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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.

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..

An incident occured today that set me on a strain of thoughts about matters that one often brushes away with great words…

It began with a call from an acquaintance who runs an upmarket nursery school with her mother a lucrative entreprise where fees rose from 300 rupees a couple of years ago to a mind boggling 1200 at present..

She wanted some help so I decided to drop by.. we chatted for a while.. and she told me how the numbers of students had dwindled with all big public schools having opened their own nursery section.. after the customary cup of sweet and weak coffee she asked me if I would do her a favour.. could I take the grandson of Saroj, the almost instututional ayah of the school, in project why… he is two and a half..

I said I would and got up to take leave… a worried Saroj walked with me to my waiting three wheeler and told me that the child had been in a creche till date, but had walked out of it and got lost.. she wanted a safe place… I told her to bring the child..

As I drove away , it suddenly struck me that the child could have easily been taken into the little school was it not for what I call the invisible but impregnable walls (IIV) that surround us, though many are blissfully unaware of their existence..

How could little Monu or Vijay or Abdul rub shoulders with the upmarket bacchas.. it would have cost the mother-daughter duo to have Saroj bring the little one.. knowing them, he would have sat quietly and imbibed everything around him.. but that would have meant crossing the IIV a line that could beat any LOCs…

Never mind if Monu or Abdul or Priya were born in free India and enjoy the same rights that their peers from across the border… never mind if their mummies would work extra hours making ‘pieces’ for the local exporter and pay the 1200 rs. Some do pay upto 600 to the english medium school aptly called Mother Kesari or Budding Flowers where no one speaks english..

And if a Monu or Abdul or Priya’s mummy did gather the courage of crossing the II wall clutching her purse with the fee amount, dressed in her party best: she would be shunted away by a clone of our erstwhile Saroj..

It is all a matter of invisible and impregnable walls…

I know for one that Saroj will henceforth not do it…

How do we get the mother daughter duo to change…

You guess right.. i have something in my mind…

Class is over.. the climb down the rickety ladder will take them back to their day-to-day existence .. but today has been different.. the children have stars in their eyes..
no metaphor here..

Today’s class was about the earth, and the plantets, and the milky away all brought alive by Sophie who ascended these very steps globe and laptop in hand to open a new world to these little kids.

Time stood still in this tiny, airless room where it is almost difficult to breathe, as twenty pairs of eager eyes crowded around the screen. The excitement was palpable.. the mood serious.. just as it should be in any place of learning…

So what if it is a tiny room up a rickety ladder.. a little effort makes it a ladder of hope

a mail dropped by in mailbox this morning. it was from someone i did not know..

It began woth the words: “I’ve heard a lot about you from A. I’m skeptical, as always, about all good things. And yet, I wish I could meet you and be involved in what you are doing.”

Many questions came to my mind, but what disturbed me the most was the way in which mistrust had permeated our lives with consequences that one is even aware of…

Nutan had a debilitating cardiac problem. She needed medical care and in all likelihood complex surgery. The family was told to arrange for 110 000 rupees before investigation would start. Now Nutan hails from Bihar and is one of the poorest of the poor, but there was no other way: It seemed that earlier many patients had left without paying bills so no one was to be trusted! Today we were told that Nutan may not need surgery and will soon be reunited with her children… Just imagine what would have happened had the money not been found…

One of the main obstacles that lie in our efforts to garner funds for project why, is the mistrust people feel towards charitable organisations, and their unwillingness bordering refusal, to give us the now almost elusive one rupee and thus the chance to prove our worthiness. Now imagine if we had not shown trust when Nutan, or Arun or Raju or all those who came to us and turned them away..

It seems that a world in a hurry to accede to material things draws comfort from applying labels to everything, not finding time to view each case seperately, and making up its own mind.

I would like to share a simple secret with them, the one given to a mythical little prince by a simple fox: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The Little Prince, Antoine de St Exupery.

Maybe we should learn all over again to look with our hearts..

Jeetu is not yet 5.. but he has experienced in his short life more than many would imagine.. He came to us two years ago.. a frail child with huge sad eyes who clung to a man that we thought was his grandfather..

We learnt that it was actually Jeetu’s dad and that his mom had died of TB a few months back.. We took Jeetu on, and helped his father set up a small vegetable cart.. all seemed well.. or so we thought..

