a moment in the India of my dreams..
Look at this picture, at first glance it may seem to be just two people and a child posing in front of the Birla temple in Delhi, India’s capital city, nothing to write home about.
Look again and let me tell you the incredible bonds that underlie this picture. In normal circumstances these three should not be posing together. In our carefully crafted society replete with labels, and hermetic boxes the three belong to worlds that should never meet, let alone bond!
A on the right of your screen is an IIT engineer with a job in a multinational who should have been spending Sunday with his pals at some multiplex or mall. The man on the left is R, barely literate who drives a three wheeler and belongs to some backward and boorish village in the state of Bihar, and the kid, well is labels are confused, his mother a recovering drunk and his ancestry not quite defined. You may wonder what they are doing, and why they are looking happy and content. Some cynical mind may even venture to say that this is part of some marginal film script?
Well that is far from the truth. Amit , Radhey and popples spent their Sunday together, and had a ball. They took a metro ride, visited the temple had a great lunch, all part of Utpals monthly day out from his boarding school.
This is the India pwhy is trying to create, even if it goes down in recorded history as snapshots like this one. An India were bonds are made out of love and mutual respect. In this equation it is difficult to define who has given more, the child to the two adults of vice versa. Radhey and Amit who in today’s India should have never talked to each other, or at best exchanged a few innuendoes had A’s bike broken down and R given him a ride, have learnt to respect each other because of their bond to little utpal whose life has touched so many shattering boxes and discarding labels at the speed of light.
If i were to disappear today, this simple snapshot would have made my life worthwhile
vex, lie and lose
In the land of the downtrodden and the illiterate, all is not as it should be. One would think that anyone who gives jobs to people considered unemployable, works towards containing drop out rates with success and cares for the differently abled should be welcomed with open arms..
Well that is not quite the way it works. A pack of hungry and almost desperate wolves lurks at every corner waiting for the slightest chance to attack. In a normal environment rude behaviour, personal slander and unwarranted physical attack of another would justify termination of services without compensation. We learnt a year back that, that was not the case. No matter what you did, and how you did it, no matter how many lawyers you consulted and papers you got signed, you were still open to attack as in this dark world there were unwritten laws that got amended and modified to suit any situation.
But what is even more worrying is the ease with which simple people get manipulated and pushed to act in ways that defy all reason. When the behaviour of one of our staff members warranted at least a temporary suspension, no matter how we tried to explain the situation, it is the roaming wolves who got the last word.
The wolves in question are petty politicos and shady unions waiting either to be fed as they are by factory owners who defy all laws and get away with murder, or to pounce on those who are honest, righteous and law abiding and particularly on those who are trying to make a difference and eroding their vote banks.
So in a jiffy your are faced with a letter packed with incredible lies, and with a visit from a labour inspector and a summons to the labour court. The first time it happened we were taken by surprise and vexed and in a hurry to settle matters. This time one is faced with a dilemma as one can see the larger picture and feels a little saddened at the way our staff is being used.
We could stand our ground and we know that after a few appearances the matter is likely to be set aside. Even if it is not we all now how our lower courts work. If we settle with the person a large chunk of the settlement will be taken by the unions and others. The sad part is that we had asked our staff to wait for a couple of months and would have found another option for her. Now things being as they are, one has to tread carefully.
The reason for this post is not to recount a simple incident, but to view it in a larger context. First of all it vindicates the stand that powers that be are not in favour of seeing education percolate to the lower strata of society as most of their ‘issues’ will come to nought once people comprehend the sinister game plans. But more than that it shows how easily people can be manipulated and how easily the carefully nurtured divisive elements of our society are used, be it caste or creed, state of origin or economic profile.
Many will say it is a lost cause, and frankly at moments like this even a die hard optimist like me wavers a little. But mercifully these flitter away as many success stories flash by. Change is slow but it is there. It is your staying power that is put to test. Over the years base accusations that sent me flying seem to have lost their effect and what keeps one going is the fact that even one person changed is a success.
