The writing on the wall
A candlelight vigil was held last night for the Nithari children.
It was held at the same place where just a few months back the tout delhi was present in force, led by the urban middle class and the youth fuelled by images of Rang de Basanti, to fight for justice for Jessica and Priyadarshini. The vigil was widely covered by the media in live broadcasts.
Yesterday’s vigil went unnoticed.
Just a handful of people were there: the bereaved families and a few others. It did not even make it to the front page. An article on page 3 stated simply: Public zeal missing from Nihari protest!
A chill went down my back bringing to my mind almost apocalyptic images of the future.. People power had also succumbed to the great divide. We had failed to recognise the writing on the wall. Did we feel that such incidents could never happen to us and hence we did not need to act? Did we just feel safe in our urban middle class reality?
There are many disturbing questions that come to mind, questions we just push away as they would require us to look into ourselves and compel us to take responsibilty. So we simply wash our hands off and look away hoping that some plausible answer will be found soon and allow us to carry on till the next incident.
I am in the game of changing lives. A path I chose to walk because I felt I had a debt to pay. In the last seven years I have had to revise this larger than life attitude and come face to face with reality. Changing lives or crossing the great divide is in no way an act of charity. It is simply investing in your own future, a future where we cannot wish away those who live on the other side.
corporator for a day
Bharti Dhondge is a name that rings no bells and yet she will go down in history as the woman who became corporator for a day in the Municipal Corporation of Bombay! It took this woman five years to fight and win a legal battle whereby she challenged the validity of the caste certificate of her opponent. She won a day before new elections were declared, hence the one-day-crown. She now hopes to get a ticket from her party but that is another story.
To may this might seem a irrelevant incident but in fact it is not as it questions the whole matter of caste certificates. In a recent socio economic survey of pwhy we realised that over 80% of our kids belong to some reserved categories or the other. Needless to say not one has the required document to prove it and most of them are actually embarrassed and even aggressive when asked to spell out their caste.
Something is not wrong in a land where the politics of reservation has been heralded as pro poor and held as harbinger of justice for all. It does not take a rocket scientist to conclude that its success depends on ensuring that each and everyone falling within the category should be in possession of the required proof of his or her identity. It would seem logical that the onus of giving id proofs should lie with the law makers and enforcers themselves.
Nothing is farther away from reality as we discovered lately. Obtaining a simple caste certificate is a herculean task. Actually it s an impossible one. The powers that be have ensured that. No simple, unconnected, poor individual can meet the complex prerequisites. Where will the poor should find two class I gazetted officers willing to sign his form?
On the other hand, getting a fake certificate seems to be much easier as is proved by the Bharti Dhonge case. All you need is to know the right person and have sufficient funds to pay the price.
For the policy like the reservation policy to be relevant, the sine qua non condition has to be the issuance of documentary evidence by the state to each and every person falling within that category. Anything short of that is suspect.
One can now understand why our political masters insist upon not excluding the creamy layer. Were that to be, there would be no takers left for the reservations goodies!
Once again this brings to fore the fact that to redress many of the problems that plague our society, it is necessary to take the bull by the horns. In this case rather than demonstrate on the streets and only give more fuel to the politicians to divide society, maybe one should start a campaign to ensure that caste and class identity are issued to each and every one and empower the have nots to stand in line for every benefit doled out.
missing children- just statistics
On April 13 the 2003, little Rohan and Puja never went back home. They had gone to the nearby temple as they did every evening. That day some predator was lurking with his diabolical agenda.
Two days later their bodies were found in the sluice gate of the okhla barrage. A little shoe was discovered later next to an open drain in a nearby wooded area, a place no child their age could have reached on their own.
Rohan and Puja were pwhy kids.
I had to move heaven and earth to convince the local police that the children had not just gone off in the dead of the night, crossed dangerous streets and walked in lonely spaces to find the open drain where their death beckoned. I had to use my persuasive skills, my contacts and every ruse in my book to get the FIR lodged under the right IPC sections. I got my share of threats, bullying and intimidating but held on.