Jeetu was a quiet, withdrawn child in desperate need of love and care. Slowly we saw the first smile, and the first friend and we felt relieved.. then slowly there were changes: a belligerent behavior, a new found hostility, then bruises and to our horror we discovered that the father had hit the bottle.. and was hitting the child!

We tried to intervene… threats, pleading.. nothing worked..everynight the man came back drunk and took out all his frustration on the poor motherless child..

A few days back we were told that the old man had got remarried.. our reaction went from dismay to alarm to relief as we thought that the presence of a woman would maybe help the situation.. we just hoped for the best.. maybe the old man’s violence towards his child was an unexpressed sexual need… we kept our fingers crossed…

But there was more to come…

Yesterday Jeetu did not come to the centre. The previous evening his father had been taken to the police station as it appeared that the woman had been bought for five thousand rupees and had made a complaint following a fight…

We hope that the matter is solved amicably, as otherwise Jeetu’s father may find himself in prison and Jeetu in a state run institution..

Another why… but where is the answer…

Some of you know her, some of you have read about her.. she is real and she is Preeti.. the one whose granny wants us to give her rat poison, the childwoman the family wants to wish away.. she is also the one that eats insects because she is micro-nutrient deficient!

Her dream: to be a mother..

Like all special and blessed children, she has a lot of love to give, only no one to give it to…if you come by do not be syrprised if she hugs you tight…

Preeti was born in a land where a girl is rarely truly desired, and a disabled one finds her way at the end of the line.. be it food or medecines.. she never gets her share… yet children like her bear no malice at all…

As I sat wondering how project why would survive, and whether all this endless struggle was worth it , Shamikaa stomped in.. holding what looked like a crumbled piece of newspaper: almost incoherent in her speech she opened it and therein lay a few grains of rice held together by some brown gooey stuff… it took me some time to understand that this was what Preeti’s family had sent as her lunch…

I was speechless as one emotion after the other took hold of me… anger, sadness, shock .. hurt. And in that moment I realised that I had to continue to fight for project why’s survival if it was only to ensure that for a few hours a day Preeti was surrounded by love and care and was treated like a human being… with dignity and respect..

And if that was not enough, my heart missed a beat when I heard that Preeti had been very uspet when she was told to give the packet away.. remember it was the lunch her mother had given…

On more why had to be answered…

Note: project why gives lunch to the special children, but we feel that parents need to assume their reponsibilities and hence ask them to pack a meal.. neddless to say it is often far from ideal!

it was a big day for me… as today for the very first time i saw the light at the end of the tunnel…
or to to use the terminology of the hour..the first step towards project why’s disinvestement was taken..

yes disinvestment is what it should be called… as the dream I set out to fulfill more than 5 years ago was that of an empowered community taking care of all the needs of its less privileged children.. where the steering would be transferred to ‘investors’… investors in time, skills and one day if all is well, in funds too!

it has been a long journey, with many step backwards.. with its share of dejection and angst.. yet with every step taken I could see the transition gently set in: two new centres set up and manned independently, a secondary section that will soon be flying on its own wings, a cyber cafe taking shape.. then why was today different..

well simply because for the very first time a TV crew came and did a shoot as I watched in the wings.. I did not even have to speak on camera.. shamika and rani did the task.. with the children speaking of their projects and dreams..

I could see project why stand on its own.. I could not but go back to the day when every journo’s visit brought panic and nervousness.. today there was no diplomat daughter walking the slums, no personality cult.. today was about empowerment and water issues, about education and aspirations, about dreams yet to be fulfilled, about tomorrows yet to be conquered.. today was about India and its people…

pNagar.. as we call it.. could be Tnagar in chennai!

Sudhar Camp is waht it is known as.. a tiny slum tucked away behind the electricity department somewhere in Kalkaji, in the south of India’s capital city.. 500 families living in precarious box like hutments where rooms are piled over one another.. a little like the houses children make with their wooden or plastic blocks.. to get to to a higher floor there are wobbly ladders… each family has an average of four children, most under the age of 10…

on one side there are tiny tea shps where you find freshly fried smosas, on the other side the aroma of filter kaphi and sambar greets you.. there is the south indian temple and the north indian temple… families from Bihar and UP live next to families from Tamil Nadu.. there exsits an invisible divide..in almost everything

in a tiny room on a first floor is project why’s latest avatar where south meets north under the the guidance of a lady from the east– yes shipra comes from bengal.. and all laugh and learn in perfect harmony…

Look at the picture? can you guess which smile is north indian and which one from the south.. they are all children of India who will not only learn the proverbial 3Rs but also about each other and maybe next time you come by a little Sudha from Sivan in Bihar will greet you with a cheerful ‘Vannakam“!

dear child…

they said you would see the light on September 3rd..