To say that one does not feel alone and lost at times like these would be an untruth, but to give up would be letting one’s self down.
an impossible dream or perhaps not….
In the wake of the reservation issue and keeping in mind the abysmal state in which education for the less privileged is, many questions come to mind. Today’s paper published a report on India’s capital city which states that over 100 000 children in the age group 6 to 10 do not go to school. These are kids for which doors closed before they could open.
Then the question one could ask is who is the reservation for, when no one seems bothered about a huge section of the children of India.
Instead of thinking of basic education, the powers that be are busy placing quotas in institutes of high learning.
I am convinced that each one of these 100 000 kids is a potential entrant to the best institution, if given a chance no matter what label our divisive society choses to stick on his face. Force majeure made us find a boarding school for Utpal whose labels are quite fuzzy. His alcoholic mom hit rock bottom and had to be sent for a detox programme, and his ‘father’ just vanished.
Utpal goes to a boarding school where he shares his dorm with children coming from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. He has integrated and learns happily with his little mates, rides a horse, plays games, sings along and does what kids his age should do. All doors are opened for him and as years pass he will walk through the ones he choses and could become anything from a rocket scientist to a choreographer!
My impossible dream is to take 10 underprivileged kids age 4, belonging to various deprived groups , castes and creed and put them in school and watch what happens when they sit for their class XII. Unfortunately I do not have the funds to do so as it would cost around 4000 rs a month for each child – not a huge amount when you see what it gives and one compares it to what one spends on a child in a city like Delhi.
One needs a corporate of philanthropist to set aside the corpus that would revert back at the end of the education cycle. The common school is a pipe dream because of bizarre misconceptions, or rather because of a warped status symbol syndrome. The young principal of Utpal’s school was initially a little hesitant, but a short week after Utpal’s admission he was the one to send me a message telling what a great kid he was!
It is time someone thought of giving underprivileged children all the support they need in schools till the day we can have the elusive common school. The children of India have waited 60 years or 3 generations in the hope that something will happen. How much longer will they have to wait.
One has to understand that is is not separate schools, or parallel education programmes that will solve the issue, India will find its identity when children of all walks of life learn to live together, respect each other and learn from one another.
Children have a great way of adapting to situation and imbibing new ways.. it is our duty to give them that opportunity, till date we have failed to do so.. how many more generations will have to wait for us to see the light.
hijacked promises
The picture is a little hazy, just like the dreams these kids dare to dream…maybe it is better that way.
These are children celebrating Independence day 2006. It was their decision, their planning and they even invited to local SHO, Mr Khan who always makes it a point to come.
They sang patriotic songs and spoke about freedom and what it meant to them. It is with pride that they hoisted the national tricolour and saluted it, their eyes looking up with hope and barely formulated dreams.
Most of them are OBCs or belong to some reserved category and yet not one of them knows it, let alone what it means and how it can change their lives. Most of them did not even go to school when pwhy decided to clean up a garbage dump and start its work. Today most of them have integrated school and some even topped their class. Suddenly the dreams seem less hazy.. or so they believe with their tiny hearts..
When I see these kids and realise how they trust us, I am at a total loss. The reality that they will grow up to seems bleak if not black! The protection that was so carefully crafted by those who wrote our constitution got hijacked without their knowledge and remodelled to suit other interests by the very people who should have guarded them. These kids will have their dreams shattered one by one at some stage or the other, it is is just a calamity waiting to happen.
As I watched students being doused by water guns in one of the anti quota rallies, I somehow felt that they may not have protested had children like the ones in the picture been the beneficiaries. But to reach that door, they have to walk passed many that still remain shut. The portals of the primary schools, the gates of the secondary one and then the entrance to higher education.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to see the game Machiavellian game being played. The vested interests will ensure the loyalty of their vote banks while also perpetrating their illiteracy and hence their manipulability and all will be well in independent India where children of lesser gods have no voice.
