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I did not sleep last night. I kept thinking about how much more was God going to put on Popples’s tiny plate and why. Some of you know how much he loves eating. He loves his food, he loves sweets and like all kids he loves all that is not ‘healthy’! For some time now he was been running large bills at his school canteen; so much so that the school authorities took note of it and informed us. He is a bundle of energy and always on the move and does not put an ounce of weight. For some time, we lit things pass, thinking it was just his way of coping with all that has happened to him since we was born. He suffered third degree burns, had epileptic fits as a child, got double pneumonia as a toddler and then to crown it all lost his home and family. Then there was all the bullying in school and the pain that goes with it. We had to change his school. He settled well but his eating pattern deteriorated and yesterday I took him to my trusted family doctor.

Doc P felt that investigation were needed as the symptoms displayed could be those of Diabetes I. My blood ran cold. How much more does this child have to suffer and why? Diabetes I is a lifelong ailment that requires constant monitoring and insulin shots. This cannot be true. He has his whole life in front of him.

In an hour I will take him for his blood test and then there will be hours of waiting for the results, when one has tendency to paint the world black.

I wonder how wrong God went when writing the script for this little child? He then handed him to me to right every wrong.

Please say a little prayer for him.

I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches. I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream. The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again. My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me — I felt as though it was death that was approaching me. The blood curdling and chilling words are those of a child who survived the barbaric attack yesterday in Peshawar. He took two bullets and though he will live on, life will never be the same. His soul has been trampled by those black boots. But he was lucky to be alive. Death approached him indeed but changed her course. But that was not to be for 143 others. This could be their story:

It was a morning just like any other. The young boy must have gotten up early, or perhaps he was a little late and had to hurry to get ready for school. He grabbed his bag and stuffed the lunch box so lovingly prepared by his mother. As he left home, he heard his mother bidding him good bye but he answered hurriedly  as his bus was coming. Little did his mother know that she would never hear his voice again.

School began as usual. In between two periods he took a bite of the lunch his mom had given him as he had not had time to have his breakfast. It lay on the table untouched. This would be the last meal his mother made for him. And the hurried bite he had surreptitiously swallowed would be his last meal. The fourth period began. Then suddenly gunmen burst into the room, their black boots stomping the ground and the teacher screamed to the children to hide, but it was too late. Bullets riddled the young body and he fell without a sound.

Nine pairs of black boots destroyed the childhood of over a thousand children and snuffed out the life of 143 children with their bullets. This was done in cold blood. Children were lined up and shot in their heads, some were shot as they hid under desks or watched helplessly as their friends and teachers were killed.

This is no horror movie. This happened.

So what will we do? Express our outrage. Hold vigils. Write blogs. And though it is being said ad nauseum that the perpetrators are not humans, the sad reality is that they are. They were born just like any other human being. So what went wrong? How did they turn into the monsters one is making them out to be? What made them don the black boots of death that fateful morning and execute the mission they were entrusted with? In what and whose name did they commit this crime? Which God, if God it is, allows such reprehensible acts? Why do children pay for the perceived sins of adults?

True we are outraged at this moment, but how long will our rage last? When will this aberration become fodder for political ends? And what do you do. The nine pins of the bowling game have fallen. How long will it take for nine or nine hundred more to rise. Will the death of these 132 tiny and blameless souls bring anyone to their senses.

Without being cynical, the answer is no.

The death of children are too soon forgotten.

In a small town in India, a seven year old boy died. He was brutally beaten by his school teacher for not doing his homework and not paying his fees. Who will pay for this death.

There is no footprint too small to leave an imprint on this world says an anonymous quote. Today over 100 children were killed in a dastardly attack on a school in Peshawar. The terrorist group responsible for the attack said it was in  retaliation for the army’s continuing operation against militants. The operation was even lauded as a success. I am stunned beyond words. What can one say in front of such horror. What kind of being can shoot a child in cold blood without flinching. And what does one call such a being. How have we allowed our world to come to this. What is the use of all our education and so called progress if a we are unable to keep a child safe. How does one pay for such a deed.