The post mortem report not surprisingly did not mention the bruises and cuts but a staid death by drowning. The case was never solved. The family was suitably brow beaten and little Puja and Rohan became simple annoying statistics.
Why were these beautiful children kidnapped and then killed is any one’s guess. Some dark ritual, sexual depravation or personal enmity… no one really cared. Rohan and Puja belonged to the other side of the fence were children are dispensable commodities. For the parents there was never a closure. They just got on with the task of surviving, their grief visible in the few extra grey hair and defeated look of the fathers and the drawn faces and the sad eyes of the mothers. Even the birth of little Nidhi could not bring the required healing.
The last weeks has brought to fore the chilling reality of the number of children that are missing and the fate that many have met. Wonder how many lie dead hidden somewhere yet to be stumbled upon. Wonder also how many could have been saved had the law makers and protectors done their job with a modicum of honesty.
It is time for us to stop and think about what we can do to change things and ensure that tender lives like tat of Rohan and Puja, like that of the children of Nithari or the ones found in the Punjab mill are not in vain.
golu and his sweaters- a mom’s recipe to beat the winter chill
The mercury has dipped to 2 degrees and delhi is freezing. But our kids turned up as usual in the morning chill.
As they filed into the room, we were a little baffled to see little Golu who seemed to have difficulties walking and waddled through arms stretched at an awkward angle. It took a little time and investigation to realise that he was wearing 6 sweaters his mom’s recipe to beat the cold.
One does not know if he warm warm, but one could see he was undoubtedly uncomfortable and unhappy.
We removed some of the layers so that he could play and jump with his buddies but did not forget to put them back on when it was time for mom to come and collect her son.
where broken hearts get fixed
Little anisha will have her heart fixed. Hers is the 10th broken heart that has come our way for fixing! Each with its own story, each with the hopes and prayers of the ones that gave it life. Each came from across the invisible barriers that divide our society with hope written large on their faces, a hope we could not shatter. Raju came in 2003 and garnering the 100 000 rs required seemed an impossible task, yet it happened. And somehow each subsequent one became a tad easier. So before we could even get the virtual begging process started for anisha, an angel dropped the required amount quietly without much ado or fanfare.
Was it only 4 years ago that a heart surgery required so much mailing and explaining. Was it only 4 years ago that silent petitions had to be sent to godji to ensure that the missing numbers came by before the scheduled dates. Or is there a hidden message shrouded in the apparent ease with which the amount required for anisha’s surgery was met.
I do not know.
Somehow she entered our lives when we were all trying to grasp the horrific unfolding of the NOIDA killings. I cannot say why, but she brought into the room the much needed hope we were all gasping for. Her eyes held a fleeting promise that maybe we could redeem ourselves and begin to build the much needed bridges to reach those we have so pathetically let down.
In her huge eyes one could see the eyes all the slain and abused children asking us to gather the courage to see them rather than look away as they were children just like ours who were let down by uncaring adults. Her parents stood silently, painfully aware of the fact that they belonged to the other side and that invisible barriers existed and needed to be respected. Their eyes pleading, their words barely audible, their answers hesitant were stark reminders of the fact that two Indias existed beyond doubt and in that little room both were present.
And what was at stake was a child’s life. My mind went to the mothers who must have stood at the gate of a police station seeking help to find their lost child and geting none and to the sense of utter despair that must have filled them when they understood that none was forthcoming.
It does not take much to lend a helping hand, to build a tiny bond that does not take much from us but can perhaps help save a life or at least bring hope and solace.
whoops of pure joy
Who said that some things have to be learnt to be experienced? Who said you had to be born on the right side of the fence to experience certain moments? Who said you had to be normal to know the how and when of appropriate behaviour?
Certain things just happen naturally and turn out larger than the best!
Last week a group of young professionals brought a special treat for the children. Beautifully wrapped packets of goodies – pencils, colouring books, crayons and a pencil box -. It was a rare treat as we have by now been used to receiving used gifts piled up in cartons. For many children it was perhaps their first gift ever and we did not know that we were about to be treated to an exceptional moment.