I wonder what those like Gandhi or even simple people like my mother, who decided not to marry unless her land was free so that her child would not be a slave to the British would say?
Sixty years down the line, Indian children are still slaves: slaves to the greed of others, slaves to hidden agendas and much more. The Right to Education Bill lies unattended, dismissed, sent off to states whereas the bill to raise MPs was passed without a murmur.
That is the state of India, a tale of unkept and hijacked promises
tread carefully mr government
A well rated TV channel has been airing dramatic pictures of instances of child labour, and we all agree that child labour should be banned as it goes against the essence of human dignity.
Then why have I been so disturbed by some of the stories and in particular the one of the little Mania?
This little child has nowhere to go if he stops working at his dhaba. His whole world will crash. His huge deformity will bring endless taunts and without his work he will have no shelter, no food and not even his surrogate family.
There are many many Manias who will suddenly find themselves alone and lost. Mania did want to study but circumstances shattered his dreams and though he has a right to education enshrined in a constitutional amendement, the law executors cannot find the money to make sure it gets to the likes of him.
True child labour should be abolished, but what are you going to replace it with particularly for children who have no homes to go back to, or whose parents can barely feed the siblings that are still there.
My work on the field for the last six years has taught me that things are not quite how they look and making laws without keeping the human factor in mind is more dangerous than the prevalent situation, however abysmal. Kids like mania will roam streets, steal to feed their hunger pangs and then find themselves branded as thiefs or bad elements. The number of working children is staggering, and a month down the line when the ban comes in force they will have nowhere to go.
Has anyone thought of mechanisms to get them back home, if home they have, or to give them a safe shelter and three meals a day; are there schools where they can learn or does the powers that be expect small organisations to do the job while they bask in the glory of having passed a great social law. Organisations like us are constantly trying to survive and prove that we are not crooks. But we also are the ones who open our hearts and meagre resources to anyone who is hurting. But how much can we do?
And who will bell the cats a.k.a the professional, well educated, well connected people who employ so many children in their homes and sometimes treat them in disgraceful and terrible ways while nodding their heads in public places and parties while someone disparages the practice of child domestic servants.
And last of all, has anyone looked into the number of little children just a walk away from where we sit comfortably who are taken out of school to look after their siblings while both parents work, maybe to build that extra room we need?
mybe little mania will find someone after his national TV debut, but what about the other little manias who can barely comprehend what awaits them.
a day in the life of India at 60
Three news item caught my attention today. Little Pakhi, age 6 is thrown out of her school bus as the driver brakes suddenly and dies on the spot, her school barely a 10 minute drive away from her home; 665 migrant labour come Delhi everyday and four years down the line, our government has not found the time to ensure that the the 82nd amendment is passed as mandated by the constitution of India to ensure that every Indian child has a right to free and compulsory education..
In my mind, all these issues are linked by one thread: education. If pakhi could have walked to school she may not have dies, if the 665 migrants had better options for their children – read good school – in their habitat of origin they would not have come and as for the last item it simply that the right to education bill is a bill without a will!
I would like to ask our politicians and law makers if the 3% extra allocation needed to give children their fundamental right at a time when we boast of a 8% increase is because children are not yet a vote bank to woe, or because they do not have a voice or because having large number of illiterate people will ensure manageable and influenceable vote banks: in a word, is this right not been given to children for some Machiavellian reason.
There are others rights enshrined in the constitution that are the right if everyone born in this land, but without education they become superb tools of manipulation and political battles using the cleverly nurtured illiterate base.
What our law makers do not understand is that education is the only way India can change. A citizen who can read, write, have access to knowledge, will undoubtedly rid the land of corruption ensure that projects are executed, make the rulers accountable.. and democracy functional.
But then the question that comes to mind is do we really want democracy or have we just shrouded our feudal ways in the garb of democracy.