The death of a child is the death of God as it is in the eyes of a child that God abides. Have we become a civilisation that has perfected the art of killing God day in and day out, without remorse.

These tiny souls that have flown today leave an imprint in each of our hearts, if hearts we still have. How will we react. By more killing or will we have the courage to look into our frozen souls and break the deafening silence.

Only time will tell.

Will those who have died today, and their comrades who die every day because of our failing ever forgive us.

No footprint is too small to leave an imprint on this world and in our hearts. Let us remember that and let our collective conscience mourn the departed children.

This world is not a place for children; neither it is a place for God.

You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed wrote St Exupery in the Little Prince. This is an indubitable truth. Just like St Exupery, a little prince landed in my life about 12 years ago. he did not fall from the sky. He walked into my heart after a terrible accident and filled a space I never knew existed. I christened him Popples and he made me his Maam’ji! Thus began a love story that is still enfolding. Like all love stories it has had its share of laughter and tears. As we both grew, we faced new and unpredictable challenges but as in all love stories we had no option but to weather each storm. I must admit that the scales were tipped in the little man’s favour and the old biddy had to adapt and conjure miracles at the drop of a hat.

I had done all my growing up by the time he came into my life and he still had all his to do. The bonny baby became a toddler, then a child and now is in the throes of adolescence. Like all children it is a surprise package you cannot begin to fathom and you have to come up with answers and solutions on the spot knowing that what you do or say may have lifelong repercussions.  In the case of this boy, the answers are not easy as his life has not followed the tranquil course one would want every child’s life to follow, but has been and is replete with challenges that test every fibre of your being. There are the formulated questions that are easy, but there are those who remain unsaid and compel you to read between the lines. There are the challenging behaviours that are cries for help and need to be understood and addressed. It is no easy task and yet you know you have to meet them head on because on one fateful morning you dared look deep into trusting eyes and held out your hand. Once you take that step, it is irreversible till does you part.

You are responsible forever!

For the last few years I go back to school twice a year and have worked byway up from class I to VII! Wonder why and how? Simply courtesy Popples’s homework. It is uncanny how much home work children in India get. The whole meaning of holidays needs to be revised altogether. No wonder why a new business has seen the light of day as you now can outsource your kid’s homework. But that is not the way we do things Popples and I. Quite frankly much as I look forward to him being home, I dread the homework like you would the plague. He hates homework and I hate the monster I turn into to get the work completed.

As soon as I collect him from school and we enter the house, my first task is to fish out the homework sheets and gather the courage to look at them. The truth is soon revealed: charts and models, the dreaded pages of writing – this time cursive – essays and paragraphs and even stories to be written, project files on many subjects to be made and more of the same. Stationery lists are made and will be bought today itself and the battle will begin. The biggest challenge is to tame the child and make a timetable that I know will not be followed easily as all the lad has to do is look at me with his melting eyes and plead for relief. And come on, these are holidays and on holidays you sleep in, you play, you have fun. How does one make a child take pleasure in sums and equations and learning lessons. But I cannot change the system.

I need to muster all the patience I can and find ways to get the darned homework done. Wish me luck!

On the very day the Nobel laureates were receiving their award and addressing the world, I had my own moment! The venue was a palace hall replete with the pomp and splendour associated with such places. My audience was a group of CEOs of the French tourism industry. My mission was to bring to life the dreams of the project why children and make those present not only believe in them but reach out and help them come true. A tall order it was! How do you give life to the aspirations and hopes of slum children standing in a space that is so alien to the reality they belong to. Most of the persons in that hall had never been to India and the little they had seen was touristic spots, luxury hotels on the one hand and annoying beggars on the other: the antipodes that India is far too often known by best exemplified by the jaded image of maharajas and snake charmers! I can never forget how angry I was when a classmate of mine refused to believe that Indians lived in houses; she thought we all lived in trees! This must have been way back in the late fifties. I had requested my nana to send me a picture of our home to prove that we too lived in houses.