As we handed them out to our very special kids nothing could have let us imagine the whoops of joy that were let out by each and everyone. Be it our very own Manu who spent he better part of his life roaming the streets, or Shalini whose thirty years on the planet does not warrant such a reaction. Little Ruchi’s uncontrollable nervous twitches took leave of absence while she opened her packet and Umesh and Ankit could not stop smiling. I am sure that for that instant Neha, Shahida and Rinky’s world of silence let the sound of the rustling of the paper slip into their silent reality and Himanshu forgot the obsessive images of his dead mother hanging on the ceiling fan while he set about the task of discovering what lay inside the gold and purple paper.
Each one of these special kids who struggle each day to survive, forgot their dismal existences and were just like any child the world over savouring the thrill of opening a simple gift.
It takes so little to make a child’s world right, something we tend to forget.
a one rupee fix
I have been worried about the proliferation of what I call the pouch invasion in urban slums. We decided to do a survey and maybe try and initiate a campaign to raise awreness on the matter.
We been busy collecting pouches to and one of the stops was Nanhe’s mom’s cart as she sells a panoply of them. When we reached out for a particular one she stopped us midway telling us not to buy it as it was bhang gola a product made from cannabis.
The packet costs one rupee. On it is written: ayurvedic medicine!
You can imagine our total dismay as packets are available a dime a dozen at most shops or carts selling such products. It is accessible to anyone even children legally. A simple one rupee fix on the way to easy addiction.
At times like the one is left speechless!
amrika se ayega..
Our battle to make nanhe’s mom see sense is taking on disturbing dimensions. In order to ensure that little nanhe is well taken care of and in the face of our total failure in making the desperate mom see sense we decided to play the game and follow her search for kidney, the rider being that we will help her if we were assured that all was above board and provided we got a written estimate as was the case with our heart surgeries in AIIMS.
D, our staff member was appointed for the mission. He was first introduced to a so called relative who happened to have nothing to do with the hospital. A middle aged dubious looking character was introduced to D and told him with total confidence that a kidney would be available for around fifteen thousand rupees give an thousand or two. A doctor in the burns department of the said government hospital would arrange it.
D was told to act dumb and gullible so that we could get to the bottom of the story. When he enquired about who the donor woul be, pat came the answer: gurda amrika se ayega – the kidney will come from america.
Kudos to D for not having fallen off his chair. he kept a poker straight face saying that one had to satisfy the potential donor and hence meet with the doctor. He was told that the doctor was recovering from an accident and would be available in a week or so.
This is not fiction or the plot for a serial. It is stark reality that is unfolding in front of our eyes and concerns little nanhe, a child dear to many. The so called relative has already extracted five hundred rupees from the poor mom for mithai – sweetmeats – presumably given to the doctor as a new year gift.
One may recall that nanhe’s mom was initially told that the kidney would cost one hundred thousand rupees till the kind relative jumped in and said he could fix things for her. 500 rs may seem chicken feed to us but we must remember that nanhe’s mom is a poor widow with 4 children, three of them challenged, that she ekes her living from a cart where she sells whatever she can and that on a good day she makes under 100 rs.
This is where thing stand today. We plan to follow the matter and see how we can expose the truth which could range from a simple extortion from the so called relative, to a much deeper racket.
We need to do it for nanhe and or all other desperate mothers who would believe in any thing just to save their child.
The times they are changing.
Two Dylan songs struck a chord in me when I was a young and someone remained with me all through they years well into my old age. That was way back in the early sixties.
The Nithari tragedy brought them back as it seemed as if they had been written yesterday:
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
Come senators, congressmen, please head the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he that has stalled
The battle outside ragging will soon
shake your windows rattle your hall
For the times, they are a changing
and yet 44 years have passed and everything seems unchanged, seems there have not been sufficient deaths and the halls have not been rattled loud enough.
Yesterday a debate on television addressed the Nithari serial killings and related issues. A retired cop, an eminent lawyer and two political opponents engaged in a perfectly orchestrated blame game. Among the topics discussed was the issue of different rules for different people based on which side of the fence they happen to belong to.