I get appalled and my blood runs cold when i see the sustained care with which governments are wanting to privatise education. Why not democratise education and have a common school to which little Pakhi could have walked.
The 665 migrants who will bring kids with the hope of a better education will soon find that education is better in small towns as we have seen time and again. They will go looking for some shady mother nonsense convent and spend their meagre resources on trying to get their kids educated till their own illiteracy because the cause of the kids dropping out, their homes relocated to barren areas or too poor for join the tuition raj and though they belong to the OBC quota policy, the system would have made sure that they are never likely candidates.
Common schools all children would walk to could have with peer bonding may have made that possible. Mothers like mine wanted their child to be born a in a free India, but 60 years down the line are Indian children free..
..and the show does go on
Away from the petty problems that we are facing with misguided staff and our plethora of ‘well-wishers’, little Deepak fights his valiant battle vindicating thereby the raison d’être of project why.
His journey has not been easy. What should have been a simple heart surgery, turned to be, once again because of external adult games, a battle for life. The wrong doings of a quack lead to his heart stopping and his having to be revived, a true code blue, just as in movies! Then a total strike while he was in hospital resulted in an abdominal abscess that took over a month to heal.
he came visiting today, a little disoriented and very tired, but two days from now he will be admitted again and we hope that the much needed surgery will finally happen.
To me this braveheart’s battle is almost the sign from above that i needed to find in me the strength to carry on. I must confess there are moments when one wonders why one tried to do something positive in a world that abhors people who do so. Why does one have to prove at every turn that one is honest, sincere … Even an accused is presumed innocent till proved guilty, but no so in the case of people just trying to make a difference.
I get emails asking me how does one know whether a person is genuine or fake.. and frankly I do not know the answer. But I know that if I give up then there maybe another deepak somewhere who would lose his battle without a fight.
the show must go on
many a times I have felt defeated in the work I do.. you think you have got somewhere and one ugly incident takes all sense of achievement away from you.. your first reaction is to say: were people better off without us..
Then you stop and think and realise that somewhere the incident is due to the fact that you are succeeding and that change and transformation is bound to meet with resistance and obstacles.. A recent incident led to my having to take disciplinary action against one staff member. it was to be a temporary suspension necessary to maintain dignity. To my absolute horror it has turned out to be a nightmare due to the meddling of small politicos by bete noire!
Instead of keeping quiet and trusting our ways, the staff in question fuelled by the mischievous advice of our detractors reacted – and the last nail in the coffin was beating up in public the woman who had thought it her moral duty to inform me of the bad mouthing and slander..
This of course has forced me – much against my will – to file a complaint with the local police station, as I cannot take the risk of another misplaced action on their part. It is the question of the safety of children and their parents as well as my staff.
The other side of the coin is that by this action, the dismissed staff has closed all possible doors. it is with extreme dejection that I learnt that she has now fallen prey to the ‘local unions’ that wait like sharks for any prey, not getting them anything but ensuring that a large chunk of a settlement they would have got anyway, would become theirs.
At such moments, it becomes important to hold on to what one has achieved and realise that one cannot change everyone.. but that one has to continue hoping. I must confess that there are times when one feel like packing up.. but once that fleeting angry moment passes, you realise that actually too many would lose too much.. so you swallow pride, anger, hurt, irritation in one large gulp, hide the dejection behind dark glasses and put on your clown’s mask.
the show must go on…
chapeau bas
when utpal mondal was born on the ides of march in 2002, god had made a mistake.. somewhere down the line, just a year away he had to suffer the worst baptism of fire: he fell into a boiling pot!
I guess even the most forbidding God realises his mistake and sets out to make it right.. he must have worked overtime to set everything in place; he had to ensure that we shift our office and that utpal’s family shift next door, that radhey would be in a kind mood and agree to drive the scalded barely alive child and that the hospital have the rather absurd idea of sending home with a discharge slip stating snidely: chances of survival:nil!