So here I was, in this magnificent hall that was once used by a maharaja to hear petitions from his people, having less than an hour to get this people to cross the line, albeit virtually, and  be touched by the vibrant and real India far too often concealed and misunderstood. I decided to share my own story of discovery and how I one day had crossed the invisible barriers and fallen in love with a part of my land I barely knew existed. I talked about my tryst with destiny that had changed my life forever. But that was just the tip of the iceberg as what I had to do was also share the problems and challenges that these souls faced everyday and how we could overcome them with a little help from friends like them.

It was a stroke of serendipity that the Nobel prize was to be conferred on the same day and that the invisible ones were centre stage. I pegged my discourse on this and could talk of children and education with ease. I spoke from the heart urging all present to hear from their heart what they could not see, hoping that my words would evoke the images in their true colours. I shared stories of success as well as stories that captured the harsh reality that such children lived in but that could be easily resolved if one wanted to.

It was much later in the day that I heard the speech of one of the Nobel laureates and was amazed to how akin our thoughts were. I guess that anyone who has had the courage to look deeply into the eyes of a hurting child is compelled to react in the same manner. Kailash Satyarthi recalled the words of a little girl he had saved from bonded labour and who asked him why he had not come earlier. Earlier that day I too had reminisced about the young man who was the local goon of the area we worked in and had apparently threaten to ‘kill’ me. When I met him, I did not see a thug, but a young boy with gentle eyes who assured me that no one would touch our school as long as he was around, a promise he has kept till date, and then who asked me in the quietest of words: I wish you were there when I was growing up. I too see God everyday in the eyes of every child of mine.

I know I poured my heart out in that glitzy hall. I was the voice of all my children and of all their dreams and aspirations. I simply hope that at least one person in that gathering was able to open the eyes of his or her heart. 

Godmen are in the news for all the wrong reasons like the one whose followers pitched an armed battle against the state, or the other one who has been frozen for the past 11 months as his followers await his resuscitation. I do not know what adjectives to use to describe these absurd oddities, but nevertheless they feed on the ignorance and credulity of innocent people who get swayed by their absurd discourse. Never have Marx’s words been more appropriate: religion is indeed the opium of the masses! Well with Godmen being in the news, I have been asked about my opinion on these deviant beings. Here is my take.

First of all, I absolutely and unequivocally condemn such individuals. Let that be understood. Nevertheless one has to be admit that they exist and hold power on millions of followers and thus are agents of change and transformation, albeit of the wrong kind.

Hinduism was first and foremost an oral religious tradition where the sacred texts were cryptic and meant to be the learnt by a few chosen ones. It was left to to them to fulfil the mission of spreading the word. They were given the responsibility of adapting the essence of the precepts to the time and audience. This made the religion dynamic and open to change. At some point however, the texts were written down and the religion slowly turned static. It lost its vigour and adaptability and was only interpreted to suit vested interests. Had it remained oral, things may have looked very different.

The power of Godmen and their ilk is humongous. Sadly these supposedly religious creatures use their power to fulfil their greed in every which way. From amassing obscene wealth to satisfying their base instincts, they do it all.

With the power they yield, these characters could be true agents of social changes but they do just the opposite! One never hears them condemning social evils like child marriage, child sexual abuse, female feoticide and infanticide, bride burning, honour killing and such evils. Imagine the difference they could make if they did!

Whenever I have been on the verge of giving up, and God knows I have more than one would imagine only I keep these moments of weakened to myself, the God of Lesser a Beings, that I strongly believe should now be rechristened God of Project Why, sends me an unexpected miracle to bring me back on track. Today it came in the shape of a Facebook picture I was tagged in. It came all the way from a place I did not even know existed Lliria. It is a small town in Spain, close to Valencia and with a name as lyrical as this no wonder it is the musical capital of the region. It also has a large number of immigrants, many from the UK.