September 3rd passed and so did the 4th, and the 5th.. On September 6th your mother was in pain and everyone thought the day had come for you to land in this world..

your family had waited for you, your mama had carried you with love and great dignity, your papa never showed his feelings but believe me he wanted you so much, your little sister waited for her baby.. and your aunt did everything she could to make your entry into this world the best posible.. and there were many of us who already loved you…

I must confess that many wanted you to be a boy… some said it loud and clear, others in muted ways.. to many, little girls are a burden… in a society where there is less and less respect for women people have forgotten that we women are the life bearers… some of us wanted you to be a girl, your mama for one, maybe she knew you were just that…

You grew up inside your mama’s womb and met all the appointments with the doctor who pronounced you fit and healthy.. then child what made you decide not to keep your tryst with our world, what is it that led you to give up life itself… without even ‘tasting’ it..

Maybe we forget that from the comfort and safety of ones’ mother’s womb, a child sees and hears and understands.. perhaps it is what you saw that made you refuse life itself.. the lack of respect for each other, the fights, the anger, the unfairness, the tears, … and quite frankly child, somewhere I understand you… maybe you heard even those who wanted you to be a girl say that they wished you were a boy finding all kind of reasons to explain that…they forgot that it is nature who decides, nature that has to make up for all the little girls that were done away with… and you too were a little girl, nothing could change that..

Perhaps you also knew that the moment you would enter our world, you would lose your independance and freedom to decide, and that you would have to abide by laws made by a society ruled by men and that your life would never be your own…

Who are you: a statistic in the records of the hospital, a pain in the heart of many that will slowly fade away, a regret, a topic of discussions with its share of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’… I do not know..

To me you are the little girl who refused to be born in a world that she felt was not worthy of her… a child who took her one and only independant decision..

And we abide by it…

Bless you, wherever you are…

Kiran’s little sister, Rani’s little niece was still born on September 6th 2005…

n’s article is out. it was published today in the Asian Age .
It was great that it appeared on teacher’s day when all roles were reversed.

We sat down to read it with some of the kids and imagine Vicky’s pride when he heard the opening words “ Vicky Kumar, 12, is concerned about the water problem plaguing the capital“. and then the ones that sounded like music to my ears: “Vicky, who hails from Saharsa in Bihar, wants to become a scientist when he grows up. “I would like to go back to my village and set up a water plant there,” he says with a glint of optimism in his eyes.”

It was nice to see an article that went to the core of what we believe in and talked about the importance of making good citizens, and of revalorising going back to one’s home.

The children were thrilled and you could see pride in their eyes as they poured over the newspaper trying to read the sometimes difficult words and asking for explanations…

I watched them and wondered whether we had finally found the right road… to the future

There is something about India that never ceases to amaze me and that is her ability to contradict everything negative that you may think about her.

She does play games with you, wears you down, makes you angry or even sad, but then when you are just about to lose all hope and give up, she makes up for everything..

At pwhy we have never been media savvy, and most of what has been written about us has been either by friends or by accident. We have had our share of request for telephone intreviews politely rejected as we felt that someone in Delhi could make the effort to come and see us; we have seen copies of what was written by someone dear, lifted time and again sometimes without even a mention of the source; we have had journos come in a hurry for token visits and photographers that never had the time to go beyond our front door..

when a young journo from a leading newspaper called on a sunday afternoon wanting to write about us I must confess I had thought that it would be another journo in a hurry who would appear for a fleeting moment.. well that was not so.

N came on time and gave us the feeling that he had all the time in the world for us.. he interacted with the children and even saw them present a project, he chatted with the staff , shared lunch with us and came and saw our okhla project too..

for all of us it was special as we felt that someone was looking at our work and giving it due respect… and we were touched..

N is a journo with his heart in the right place, and I just wish it stays that way..