He also had to make sure that the one volunteer working with us at that time was Sophie who was a nurse having worked in a paediatric burns department of a well known hospital in Paris. And above all he had to make sure that his beautiful face was spared.. making him endearing and beautiful..
I guess no matter how agnostic or skeptic one is,one has to admit that for once he did not do too badly.. 3 years down the line and Utpal is in school, happy and alive and even his alkie mother is on the mend!
So can we say chapeau bas or hats off!
cellTrouble
Many moons ago, when we were in our early teens, one of our favourite pastime was to dial random numbers on the phone in the hope of catching some young man and enganging in silly conversations.. This was often done with your best friend in tow and one quickly slammed the reciever down the moment things went a bit out of hand..
Those were the days when phones were still archaic and no one could trace the number.. and often one did not even rememeber it to dial again…
That was in the early sixties
Today we have the situation revisited version 2006.. but much ihas changed. It is not young giggly adolescents who are engaging in this inane game, but women with grown children. This is the direct result of the proliferation of cheap cellphones that have invaded the slums of India, where women married often without their consent at a very young age and propelled into motherhood, are suddenly finding a way to express a seemingly harmless repressed sexuality by dialling numbers and engaging in flirtatious conversations.. but these get out of hand as numbers are recorded and then they come sheepishly seeking help as their being found out would spell disatesr in their conservative homes..
One comes to their rescue but one is aware of the time bomb that is ticking away as this is happening in a society which has no pity or mercy for women.
disquieting dilemma
this touching sepia picture of Utpal sleeping should be enough to vindicate any wrong that may have happened in the six years of pwhy’s existence on the field..
some of you may have seen the revolting sting operation of a TV channel that caught doctors mutilating healthy bodies to fulfil the greed of beggar mafias..
This little body that sleeps soundly did not even need the help of a Dr Jekyll.. at the age of one he had had his baptism by fire and was mutilated enough to tug at the most cynical heart strings.
But that did not happen… instead he is today in a boarding school where he will break all barriers and reach for what would have seemed preposterous.. I do not take any credit for this but simply say that some god somewhere decided to right some of the wrongs he may have done, and placed us at the right spot at the needed hour.
In the six years we have been around we have been able to make a difference in some lives, a drop in the ocean that is India, but nevertheless an important part of the family to which they belong.
It is true that we have had our share of enemies, unfair blows and outrageous slander, all hitting below the belt in a women dominated organisation. Over the years one has tried to ward them off as best we could in the hope that our work would speak for itself and exonerate us..
Wishful thinking as three days back out came the read paint again and this time took care of colouring each one of us scarlet! We have always believed that no one born bad, and hence everyone can be redeemed.. but today I find myself faced with the dilemma of having to take action against one of my team members as her irresponsible behaviour as put a blot on my reputation.. and though I know that the person in question is not without blemish, I also know that she is a victim of circumstances and dependant of the salary she draws..
Six years down the line, and a fair track record to vouch for us, we are still battling the age old charges reserved for the second sex. I must confess that there are times when I feel like putting a lock on the door and calling it quits but then the pictures of all the kids that may not even have been around if we had not been there flash through my mind and put an abrupt end to such thoughts..
It will take all my sagacity and experience to find the just solution one again, but I just hope that the end to this infernal spiral is in the offing as I find myself at the end of my tether.
plastic fantastic lover
we read about farmers committing suicide because of their inability to pay back their loans.. we read about children taking their tender lives because they cannot meet the required standards some insensitive system created..
i have been watching in silent horror another monster lurking and waiting patiently for its pound of flesh and to borrow the title of a jefferson airplane song, let us call it: plastic fantastic lover.
or simply the credit card…
The multinationals were quick to see the immense potential of the other India and thus we have pouches of every imaginable product: from shampoos, to detergent, to shaving foam, to tomato ketchup.. never mind the load on the environment..
