were we to accept the conventional way, project why woud lose its soul and its spirit..
So one has to fight on… and maybe one day… but then if we are to believe Oriana Fallaci, a great emptiness would be waiting..
But we would create new goals…
Life on a planet is born of woman
Santosha she was named.. after the goddess who grants wishes
She is babli ‘s mom..
Somewhere the script went wrong as she lost both her parents and was left to to the mercy of (un)caring realtives for whom she was a burden..
Later she was married off to a man 35 years her senior, an asthma patient unable to work.. she is his third wife…
Santosha accepted her fate and bore three children to this ageing and ailing man, took on a poorly paid back breaking job in a factory and kept her family going..
It was not easy as they never found a permanent home, leading to the children not being able to go to school. Babli was the eldest child and she new intuitively that there was something wrong with her, she could see the little child struggling to breathe, her heart pounding so hard that she use to feel it would jump out of the frail chest.. The doctors told her babli would need surgery but she quietly filed that suggestion into the deep recess of her mind as she knew there was no way she could manage this..
She perhaps did send a silent prayer asking for a miracle, but with the burden of life weighing on her already tired shoulders, she soon forgot that prayer.. she had to just focus getting a meal for her family and medicine for her husband..
When she came into our office, we were suprised to see this tall dignified and smiling woman who quietly sat down. She told us about her life without any bitterness. She told us her husband was a good man, somehow it seemed as she was speaking of her ‘fourth’ child, one who needed as much care as the others.
Her demeanour was remarkable for one who had experienced so much sorrow and pain in her short life. She had come to thank us for babli..
There is a god for the lesser ones, a god that has strange ways but is not unkind.. Santosha had to wait nine years to see her barely worded prayer answered..
Babli has to live; a mother’s prayer has to be fulfilled..
It is a matter of the credibility of the god of the lesser ones..
Is he listening?
the art of giving… revisited
Saturday 8th October, 2005, is another day which will be remembered as one when Nature decides to remind us of our station on planet Earth..
The earth shook and thousands died.. scores of thousands lost everything they had taken a life time to build… and nature took less than a minute to anihilate..
And as usual the world’s collective conscience also shook and the act of giving was suddenly revived and put into gear.. everywhere, everyone, everything was spelling ‘donate’…
Since we began project why we have been through two earthquakes, one flood, one tsunami and survived… though it has in no way been easy..
Project why was even strong enough to donate one fishing boat to a fishermen’s village in Tamil Nadu …
Over the past six years getting funds for project why has been more than a herculean task as it has put to test every fibre of one’s being.
But let us stop for a while and ask a simple question: what do we seek money for…
- a child’s heart surgery
- another’s one education
- a better future for those cast aside by society
- a dignified job for one who would have been condemned to clean another one’s dirt
- a better deal for an invisible little girl
- a chance to deal with age old social evils
- smiles, hope, a better tomorrow
When calamity strikes and people find their conscience and sometimes a way of getting rid of the overpowering clutter of their homes – that is why micro mini skirts find their way to traditional south indian villages – they do so prompted by an overkind media which for a few days does not let them forget the pain and agony people are going thorugh..
We deal with invisible, intagible pain, we deal with long term solutions one that cannot be caught on camera even by the best lensperson.. one you discover everyday when you walk the very lanes that many find an eyesore…
Both forms of giving are essential and necessary, in today’s term if one is a down payment, the other is a long time investment.. but we have forgotten this though it is just another manifestation of the dual view of life -the micro and the macro – one that is part of our atavist making..
When I pitched the one-rupee-a-day option, it was in keeping with this reality of life, hoping that if people found the large number for calamities, they would still spare the one unit for the future..
Was I wrong?
My intuition tells me I am not, it is just a mater of time..
So the waiting continues
what’s buzzing on planet why
Today was a great day on planet why…
After much activity we finally got our first in house cloth bag … yes truly in house.. stitched by our very special kids under the hawk eye of their stitching teacher and printed on in our own in house printing unit…
Yes we have our screens, the lay out was done in our computer centre by our very own Mithu and then the printing was done under the suprevision of Dharmendra who heads our sustainability programme..