Why debate on it when a mere glance at the audience proved that point beyond doubt. A group of people from Nithari had been invited and sat on one side, away from the rest the invisible and impregnable divide sticking out like a sore thumb.
Oh yes they debated and all agreed upon the fact that the poor had a raw deal, that cops humiliate and snubbed them, that things were not right and had to be changed. And with the necessary drama options were lobbed: change laws, amend acts, remake the world..
In the meantime more children will disappear, be abused and killed. More poor will have their rights trampled and life will go on without change. The poor will go back to their world as they have to carry surviving and the rich will find something else to debate upon.
The culprit in the NOIDA or the Ghaziabad tragedies is not the paedophile or the individual sick mind. Such people have existed since time immemorial and will always do. Come to think of it the chemicals of a brain can go wrong once in a while. Of course they need to be punished and put away.
The problem is far deeper and the responsibility lies within each one of us and not in finding something or someone to blame: be it the party in power or age old social ills. The true culprit is civil society who did not react at the appropriate moment. The true culprit is each one of us who feels that such things cannot happen to us and do not concern us. We all know how we walk away from a accident site for fear of getting involved with the police, how easily we dip in our pockets to break that tiny law that is irksome, how we throw names left, right and centre to slip out of the system in place, how we never find the time to help another, how get rid off the disturbing beggar by throwing a few coins but never dare look into his eyes, in a word how we each and every day reinforce the barriers between them and us.
We revel living in our world not realising how fragile it is. Our so called sense of safety depends on the simple fact that those on the other side have not found their voice but the day is not far when a tiny incident will unleash a force we will not be able to contain.
Every moment brings us closer to that day. In our rush to acquire material goals we are eroding the very foundation of our lives. The debate on whether there are different rules is not an intellectual one, it has to strike a chord in our very spirit and make us change our attitudes and ways. The responsibility for the NOIDA killings lies in each and every one of us and true healing will only begin when we have the moral courage to accept that.
The times they are changing and answer is blowing in the wind.
soup spoons and fish knives
A recent news item about the introduction of savoir-faire classes caught my attention. Apparently B schools like IIMs now have classes to ensure that you don’t attack the custard with a soup spoon!
True that the world is shrinking with host of new opportunities for young Indians, and true also that a potential employer would want his employee not to commit a gaffe, but I wonder whether expats coming to India for employment in desi companies – and there are more each day – are taught how to eat with their hands, or whether a young aspirant to a job in let us say Beijing would master the use of chopsticks.
Often learning about another culture becomes a way of breaking the ice and establishing a healthy exchange where both cultures find space. Moreover even in fork & knives culture there are variables, about ways of setting tables, placing cutlery to indicate that you have finished and so forth. Were these to be taught would result in confusion whereby one is trying to recall the right manner and thus fumble and appear gauche.
On the other hand were he left to behave naturally, he would soon find out the right way of the moment and execute it with grace. But there is a deeper side to this issue. I wonder if there is an unexpressed feeling of inferiority that makes us want to ape the west. I have always held that it is only when we are proud of our own culture, that we can aspire to widening our vision with success. Manners cut across countries and cultures and are often inherent. I have seen impeccable manners in the homes of pwhy children where one is at once made to feel comfortable and where food and drink is shared with pride and love.
It is sad that we are slowly losing our identity in our rush to ape cultures that we feel or are made to believe as better. The shrinking of the world should be an enriching experience for all, where all cultures are given the same importance thus enabling each one to learn from the other.
whose right is it anyway
Remember the ghaziabad girls? Some of us may have forgotten them as so many other horror stories have come our way and they have become yesterday’s news.
Yet somewhere in the dead of winter they await justice.
Their case came for hearing at the Supreme Court yesterday. One searched furiously for some news and was aghast to find out from a fleeting item on the news channel ticker that the case had been adjourned as the NHRC failed to file their report.
Something was terribly wrong. Only a month ago the plight of these girls was splashed all over the media. Today they seem forgotten and what is worse is that one cannot even get to them as they are protected by numerous government bodies and incommunicado.