That I guess explains the presence of Spainsburys, a British supermarket stacked with all the goodies you can imagine. more so as Xmas is around the corner. You must be wondering what the link of Lliria and Spainsbury and Project Why is. Till this morning I did not know of the existence of either! So imagine my surprise when I opened my Facebook page and saw a picture that warmed the cockles of my heart and took my breath away.

The heading looked all too familiar as it was the homepage of our old website but the content was different. Hold on. What its said was that Spainsburys was organising a raffle for the benefit of Project Why and the draw was rot be held on December 17th! You could win Xmas Goodies, wine, chocolates and much more. Imagine how humbled I feel. In a little town thousands of miles away people are thinking of our children and reaching out to them. And not just humbled but grateful and loved. Tomorrow we will talk about Lliria with our children and tell them of all the wonderful people who will be sharing their Xmas joy with all of us.

This is nothing short of a Xmas miracle and I feel blessed.

Thank you to all who made this possible.

Love you and Merry Xmas

First picture with Papa Prague 1952

I just realised this morning, whilst rummaging for pictures to put in this post, that the first picture with my father and the last one were both taken in Prague the city where I saw the light of day. Strange that the last picture with him was taken more than three years prior to his demise, but that was before the days of digital photography and smart phones and taking a picture was a pother for two souls who preferred anonymity. In hindsight though, it seems that the Fates were conspiring to ensure that both these snapshots were taken in the place of my birth. Blessed I guess.

It has been 22 years since he left me on a cold Sunday morning, shattered and alone wondering who would knock at the door I just banged. The truth is I never banged a door since. In that instant the child in me died and a lost and shaky woman was born. She would have to pick up the pieces of her past life and build something that he could be proud of. No mean task. More so when you have no one to show you the way and catch you when your steps falter. How much easier it would be to slink into a hole and shut the world around and I did for far too long! But on a hot summer day in the year 2000 another lost soul would show me the way. I wonder if Papa had anything to do with this life changing encounter.

Last picture with papa Prague 1988

One may wonder how an ungainly beggar can thaw a frozen heart specially in a land where beggars abound and we master the art of making them invisible. But Manu did. Was it his heart rendering cries or was it the fact that he always was there no matter what time of day I passed by, almost as if he knew of my coming and waited with aching patience for the moment when I would finally look at him with my heart. Or was he simply taming me, just like the Little Prince tamed the Fox! I do not know. All I know is that one day I did open the eyes of my heart, eyes I had closed shut on that fateful morning 22 years ago to the day when the one who taught me to see everything with my heart left me forlorn and heartbroken. You could not see with a broken heart. Only Manu would be able to mend that heart and teach it to see again.

And he did. He did in a way that would make up for all those years when I barely existed frozen heart and eyes shut tight. I set out to help Manu, something I first believed would be an easy task: a few phone calls an adequate purse! But that was not to be, as helping Manu would entail setting up project why. I did it with my heart and soul as it meant redeeming myself in Papa’s eyes and accounting for the years I had lived forsaking what he taught me. Today I can say that I think I am on the way to redemption.

I learnt many lessons at papa’s knee; the essence of them all would be that in everything thing you do in life, you must retain the ability to see with your heart. And true to his wisdom, I keep him safe in my heart!

Welcome to our brand new website. I just uploaded it! It took umpteen hours, breaking back aches, gazing cross eyed at the screen for hours, looking for errors over and over again, making sure there were no broken links till the one moment when you say: enough and upload the files. I know there are many issues but I beg your indulgence and promise to set them right after giving eyes and back a few house break.

This is I think the fourth or fifth edition of our site, and this time I got a little help with the design and the technicalities but all in all the content and feel is mine.

I wanted the site to be a mirror to project why and impart its spirit and essence. It had to reflect the fourteen years we have been in existence and share our journey.