The message simply says:
project why children say No to plastic bags, and so do I..
they will soon be on sale and we can even add the company’s name or the buyers name or any other message. the bags are lightweight and can be folded and slipped into pockets or even tucked into the tiniest of bags. we hope they will help in containing the plastic menace that is now taking on alarming proportions.. and will go a long way in giving our special kids they social dignity they deserve
we also hope that all our friends will help us market these in a large way and will also come up with new suggestions to make this a great success
for further information mail shamika at shambakshou@yahoo.co.in
why am i being worshiped today…
why am i being worshiped today?
asks a bewildered little girl.. and she has good resaons to pose that question, as on all other 364 days she is never treated like this..
today is ashtami the eight day of Durga Puja.. today the very people who wish for a boy, are willing to abort a female foetus with impunity, curse the existence of their daughters and the burden they are, those very people will seek eight little girls or kanjanks, bring them to their home and treat them like goddesses..
even at project why most of the girls did not come and were seen scurrying from one home to another, to be ‘worshiped’ and feted. but tomorrow will come, a tomorrow when things will go back to normal: the same little girls will once again bear to the burden of being a girl!
It is strange that a land where Godesses are worshiped and prayed to, girls and women find no place… is also one where their very being is a matter of sorrow, where one who does not bear sons is riled , no matter how educated you are… where even law of genetics are reinterpreted..
I was asked by a western friend about the ‘missing girl syndrome‘. I guess the chilling scene of a female newborn being drowned in a vat of milk in the film matrubhoomi has had its impact..
I guess such a reality shocks but then does one think about the other one: the life of the girl child who is never made to forget that she is unwanted.. everyday we see this in subtle forms: she is never given the same care as her male sibling be it food or medical attention; she is rarely taken to the fair or even if she is, only her brother gets the ride or the special treat; she is ladden with housechores at an age where she should be playing with her brother; she is the one whose school fees money is often not found thus leading to her droping out.. she is babli who is left to die as she has a hole in her heart and repairing it would cost money…
and as she grows into becoming a young woman she also becomes the repository of the family’s honour while her brother can go on chasing girls.. she is then married off to someone she has never met, someone who will treat her the same way: as an object to be used, misused and abused..
she will come of her own one day maybe, as a mother in law.. but by that time bitterness and hurt would have taken possession of her, making her the one to accuse her own daughter-in-law of giving birth to a girl child so that the pattern continues with no possible escape..
so now you understand the chilling question of the little girl who wonders why she is being worshiped today…
left alone.. she may die
babli is 9.. she looks 5..
a bright child, she loves studying and being with her class mates.. at first she looks normal till you realise that she is often stands aside while others play.. if you look closely you realise that she breathes with great difficulty..
Babli comes from a very poor family, her father is an aged man who must be twenty year solder than her mom.. he does not work and it is babli’s mother who eeks out a living doing odd jobs..
when we enquired about babli’s health they told us that the doctors had told them at her birth that she had a hole in her heart and would require surgery to live…
babli’s parents were too poor to think of such an option so they took the other one.. that of accepting that she would die…
I have always been amazed at the way project why weaves its magic.. babli was brought to project why by Sitaram, the why-on-wheels man, who had to wait a long time tilll he found the road way to project why and managed to get Raju his son’s open heart surgery done.. and is it again a simple coicidence that Nutan did not need surgery and thus money lies unused at the AIIMS…
So is there an option…other than life for babli..
one can bang the door.. but the other has to run away
When your teen age daughter or mine gets angry, or upset, or has a fight with the family.. she bangs the door of her room, pops up the volume and waits for one of us to come by.. and make things right
when Durga has a fight she leaves home, wanders dark unsafe streets and lands up at the remand home..
Yet they are both children of India, both have parents and families… so why the difference..
Durga is our little mr popples a.ka. Utpal’s half sister..
Durga was born of the loveless union of a young girl married off to an older man ; it was later found out he was already married.. The young mother was left alone with a child who from the moment of her birth had become an impediment.. She later found another man who promised to take her away from the dreary small village lost somewhere in Bengal and take her to the big city… but he did not want Durga..
Durga grew up in the care of her granny, a free and rebellious child who never found answers for all the questions that she encountered.. granny loved her in her own way but was too old to instill any discipline or order in Durga’s existence.. sometimes an almost unknown mom use to come, ladden with gifts and stories, but left too soon to answer any of the now disturbing questions..