The NOIDA murders are today’s news, wonder what it will be tomorrow.
And yet somehow to me their plight seems more poignant as they are alive. Their abuse was not a momentary flare of the dark side of a Dr Jekyll but the cool calculated planned action of their supposed protector. Even the mentally challenged were not spared.
The attitude of the so called organisations made to protect children is exposed here. Why did the NHRC not file their report? How much investigation, interrogation, cross-examination do they have to do conduct to ascertain what is evident to each one of us who read the story and saw the images?
It has also been reported that the National Commission for Women knew about the missing children of NOIDA six months ago. Wonder how many innocent lives could have been spared had they acted in time.
The ghaziabad girls are waiting for justice and it is time we did something to help them unless human rights differ according to one’s social origin.
A chilling thought….
a little bit of hope
The past week has been marked by the terrible plight of children in India, something we can in no way be proud of. The horror of the NOIDA missing kids seemed to be a catalyst of sorts.
Yesterday a nine year old Nayan was found dead, his parents still busy trying to get the ransom together. Yesterday again in a hurried drive to rid our capital city of the bad and the ugly, a 12 day old baby was bulldozed in a slum demolition drive as the mother only had time to save her other child.
The feeling of total helplessness and hopelessness gnawed at my very soul. The sense that all the hue and cry raised in these cases would soon die down after everyone had got their piece of the action was evident. What could one do..
As I sat lost in my thoughts looking for some sign of hope, little Anisha entered the room breaking the dark spell that surrounded us. Anisha is 8 months old but weighs a mere 4 kilos. her emaciated body looks line a new born’s but her eyes sparkle to show that she is a big girl who responds to her name, claps her little hands and is filled with a desire to live. But there is a catch, she has a cardiac congenital malfunctioning and needs open heart surgery.
This would be our 10th case but somehow little Anisha seemed special as she came at a time where we all needed to be reassured that hope still existed. In helping fix her heart, we would perhaps be able to heal ours a little and find the now sagging courage to carry on.
I do not know if we will be able to raise the 55 000 rs needed to give Anisha a tomorrow but somehow we feel we will. This little child who came after two sisters and was not the boy that her parents wanted needs to be saved to vindicate our belief that every child is worth fighting for and saving and that each one of us has the power to do so if we truly care.
back with a bang
It is back with a bang. Nanhe’s lost smile was there to greet us when we went visiting yesterday, reminding us that children have their own way of dealing with problems, ways that remain mysterious as Nanhe’s battle is far from over.
But the feeling was short lived. His mother was still lost in her dream of getting a new kidney for her child and not willing to listen, let alone understand the enormity of the situation.
She was excited to share that she had found someone who had told her that were she to part with 10 000 rupees, things could be arranged. We were aghast as earlier she had told us that what was needed was 100 000 Rs. As she went on we realised that she had been caught in some network that runs deep in government run hospitals and feeds on gullible and desperate families. Lost in her own world she refused to listen when we tried to explain what a transplant meant. She just wanted to believe in what some doctor had told her and held on to those words as gospel truth.
We tried hard but were no match to the desperation and determination of a mother!
We all know that no organ transplant can be done in a paltry 10 000 Rs. At the same time we know that Nanhe’s mom is not lying. Then what does this imbroglio conceal?
At best a new found way of feeding on a poor mother’s desperation and then finding a cowardly way out when one has milked her dry. Or is it something darker and deeper. We cannot retreat into the wait and see option. Too much is at stake: the possibility of Nanhe’s mom sinking into a debt trap, the risk of some sham surgery done on the child to appease the mother and justify the monies extracted…
We need to find out more.. after all it is all about Nanhe’s smile
not yet time
A friend dropped by this morning. We had not met for a long time, yet there was a time when we shared the same ideas and concern and were all set to rebuild the world over innumerable cups of coffee. At that time we both taught in universities. We liked the same books, the same songs and shared similar aspirations. I cannot remember what was said and thought, but I do recall that we both felt deeply that things were not right.
Life took its course and he remained a teacher and still teaches in a prime institution. I left my comfortable, pensionable post as I had felt stifled. Family obligations saw me criss-crossing the planet and it was only a few years back that I set roots and felt I had reached my destination.