When I think project why I smile! And that is what I hope the new site will urge you to. In spite of all obstacles and challenges, we have always smiled and sought joy in everything we do.

While designing the site, I realised that project why is replete with stories of hope and fortitude that need to be told. This was the needed push to get me to continue writing the project why story that I had begun some time back but somewhat set aside. I intend resuming writing it instantly.

Enjoy our new site!

Two wonderful souls decided to celebrate their 60th birthday by bringing smiles to less privileged children thousands miles away. In the country where these children live, another birthday is being celebrated. It is the 75th birthday of a politician. He decided to celebrate his birthday by riding a buggy imported from the land the two souls belong to. I wonder if the two birthday wishes crossed in the sky! But that is not all. The man will also cut a 75 feet long cake. Hubris! What else. There seems to be an abundance of it in our land. I wonder what was the need of importing a buggy all the way from England. And if the buggy, why not the horses, or are local horses good enough. Where will the hubris end.

I often wonder whether politicians and their acolytes are of a different mettle as they seem to have the capacity to be totally oblivious and impervious to everything that happens around them. I guess their eyes cannot see the pain in that of another. They cannot hear the deafening cries of the hungry child or the bereaved mother. They cannot feel the anguish of the very people who put them where they are and believed in the promises they made to get their vote. They seem to suffer from post election amnesia that lasts five year when once again promises are resuscitated for a short spell. You have to cultivate a hell of a toughened skin to be able to ride in a buggy and be blind to what lies around you. Or is power such an intoxicant that it makes you forget the very reason of your being.

Those in power should hang their head in shame as long as there is one beggar child in their fiefdom or as long as one person has to go to sleep hungry. How can anyone think of a 75 feet cake when 5000 children die everyday of malnutrition. A 75th birthday should be a day where you take stock of years gone by and pray for enough time to set things right. But who does that. Certainly not your politician. They seem to live in an impervious rosy bubble where you behave live the proverbial Queen of Hearts and  spout your share of ”off with their heads”!

Politicians more than anyone else should have the ability to see with their hearts. But I guess that happens in only in Wonderland!

What do you normally do for your birthday? Have a party, treat yourself to a day at the spa or to a dinner in a costly restaurant. And if it is a special birthday like you 50th or 60th then you mate go overboard, particularly in India. But when you are a person who see with his or her heart then you do something quite different. This morning when I opened my mailbox a very special mail awaited me. It simply said:  Andy and I are on the brink of our 60th birthdays, Andy next week and me the week after. We thought about what would make us happy on these BIG birthdays, and the nicest thing we could think of was contributing to the smiles at Project Why, so via Jenny you’ll be receiving an extra 120 GBP, a pound for each year of our lovely, happy lives.

You may wonder who Andy and Irene are? Two lovely beings who came to project why on the first day of 2008 and spent the day rebuilding the Okhla Centre floor with the help of the children and the staff. Though we met ever so briefly, I think we walked into each others heart as Irene and Andy have been a huge support particularly when things were hard and I needed a pat on my back. Irene never misses a blog and often leaves a note that warms my heart.

For the past years they have been staunch supporter of project why.They have run marathons and organised garage sales and never forgotten to share what they have with the children of project why.

Andy and Irene are the kind of souls that make the world a better place and help us carry on our work with a smile. God bless them!

Happy birthday!

This is the state of one of the numerous toilet block built over the years in our capital city. I have very graphic pictures that I chose not to use as they are revolting to say the least. The reason I write this blog is subsequent to yet another speech of our Prime Minister where he urged NRIs ( non resident Indians) to build loos in their place of origin. He has also exhorted big business to make loos their CSR mantra. Whereas I am all for loos, I cannot but shudder at the thought of what they may all become if the programme does not have an in built sustainability component, in other words adequate funds to pay staff, buy cleaning material, maintain the building on a regular basis and that ad infinitum. Hence the loos should be able to ‘raise’ funds in some way of the other.