Then came the credit card which till date is often used for purchases such as motorbikes, or other r items.. but the day is not far when the simple folk realise that they can purchase everything with the swipe of a card: food, clothes, and other consummables. Whreas bank can recover bikes and TVs, disaster will hit when people find themselves in a debt stranglehold… and the ensuing infernal spiral..
The local moneylender does charge the outrageous 10% a month, but often after 2 to 3 years, once he has recovered his principal and a fair amount of interest, he forgets about you and goes looking for other fish.. but the plastic fantastic lover is heartless, merciless and will chase you till the end..
One is helpless.. maybe that is the price to pay in the new economic scenario we have embraced, but what a price
outraged
eight years ago i decided to call our field work project why.. the reason was the innumerable questions that needed answers.. and slowly and painstakingly we set out to answer them and we did.. children remained in school and passed their examinations, jobs were given to people who never thought they would get jobs, lives were saved, even those everyone had given up on.. and all along the way there was criticism often stemming out of jealousy of some disgruntled person or the other . So we heard veiled remarks about funds being pocketed, or hidden agendas of sorts..
But as if that was not enough out came the secret weapon reserved for the fairer sex. Let me just say that for the last six years I have heard that so many times that I have started asking myself whether we as women have a right to do anything without being coloured red!
Being over half a century old, I can take the slander but my heart goes out to all the young women who work with me and who have taken a step towards changing their lives for the better.. I know that it will just take one word for their still archaic families to stop them from working and thus end their dreams…
Do I stop all work and end the dreams of 500 kids and all the ones still to come.. just because of this stigma.. If I go to the authorities, then again we will have the jaded: if there is smoke there must be fire syndrome..
We could carry on as we have , but yesterday the accusation was made in a bank in front of a large audience.. and in a few hours I will have to go and face the little puzzled faces of my colleagues whose only fault is to have been born a woman in India..
Am I not entitled to be outraged…
taking off
keeping in view the enormous problems with blogspot, blockouts and maybe to for get new energies and light the projectwhy blog has now moved to a new address, our very own..
our address is
https://projectwhy.org/blog/
we wil publishing continue on both sites for a while
musings on moving on
For some time no I have been getting messages, some veiled, some quite direct, some even harsh about what would happen to pwhy where I to die.. let me set everyone ones mind at rest by saying that it is something i myself have been thinking of..
It is true that I have carried pwhy on my shoulders from that time the idea took seed in my mind. many reasons guided my decision and I will clarify some of them in later posts.
pwhy was is my child, one that I conceived, carried and gave birth to, and like any child it gave him moments of pure joy and deep despair. Today it has grown and I can feel the rebellion in the eyes and ways of many who are rearing to do it they way.. As every parent suffering from acute bouts of over protectiveness I have tried to hold on, but now time has come to let the nestling fly, though I can foresee many falls..
pwhy has a sound team capable of handling all administrative day-to-day activities and learning projects and even muster new teams and set up new field projects. they have enough acumen based on the maxim of rani – majboori ka naam mahatma gandhi – to find spaces no one would think of.
The enormous problem is of course the one of taking over the funding saga as till date it was entirely based on my ability to communicate on the net, something they have not yet learnt. So they now have to evolve their own ways of finding revenue sources and they have been brainstorming about it: they are excellent party and wedding planners, and the team has a rich pool of skills they can ‘sell’. I am not venturing into this operation as in the past all my ideas failed, because they were executed but not internalised.
Like a good parent, the kind I advise others to be and find difficult to go along with, I watch from the wings, turning my tongue seven times in my mouth before venturing a word, or I just make myself scarce.. Like every fledgling they will have to fall before they learn to fly.. but that is the only way..
On the flip side, we now do have a building so we are no more on the road and I will make sufficient provisions in my personal will to ensure that it is maintained and if nothing else, is run as shelter for the likes of manu and many others… that would be the worst case scenario..