The last time we met, we only knew one side of the invisble divide that fractures our country and conjured the other the way we wanted to see it. But this time it was different, I had crossed the line and experienced first hand what reality was, seeing each and every of my preconceived notions being blown to pieces, and re-looking at the very issues we had debated upon with new eyes.
It took me but a few minutes to get to my pet subject and talk about my dream of seeing the children of India grow together, side by side, without any labels stuck to their foreheads, taking time to build their own. Somehow I had expected T to agree to what I said. I was astonished to see his reaction and stunned when he mentioned public-private partnership in education.
A pall was cast on what had started as a happy meeting. We fumbled through the next few minutes and bid farewell. For a long time I sat in silence wondering what had happened in those years to change things between us. Why was it that felt so deeply about bridging gaps whereas all others be it politicians, educationists and so forth maintained that solutions lay in widening the gap. Had history past and recent not given us sufficient proof of how the very fabric of our society was getting destroyed by the multitude of divisive policies we were following leaving far behind the ‘we the people of India..’ of our Constitution?
T’s reaction was disturbing as I knew that he was intrinsically a good person, truly wanting to see change. He taught the best minds and thus could impart new ideas and ideologies were he to believe in them. Then why a total rejection of a common school idea. And why on the other hand was my belief strengthened each and every day. What had happened to both of us who started much in the same way?
Maybe it was the fact that I had experienced the other side, or was it that time was not yet ripe, that our social baggage was so heavy that we were still not ready to accept our children rubbing shoulders with ‘their’ kids!
All these questions plagued me all day along.
Yet I was to be validated sooner than I thought. The evening news carried the following: the brutal murders of many young children in NOIDA have touched a chord around India. For the first time, residents of NOIDA’s bungalows are now venturing out, offering a helping hand to those who work in their houses.
The year 2006 was a year that saw so many conviction. Now taking the same spirit into 2007, the battle has just begun and so tragic as it is that it’s taken the horrific serial killings to bridge the glaring class divide between an urban slum and a swanky suburban town.(NDTVnews)
Sad that so many innocent lives had to be lost to see this. I wonder how many of the mothers must have sought help when the child disappeared. I can also imagine the reaction of the likes of me who must have offered kind words and maybe money but were unwilling to make that trip to the police station.
But it is not time to cry over what cannot be changed, but celebrate this new beginning and to ensure that this very fragile spark is kept alive. There are so many who can get justice if they have our support and maybe it is a way of redressing a system that has run amok. Filing a simple FIR, as one discovered today, is a nightmare even for an educated person. Simple rights have been usurped by a feudal attitude that sets the rules turning victims into accused.
One has to also ensure that this new found compassion does not become another power game or get hijacked on the way by those waiting in the wings for any cause to espouse to fulfil their own agendas.
I said earlier that maybe the time was not ripe for the elusive common school system. However I want to believe that if people have found it in their heart to reach out to their poorer brethren, then slowly they may also come to accept one day to have their kids share a school bench.
I guess the penny will drop when one comes to understand that in doing so we are not doling out any charity but investing in our own tomorrows.
How many more..
How many more children will have to be abused, mutilated and killed, how many more mothers will have to live with questions than can never be answered before we become responsible as a civil society and say enough!
We are supposed to have a law and order mechanism but what we forget is that these work only for those who have money, power or at least a vote. The parents of the dead children of Nithari did not have any of these. Migrants from other states, they came in search of work with a hope that maybe they will be able to give their children a better life. Instead they sent them straight to a horrific death.
Imagine the plight of a parent whose child has disappeared. Imagine his sense of utter defeat as he knocks at the portals of a police station and is sent away over and over again with contempt. Imagine his despair when he is told that the children of the likes of him do not exist for the so called system. Imagine the days and nights spent in waiting for a miracle that never comes. And finally imagine that closure comes with a set of clothes, a heap of bones and the realisation of the horror that one cannot begin to imagine.