Two years back she even heard about the terrible accident her half brother had.. but what could she do.. then a few months back, as she entered her 12th year granny died and her uncle brought her to delhi… she met her new ‘dad’ and her little endearing half brother.. and above all city life.. where your world is a tiny airless room..
Gone were the fields where you could run, the small vilage where everyone knew you and you felt safe.. this was a whole new ball game and no one had taught her the rules.. and above she had to get used to mom, who was a far cry from the nice smiling woman who had appeared and dispappeared..
So the battle of wits began: each one tried her best, but so much time had passed.. sometimes there was violence, particularly on nights when dad brought a bottle.. she discovered another side of her mom, one that did not fit any of the images she had conjured till now..
One night the fight was too much to bear and Durga ran away.. the parents too drunk to know what had actuatlly happened did not realise her flight till the next day.. by that time Durga had been found by the police patrol and sent to the remand home for children.. a lovely hurting child who had committed no crime.. she was just trying to cope with life..
The police came, the social workers came, the mother was made to feel guilty.. little Durga felt a misplaced sense of importance and declared she did not want to come home but wanted to go with the ‘ladies’!
Days passed and Durga’s family just got on with the task of existing.. I guess the mom felt that she was safe and anyway the Nirmal Chayya institution was near Tihar jail.. miles away..
I had made a mental note of trying to find out about Durga but I must confess that I did not.. a phone call from a kind hearted social officer jolted me back to reality.. she wanted Jhunnu to come and meet her daughter… I decided to go along because I knew inside me that the mother and daughter had to get reunited..
I will not go into the details of the harrowing experience of dealing with the juvenile justice department and the Children’s court.. but simply say that maybe they should walk urban slum streets and get in touch with the real world.. where children become adults and priorities do not obey the law of western child psychology..
All praise to Sapna and her kind heart as she guided me through this unknown world as she more than anyone else understood that Durga had to be rescued from this place and taken home..
It took all the patience I had to answer the incomprehensible and absurd questions thrown at me by people who did not even bother to look in the eye..
Durga was finally released under my supervision and has come home to her loving family, who maybe does not love the way we would imagine, but nevertheless do!
Now mother and daughter have to make up for lost time under the supervision of Utpal whose joy knows no bounds at being reunited with his sibling…
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ” M.K Gandhi
Today is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday… the father of our Nation and the nation will render hommage to him… articles will be published and read, some may go to his samadhi and pray, TV cameras will ensure that everyone is informed..
Personally, I never truly understood Gandhi till very recnetly.. though he was present through out my life in the stories lovingly told by a mother who knew him.. yet as I grew up locked in the selfish state that childhood is, such stories seemed far away..
Years went by and Gandhi remained this elusive romantic notion that had brought us freedom.. but to my rebellious mind it remained confined to the past, having no relevance to my reality..
Yet as I look back, I am convinced that the seed of what I was to ultimately do with my life must have been sown while listening to these very accounts …
It is only very recently, when India came alive for me, as I discovered its true meaning in the eyes of the children of project why that Gandhi’s relevance hit me… As I battled each day with new realities, and failed many a times, a friend showed me the Gandhian way, the one where you looked for alternatives rather than bang against doors that would not open. From that day on, things began to change.
There was ho hard and fast rule, with every challenge had to come a new solution provided you were clear in your mind about the goal you wanted to reach, and sadly, wearing a different garb, the goal reamined the same: free India from the shackles of the new masters that bound her.. intolerance, caste , creed, greed, ignorance…
Every day is a battle renewed, a battle against a new invisble enemy and the wisdom lies in your capacity to find the right weapon… therein lies the wisdom of Gandhi for me..
I will end this by recounting the latest and still nascent foe that is slowly conquering the simple minds of theGiri nagar slum dweller …
For the past few weeks there has been a buzz in the lanes of Giri Nagar.. a new way of making quick money. All you have to do is part with 7200 rupees – yes seven thousand two hundred rupees or two months salary for a project why teacher – and then get some more people to do the same, and lo and behold you will become rich.. everyone is talking about this… some hesitantly, others with bravado.. look at R.. he even has a barnd new yellow motorcycle..