A few months back an NRI had shown interest in building toilets and asked my humble opinion. That is when my staff and I went on a loo visit in the slums were we work and this had been an eye opener. I had shared my views about the matter in this blog. What we found out was that most of the toilet blocks we visited were in a sorry state not because of the fault in design or even quality but because no one had given adequate thought to how they would be maintained. The poop story needs to be heard.

It is no wonder that the maintenance is so poor. We met the man in ‘charge’. A tired looking thin man who seemed to carry the burden of the world on his frail shoulders. In seems that the blocks are built on a supposedly and ludicrous sustainable model as the in charge only gets to keep the money collected from usage 1 to 2 rupees. In that he has not only to feed hid family but keep the loos clean. He is given nothing: no broom, no pail, no disinfectant, no floor cleaner, no soap- nothing! Normally it is a jet of water, if water there is, that is meant to do the job. No only that, not all people pay. Some get so violent that the poor man has been beaten more than once. A woman goon even slaps him every night as he refused to pay her a 20 rs a day commission. On a good day he makes 150 rupees. Such a model is doomed to fail.

My fear is having loos doting the country that will find the same outcome. I do hope that someone will think about this before it is too late a nd millions and millions of rupees have gone to waste.

What we need is not only to build loos but raise awareness about the dangers of open defecation and above all have communities take ownership of the toilets that are built. Unless we do that, the loo sag may well become a tragedy.

Angels exist. Believe me! In times of despair, they have descended upon us without fail. They are not the winged creatures that fairy tales are made of. They look just like you or me. We had one descend on us yesterday to save the dreams and morrows of our little ones and ensure that they remain safe. Every morning, 35 children from the most deprived homes wait for our three wheeler to arrive and ferry them to project why. They remain there till 4 pm when they are ferried back to their homes. For a few hours they regain their right to be children. They laugh, sing, learn, play. They do what children are meant to do. Sometimes they even to to a park or for an outing as they did some time back when another Angel dropped by and took the out for a treat.

In the time they spend with us in our creche, sometimes 2 to 3 years, they prepare for school and learn their alphabet, their numbers, their rhymes and songs. They learn to hold a pencil, to sit a a desk and to share with others. It is always a delight to stop by and spend some time with them. It lifts you out of the darkest mood without fail.

A few months back we are informed that a large chunk of our monthly donation would be cut, force majeure of course, and we were at our wits end to figure out how we would carry on. As always, it is the weakest who faces the axe, and it was decided that, if the need arose, then we would have to close the creche. Post that decision, I found myself avoiding the creche as I could not face the little eyes that always look at me with the deepest trust.

So I did what I do best and what has always worked. I took to my pen (or rather my keyboard) and poured my heart out. I also turned to the God of Lesser beings, begging for a miracle. The days passed. Then one fine day Angel no 1 appeared and told me that things would work out. She set to task and ferreted Angel no 2 who came with his invisible magic wand and showered invisible dust. My babies were safe.

I think I need to tell you what the plight of children like these is. They come from extremely poor families, often of migrant labour where the father earns a daily wage and the mother struggles to survive. Sometimes she would turn to brewing hooch to bring a little relief tot her loved ones. The father is often a drunk and thus the situation is precarious not to mention the violence that accompanies the bottle. The house, if one can call it that, is actually a damp hole often surrounded by factories that spew smoke and vile discharges that flow in the drain next to the house. The home is so small that children are pushed out and condemned to play in the filthy and insalubrious surroundings, or the busy road where car and track  fumes abound. Far too often the drains are blocked and what goes for a playground is covered in drain water. Yet children play there all the time. Is this what India’s capital city has on offer for its tiniest inhabitants?

I sometimes or rather too often wish that I had sufficient resources to reach out to every child in need, but alas even protecting my 35 is sometimes a challenge.

Today is children’s day. Maybe we should remember the children who have been let down by all of us.