But my impassioned appeal to all those who are wondering ‘what next’, is that pwhy belongs to everyone who has helped it till now and even if my mails and blogs are not there, the incredible team that made it all possible is there and all of you can take on the torch from my now tired hands….
the days after..
had little sandhya survived we would have been heroes. However with hindsight and even after mulling hours into the night death is the kindest gift my friend the God of lesser children could have done for this unloved child.
I do not know if in this sometimes absurd and incomprehensible land of hours rituals are performed for a child, or whether a child is mourned at all. True that a certain amount of visible wailing and chest beating was performed but now it seems it was more as a prelude to the drama that was to unfold..
I normally do not sit in judgement for anyone, that is not the role I was given, at best I watch from the wings. In Sandhya’s case it was clear that her hole in her hear, her cyanotic hue reminiscent of that of the lord of the Gopis, her lost eyes were all a means of exploitation, a father that was simple minded, a surrogate father that was comparable to the shrewd advisors of epics of yore-years.. a strange cast..
and what role did we have to play? were we to be the ones who would rescue lady S.. maybe .. what we did not contend for is the aftermath.. the phone calls trying to feed on the memory of the poor child, extract the last ounce.. and the absurdity of it all.. hold us responsible..
once again we can see our detractors at play, those who have never wanted us to be as we can help change things and hence disturb their carefully planned lootshop.
the story goes like this.. they went to AIIMS, could not muster 61K. we helped them with the money and paid it, the child was too far gone, she died after 3 attempts by the best doctors in India, and we are responsible..
strange India…
mother courage and her children
I do not why I am reminded of Brecht’s Mother Courage as I sit today my head filled with unanswered questions the day after the loss of a human life no one really mourned. Why does Brecht’s play written in nazi germany and set in the seventeenth century, ring so true today. I read it many years ago when I still belived that life was beautiful and hope existed and I could not quite feel one with Brecht’s cynical talk about the inconvenience of dignity, the efficacy of taking (as opposed to giving or, what’s more foolish, waiting for someone to give), and the worth and/or worthlessness of human life, and the faith you might still have in human nature is challenged at every turn.
Why is it then that six years down the pwhy line it all makes so much sense.. I am too headed the Mother Courage way, albeit for different reasons, and going to be left pulling an empty cart off an empty stage after having tried and lost all..
You may wonder why I feel this way.. and I guess all of you deserve answers before it is too late. Those who stood by me without faltering because you were too few, those who waited too long as they thought there were others, those who waited for me to prove my worthiness, those who could not shed their cynicism, and those who thrive on writing epitaphs and statistics.
Any process involving change is a long one set with many obstacles and though these are not unsurmountable, they often take time.. that is something many did not understand.. to succeed in getting people to shed old ways many roads have to be tried and only a few may work out, that too many could not accept… age old traditions are so deep seated that they have to be carried like dead wood no matter how galling, that too was not comprehended and the list is endless…
That the change has to come about in a world that tends to look more and more like the one out Brecht is known to portray seems absurd but is true: personal egos clash and children die unattended at the doorsteps of hospitals, children are duped away from the right path by promises of quick returns and those trying to make a difference are sneered upon and cast aside.
You carry on for a while because some still believe, because some still trust, because you see hope in the eyes of a child, because you see pride in the eyes of those you love.. and then those very people become more demanding, intransigent at times, unaware of the weight you carry and then the cruel blow as oblivious that you are almost there, they chose to abandon you… just like that.. saying words that do the one thing that is irreversible: kill your spirit..
It takes everything you have, what you have learnt from your experience, from your elders and peers, from your achievemements and failures, from every smile you gave and every tear you shed, to muster the courage to carry on pulling the cart till the end of the show..
sandhya – an evening star gone by
sandhya
2000 – 2006
She tiptoed on to our planet quietly almost as if she wanted no one to notice her lest we let her walk into our hearts. She would slink softly behind her loud mother hiding her face lest you lost yourself in her huge melting eyes.. She would sit in a corner patiently waiting for us to finish whatever we were doing.. Sandhya knew she was a temporary guest.