Then try to envisage what that parent feels when in the dead of night and numbed with excruciating pain he realises that just a stones’ throw away another child also disappeared and within moments everyone was on their toes: policemen, politicians, admin bigwigs et al and within days the child was back home.
Welcome again to the great divide of India, one that is even more poignant in a land where democracy is supposed to protect each and every one. Have we forgotten the preamble of our constitution where we promised to secure to all citizens among other things justice, social, economic and political.
When did invisible barriers appear along the way and segregated people and marginalised some. When did our constitution get hijacked by hidden agendas and why did we just sit and watch it happen. Was it because the likes of us knew that we would remain on the right side of the fence.
Once again one’s head hangs in shame. The past months has been filled with such moments: the orphanage in ghaziabad, the little fingers for a handful of spinach, and now countless children mutilated and killed, their organs traded so that someone with money could live making some rich on the way.
2006 was the year of people power but before that power also falls prey to the great divide it, we need to act if we are to redeem the right to be worthy of ourselves. Or let me put it another way, one that maybe is better understood in our pathetic times, it is time to act now if we are to protect and secure our own future, as the day is not far when the cumulative pain and anger of those we have shunned away will rise and I know that on that day all the gods in heaven will be on their side.
a matter of the kidney..
“Go buy a kidney for your son, it costs one hundred thousand rupees” were the words said almost casually to a desperate mother by a doctor of a leading government hospital. The son is our own Nanhe battling renal failure.I guess for the doctor it was a quick an easy way of getting rid of a annoying woman.
But this post is not about Nanhe. Many of us have been trying to shun the images of the little children of noida, massacred over the years our own Mr Hyde. As the story unfolds so does the horror makes us wonder what makes a so called human being lure children and kill them mercilessly. Why were only skulls found. What happened to the bodies. is this the work of a paedophile.
This morning a news item seemed to suggest that we may in the presence of a organ sale racket and that the children were used to that end. And as the enormity seeps in, it makes sense, terrible sense..
Wonder how many desperate parents and families are told each day to ‘go buy a kidney‘ by doctors? We all know what desperation leads and are aware of market forces as these permeate any situation where a buck can be earned.
So poor children easily seduced by a treat or a handful of pennies seem easy targets. And another handful will take care of the law and order machinery. Poor parents are easily shunned off and the macabre game is on.
So do you tell nanhe’s mom that the kidney that may save the life of her son has taken the life of another’s mom’s child? Or does one convince doctors to assess the implications of their words before they utter them?
I wonder
Invisible and impregnable barriers
Many newspapers and news channels chose to sum up 2006 in India as an year where people power finally emerged. True they have many reasons to do so: Jessica and Priyadarshini got justice, the Right to Information Act was salvaged from potential hijackers and the son of MNC boss returned home safely after being kidnapped.
The media too played a pro-active role in getting justice to many individuals be it a slum kid dreaming to represent India, a poor old couple begging for survival, little girls in an orphanage being abused by their caretaker, a little challenged kid abandoned by his family..
So can we dare to say that all is well on planet India?
Maybe not. There are many Jessicas waiting for justice, many old couples in need of help and as we all saw in silent horror many children kidnapped and killed as parents knock uselessly at the doors of police stations. The difference is hat they are from the wrong side of the invisible barriers that divide us and do not have what is required: money, contacts, access and even the not so often mentioned miracle tool – good command of English.
Some manage to break the barriers if for some reason or the other they get picked up by he media and if in the heat of the moment some tangible action comes their way, well and good, otherwise they sink into oblivion after their brief moment of glory.
This is not meant to be a cynical post but a simple call to all the invisible voices who came o the fore to help get justice when they felt it was in danger. Time has come to ensure people’s power reaches out to all those who have been hurt, abused or let down and to bring about long term changes to ensure that they get justice.
The Noida children could have been saved had the police registered the FIRs and set out to look for them with the same diligence as in the case of high profile children. Civil society should go beyond addressing specific cases and seek out long term solutions.