At first I did not pay any heed to this, but when one of my staff members asked me for advise, I decided to find ot more. I fell of my chair as I learnt that the 7200 rs were for purchasing a e- learning programme…
Now I have great respect for e-learning and net based activities but what I ask you is how do you expect Soni a semi-literate slum woman, Radhey Shyam my autorickshaw driver or Ram Prashad, the juice vendor to benefit from the CD rom and access code he gets in return for his precious rupees and moreover how do you imagine him being able to sell the same to more of his peers..
The sad thing is that the desire for quick money aptly fuelled by the excellent marketing ploys, has led to many people falling into the trap, some even borrowing the 7200 rs @ of 10% a month from the local moneylender..
True that the urban poor is a huge market for anyone as is substantiated by the pouches that hang in every tea stall – shampoos, sauces, shaving foams.. and much else – but computer learning for those who can barely pay their children school fees is something beyond comprehension..
We all know that many of the unsupecting buyers will never get any return of this huge investment…just the burden of an unpaid debt
I can understand the need for new and emerging markets, but at this price..
I wonder what Mohandad Karamchand Gandhi would have to say…
I know we have a new battle to win….
there is something about planet why
for many months I passed by potty nagar.. a name coined by shamikaa for a cluster of ramshackle jhuggis all five hundred of them, where almost 100 families live in rooms piled on each other with rickery ladders in lieu of staircases..
I have already witten about potty nagar in vankakam or namaste and ladder of hope .
yes I had passed this way many times and yet it is only last month that we decided to start an extension class there..
Two weeks ago, when Shipra took the first class there were a handful of kids, a few days later the little room became too small and another larger one was found.. In two days even this tiny room is full to the brim with scores of little hands handing over their note books, and intense and eager eyes pleading for more..
A palapable desire to learn fills the room.. never mind the heat, never mind the fact that one has barely enough place to sit, the class spills out through the open door and more eyes peer at you from down the road..
The experience is unique and overwhelming as you watch these little kids from many parts of India bonding on this little bit of planet why..where differences are forgotten and set aside..
what an incredible clas this is, a vision of a country rearing to go, impatient to meet its destiny..
What did it take to set this up, one teacher, one room and a bunch of true children of India…
makes you want for more…
Can I have more….
note: there is a flip side to potty nagar! Serious accidents take place on these unsafe ladders. A child of 5 died last year, and the mother of one of our class IX student fell last month on a rainy night and succombed to her wounds.
genX… wit a difference
look at them… they are something these three.. dark glasses and all.. our very own genX..
this morning I decided to take a class.. and as we sat I realised that all was not quite as it should be.. most of the bacchas slumped and it took me some time to get everyone to sit up, as I barked instructions the way my pilates instructor does…
After some time and oodles of effort everyone did sit up, though most of them looked terribly ill at ease.. then it was question time and again I was faced with lymphatic kids and barely audible voices..
I decided that we would liven up the class and asked everyone to stand up and tell me what they had done this morning.. from the time they woke up to the time they reached project why..
Himraj started telling his tale and I was horrified to hear that all he had eaten in the morning was a cup of tea.. he revealed that he had had roti and potatoes at dinner, was carrying no lunch and would eat the small amount of free lunch that the municipal corporation doled out at 1pm!
As the class progressed I realised that barring a few kids who had eaten a resonable meal before coming, most of the students, all growing class IV and V boys had had a cup of tea with a rusk or a ‘fan‘, a sliver of bad quality puff pastry…needless to say that those who had eaten well had stay-at-home moms!
In urban slums, when both parents work to earn the elusive rupees, this si what happens to children.. in the village food is plenty even if you are poor: some vegetables do grow in the yard, and mom makes healthy rotis with the cereal of the region, the goat gives a little milk and some local fruit does grow, the water is clean and you run in the open breathing fresh air… and above all there are no rusks or ‘fans‘ as often there are no shops close by…
I am appaled at the poor posture of children in urban India.. where babies cannot crawl as there is no space, where fresh air is non-existent in the little holes you call home..