Project why wishes him all the success possible

asiya and fatima, the two year old twins sleep reaching out to each other for comfort… while rabiya takes a much needed break.. like any mom would.. only rabiya is four, just two years older than the siblings she looks after with great care and maturity..

rabiya is not an exception.. she is almost the rule in urban India’s slums!

on my way to project why I often drive past what we sometimes refer to as ‘potty nager’. It is a rickety camp known as sudhar camp and is home to migrants from as far as Karnataka, or Tamil Nadu.. most of the women work as part time household help, and the men as security guards; the place is crwaling with toddlers who can be often seen easing themsleves on the road as the only bathrooms are a set of public conveniences where a rupee needs to be paid! As many of our children from the creche have moved to the primary section I thought it would be a good idea to get some of the kids from this camp.

Last Seema went to survey the place. the story she had to tell was chilling: in the day sudhar camp is almost like a neverland, as most of its inhabitants are children.. with a few elders hanging around quite unconcerned.. many of the children came to meet her, ready to listen to waht they had to say. Many were quite excited about going to ‘school’ but it did not take long for them to tell Seema that they could not as they had to look after their siblings. seema told me that it was then that she realised that something was not quite right: every child – and they were between 3 and 5 – was carrying a younger child in his arms.. and what was difficult to believe and heart rendering was that they did it with a sense of responsibility that could match that of any adult..

Seema came back crestfallen and perplexed as to what could be done in to answer the tiny voices who were all saying: I want to go to school but who would take care of my sibling…

i am still trying to answer that question…

last week I decided to take a class..

this decision was prompted by the constant complaints of some of the primary teachers who felt the kids were getting difficult to handle…some not doing their work and disturbing others..
as all the advise meted had not worked, I thought best to see things for myself..

I asked for the rowdiest class.. I was given the boys of class IV and V…

when the teachers asked me what I was planning to teach, I simply answered that I would let the children guide me…

we decided to sit outside on the floor, in a circle and as I looked around I saw lovely eager faces with big eyes staring at me..

I decided to ‘take it from the top’ and ask them simply why they were studying… they all looked bewildered, not knowing what to say…. the teachers were as amazed as the kids. I repeated my question gently addressing myself to one child, then the other, and then the next.. after some prompting I got my first answer: to change things in the world… to have a better future said the next.. to gain knowledge said the third…

stereotypes that no one really undesrtood. so we sat and talked about education and the different subjects studied and picked up social studies… for my little pals social studies meant learning from the book..

we sat and talked about why we should learn about our social system, about laws and rights and duties; how they could change our lives and help change the world or better our future..

at the end of the hour, the little ones were asking for more.. somehow in their minds boring subjects had acquired a new meaning: hindi or english would help word petitions, maths would help calculate losses, and civics would tell us how we could play a role in building our land.. redressing wrongs.. remaking te world..

actually what i was witnessing was the making of true citizen India!

Look at the picture.. what do you see?

three little girls playing, the way all children that age should, three children savouring what is know as the best part of one’s life: early childhood, when others take care of your creature comforts and everyday needs, when you do not have an ounce of worry or concern…

oops I forgot to tell you this scene is from an urban slum in India… so let me reinterpret it for you..

Rabia and her twin sisters Asiya and Fatima live in a fifth floor hovel in a slum in Delhi.. They have an elder sister and no brother. When they came into the world there was no joy or happiness but they were meant to feel a burden from the moment they saw the light of day. Their father drives an auto ricshaw, their mother takes on needle work for greedy exporters who pay her a pittance, the house is unkept and unclean..the girls uncared for..

The twins now two cannot walk or even stand, they do not talk or even smile. All the medical tests done were negative, the verdict brutal: lack of love; suffer from extreme neglect.

When little Fatima is upset it is not her moma she runs to for comfort, but elder sister Rabia, barely four, as you can see in the picture. And the little four year old surrogate mother does her best to wipe off the hurt…

Now look at the picture again, do you see what I see….

till we can get a picture of the young couple, this is what a bonboniere looks like

“Barbara and me will get married next September 24th and we decided to donate to you the money we were to spend to buy bonbonnieres”

I have never met Barbara or Massimo, they are friends of a friend’s daughter …

I first googled to find out what bonbonieres were: bonbonieres are pretty little souvenirs that are handed out to each person attending a wedding in Italy as a traditional wedding favour.

Now this wedding will not have the traditional bonbonieres that guests normally carry back as a souvenir.. but there is something that they will carry back, something many will remain unaware of, something intangible .. something they would have help create: bonds of love and friendship between two young people starting their life together and children who strive for a better one… and the world will have become that little bit smaller..

Is it the magic of project why at work once again..?