They have the power, what is needed is the will to exercise it. Only then can the invisble barrers be broken.
an ordinary day
Come January 1st and we all set out making new resolutions for the new year. I use to do it too and then somehow these were forgotten as life took on its course. This year I just let January 1 be like just another day, the difference being that I watched it go by with more awareness. And just another day it was with its share of simple joys, its tinges of drama and its moments of weariness.
In the street where I work and which is far remote from the glitz and glamour, nothing seemed different. The street vendors let out their call at the appointed time, braving the cold and morning fog, shops opened their shutters, people set out to work as a day missed would mean a hungry family and barring the rote like ‘happy new year’ people exchanged, it was an ordinary day.
2006 had slipped into 2007 without much ado.
To me each day is a new beginning and that is what makes it extra-ordinary. As one set out in the morning one cannot begin to imagine what it will hold. But come to think about it just the simple fact that it goes by quietly is a celebration in itself. So much could go wrong, and yet nothing has.
Each day also brings its set of challenges that need to be met as well as moments to savour: it could be an extra smile or a tiny achievement many would not see or that warm cup of tea enjoyed in the watery sunlight that was finally agree to pierce through the dense fog.
We seem to have lost the ability to seek out simple joys and look for causes or crutches to ‘celebrate’ and maybe January 1st is one of the most jaded.
Yet it is just another ordinary or extra-ordinary day, depending on how you wish to look at it.
the right to be a child
There are laws and declarations, organisations and institutions and more all seeking to protect children’s rights to be children. Conferences are held and debates too..
But if I were to tell you that the right to be a child lies hidden in every child rich or poor waiting for the opportune moment to spring up and claim its place?
Yesterday our star friend gave pwhy kids a treat: a movie and all the add ons that make a movie show worthwhile, the fizzy drink, the popcorn bag, the burger and the scoop of ice cream. Never mind which side of the city you belong to and whether the goodies carry a label or not, you do not need laws and conferences to savour them. They just have to be there and little eyes light up, hands are held out and the thrill is palpable.
It was a motley bund of children of all caste, class and creed. Some had never been to the movies in a hall, specially our little lohars (gypsies). And even those who had never got the whole lot of goodies.
They wore their Sunday best, never mind the jarring colours and the ungainly cap a worried mother has insisted upon. Nothing could and would spoil their day. Today they had claimed their right to be kids for the duration of the outing. They knew that they had to go back to their dark world, to chores and jibes and even blows, yet for now they were kids and we all needed to understand and respect that.
click on the picture to share this special moment
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an unequal battle..
Nanhe’s predicament haunts me ceaselessly. As someone wrote: this is the battle of the mind and the heart, and none of them are wrong.
Nanhe is precious to many of as we are addicted to his smile. Somehow when Nanhe smiles than for that tiny moment everything seems so easy.. and most of us would like to believe that we would fight to save it no matter what.
Easily said than done as this time the battle is anything but fair. Till now, every time the smile was in danger a few days at the hospital, a surgical intervention, a few strips of medicine was all that was needed. But now he needs a new kidney and suddenly the adversary has turned formidable.
The docs dismissed the mom by quoting an sum that would seem astronomical to any one, let alone a poor widow with three challenged kids and a pitiable cart that she fills with whatever she thinks saleable. It would have seemed the same to us but somehow offers have come without our asking.
But the real issue is not whether we can raise the money or not, it not even whether we can find a kidney or not in lies in doing what is right for Nanhe. I recently read an article on compassion and about the need for caring, and how little of it there is around. But in situation like this compassion itself is challenged. Where does true compassion lie: in getting a complex surgery done knowing it is wrought with danger, in spending an astronomical amount of money to give some more time to a child who will never be able to survive this world, in finding the courage and the right words to tell a mother that her son is dying.
One could also try and explain to her that it is in not simply the one hundred thousands rupees asked for but the cost of dyalisis and expensive medecine, the risk of rejection and so much more and the care needed afterwards. one could gently remind her that she has three more children two of whom as challenged and the other a daughter that needs to be married soon. But have you ever tried talking to a desperate mother fighting for her child’s life, even the gods in heaven sometimes have to accept defeat.
Once again today I wish I had a dream catcher