Is this the eldorado people seek? Maybe time has come for a reverse migration.. teach the children that the future lies in carrying back their newly acquired skills to the village where they come from..
one-rupee-a-day and planet India revisited
one-rupee-a-day was an intuitive thought that had come to my mind way back in 1998 when project why was a tiny embryon… it seemed to be such a perfect solution.. was not India rich in mumbers.. and a rupee was something easily spared..
like all intuitive thoughts it got pushed back in the face of raised eyebrows, puzzled looks and amused smiles.. copious advise about the ways of goodBiz was proferred: donations, funding organisations, fund raising extravaganza, charity sales and much else.. and the greenhorn that iI was had no option than to take the well trodden path.. somewhat ill at ease I must admit.. to my mind this did not gel with what I had stood for and certainly not with India..
the one-rupee-day kept coming back with obsessive regularity… but I paid all the dues to the goodBiz world, and did the rounds of all that was suggested, and to be honest many options worked and pushed project why into a comfort zone bringing success, kuddos, praise and even recognition..
but the goodBiz had its own hidden rules, one of them being its fleeting nature.. come on ms.B no one does this forever, you must change with times and adapt to the flavour of the day.. now that was not acceptable.. education is life long and not transitory and one does not leave people midway, one empowers them to carry on… and the solutions offered did not work..
reality hit us as we were pushed out of our comfort zone, more than once and each time the one rupee leit motiv sprung back to life. It seemed to have all the answers to problems. If education was perennial then the funding option we sought had to be one that any Indian could participate in and any Indian could steer..
So if we stand by what we set out to do: establish a model that can reach every child and be steered by its own, then all resources have to come from within. Five years of goodBizMessing had finally taught us that we needed to go all out and make the one-rupee-option a success, beating all odds..
But nothing would have prepared us for what was to ensue: a new discovery of India which no one could have imagined.
We launched a multi-pronged appeal to a wide audience: netizens, people from all walks of life through brochures, personal meetings, telephone calls.. and with the replies and reactions a new map of India came alive.
Indians living away from their mother land, be it students or professionals, reacted with overwhelming spontaneity and unadulterated love for their motherland. Individual responses and collective efforts saw the light and bore fruit at breathtaking speed.. needless to say most of them had never seen project why… There was profuse support from unknwon people across India, more so from the southern and western states… the community and weaker sections of society did come forward with suggestions and contributions..
We started feeling elated… come on India numbered one billion hearts, now finding 4000 should be easy..
But it was not so as we were to realise once again.. the cynics appeared with their unbelievable tales.. India’s capital once again took the lead of this tragic Act of the play.. what amazed us the most was the fact that people who had seen project why did not find it in them to write a cheque for 360 rs.. let alone get us contributions from friends.. everything possible was said to deter us, the trophy going to an upmarket restaurant owner who felt that adding one rupee to a bill may lead him to a litigation ten years hence..
Does one give up… the answer is No.. the cynicism is so deep that it has to be set right… if the goodBiz is in such a mess then why should a child in need of help pay the price… it is for us to reinvent ourselves and wipe out misconceptions..
As I look at this new map of India, where the common denominator is its heart and ability to feel compassion for the other, I see boundaries extending way beyond its geographical entity… and if the little hearts are few within its own land then somewhere someone has gone wrong..
The one-rupee-a-day has to work… to set matters right and the last shred of doubt I had was wiped away this morning as I flipped through a magazine which had an article on the children dying of malnutrition in Maharashtra with a photograph of a baby whose ribs you could count but whose eyes still help hope..
No you do not give up on planet India..
31 days..04 hours..32 minutes and 10 seconds and counting
woke this morning , sat at my computer, browsed the usual sites..
as i opened this blog, my heart missed a beat as I saw something I had missed till date: on the right hand three little words – home sweet home -.. and a clock ticking backwards
I was overwhelmed as I imagined this child of India, one of its very best, longing for the day she will be home…
Sitting in the land of the plenty, the american dream that so many aspire to, she longs for the sounds and smells that filled her childhood, the warmth of the land that gave her life, the safety of the place she belongs to..
I imagined how long time must seem to her till the morning dawns when she sits on that plane that will bring her to home sweet home.. in 31 days.. 4 hours…. 32 minutes..
There is something about India.. pity some of us do not see it