Sandhya was what they call a blue or cyanotic baby, where the heart is malformed and the blood deprived of oxygen. Since 1944 a simple surgery called a BT Shunt can repair the damage. For sandhya’s family the cost was exorbitant, but friends pitched in and two days back she was operated upon. However she did not make it, and tiptoed back to her world this morning leaving us all bewildered and lost.
Sandhya is gone but leaves many questions that needs to be answered. I am not being cynical if I say that maybe God showed extreme kindness in taking little Sandhya away had also slight mental retardation making her future very bleak. In a country where a girl child is already a burden, one like Sandhya becomes a millstone. Moreover, Sandhya seemed to be unloved, even by her mother as was visible from the moment I set my eyes on them. Never did I see a maternal gesture, a caress, a tender word, something that wold bring hope and cheer to the forlorn child.. Sandhya was a lost case from day one..
Yet we tried, our little team who accompanied her every time she needed to go the hospital getting her a fruit juice or a biscuit and feeling rewarded by her tiny smile, and the doctors who never gave up till she decided to at 12 noon on July 14th.
So go little Sandhya, evening star, go and shine on a world where children like you are loved and cherished.. we did not deserve you
virtuals head butts for lady B
remember babli, the spirited yourg lady whose heart was fixed and who was to rejoin school this term well, we forgot that oh darling yeh hai India!
I almost fell off my chair when i asked on July 10th was to me should have been a redundant question: is babli in school?
Well not quite was the answer as the mother said the could not afford to take a day off as she would lose her wage and her budget would go haywire, the father or what goes by the name said he could not leave the bottle/deck-of-cards duo and poor Ramu, was not being taken seriously by the school seriously, and the school said unless a family member came…
At that moment I understood Zizous’ infamous head butt because I was ready to deal out hundreds starting with one to my own staff but the half of century on planet earth stood by me, and taking a deep breath I realised that the first thing was to get lady b in school before the anti diluvian system would tell me that i was one nano second too late, never mind the child was a heart surgery survivor!
So I simply asked how much was the daily earning of the mother, making a mental note for a special butt for the employer, and asked my teacher in a sweet voice to inform the mother to take the next day off and go to school to do the needful!
I had not given babli a new heart to see her end her life on the streets or cleaning ustentils in a home till she was married at a tender age to an old man repeating the destiny of her mother…
Much had to be done, much remained to be explained, and above all priorities. What had happened here is that babli’s mom did not understand priorities, and was so blinded by her day-to-day needs that she could not see her daughter’s future. The same applied to the staff whose ire could not see that first one had to get lady b in school as a simple day’s wage was nothing compared to all that we had invested in the child!
So I guess the first head butt comes to lady B! the big one… me
powerless
in spite of all technological advances that enable us to obliterate the defines of space and time, connect to people across the globe with the click of a mouse, we in delhi have had to make rather pre-historic adjustements.. one that reminded me of the days when my life graviated around the sleep pattern of my daughter.. all house chores or any chore for that matter was done when either p or s slept.. that was in 1975 and 1981..
Today in 2006, my girls are big ladies and I am an old woman but I see myself having to relive those days and ways.. this time not to the sweet pattern of a baby’s slumber but to the erratic and puzzling plan followed by those who provide our city electricity.. so here you are at the computer and off it goes and you rapidly swithch everything off and wait till it gets back. Now in the mean time the computer of your mind may have forgotten where you were so you have to play all kind of association games till you find survival tactics..
I now have a pencil that hangs aroung my neck and I jot things down whenever I remember them, something I had long forgotten. I have also crossed from my menu all that requires baking. Many of our meetings are held in the terrace. Children have more outdoor activities than before. And we talk a lot about not taking things for granted…
And above all, maybe it is time we ask ourselves how responsible we are for all this mess, and look for ways to find long term solutions..