When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you goes the saying. The recent statement made by the brave young man accompanying the one India calls braveheart raises a few disturbing questions that we need to answer honestly if we want to believe that all the protests that happened in the wake of the night of horror that saw a young life and her dreams crushed forever have any meaning.

For the past three weeks or so we have been lighting candles, shouting slogans, ‘braving” water canons, tear gas shells and the colonial ‘lathi (baton). We have been screaming ‘we want justice’, thinking that the gallows will rid us of all that is wrong. We have been clamouring for better laws, death for rapists, more police presence, fast track courts etc. We want everyone to become gender sensitive in the bat of an eyelid: the cops, the men of the street, the politicians and their acolytes. True that we got some of our demands: the court proceedings have begun and some vague decisions taken – police women in thanas, more patrolling etc. Yet while we were yelling and screaming, rapes continued relentlessly: a married woman with children, a eight year old, a seventeen year old. While we were screaming hoarse a man died while protecting a woman just as it had happened one year back in Mumbai. While we were shouting, politicians across the board made degrading comments bet it the ‘dented and painted’ one, or the India and Bharat one, or the skirts one, or the stepping out of line one. Our politicians masters as always remained mute or at best came up with some inane explanation.

Hanging the culprits is not going to be the panacea of all ills. It will of course give a sense of justice to the family of the violated and murdered child and maybe ease our collective conscience. Is that what we want. If yes then rapes and sexual assaults will carry on with impunity. Most of them will be the kind that do not stir our selective conscience.

We need to stop pointing the one finger and look at the three fingers pointing back. The testimony of the young man squarely puts the blame on each and everyone of us. The young man recounts the night of horror and shares some of the events that were not known. What is the most poignant account is by far the apathy of the passers by: auto rickshaws, people in cars and bikes who slowed down but quickly  drove on, the posse of spectators that stood watching the show and not proffering any help: be it a piece of cloth to cover the nudity of the violated woman or reach out and help. Everyone of those bystanders is you or me, and we must hang our heads in shame. Imagine what was going on in the souls of the two young people screaming and begging for help. I shudder when I think of it. The excuse if any is the fear of harassment by the police should we reach out and help anyone. Maybe it is time to ask for a new law that protects the person who helps anyone in need. In some countries like France for instance there is a law that prosecutes anyone who does not help a person in need. Perhaps that is what we should ask for. One more thing though. We need to look at ourselves and assess whether it is only the fear of harassment that keeps us from reaching out or whether it is simply that we do not care. And more than that we should ask ourselves with utmost honesty whether as of this moment we, you and I, will stop and reach out to anyone in distress. If we are not able to answer with a loud YES, then all our candles lights, sloganeering and marches will be meaningless.

The young man also talked about the totally revolting attitude of the police who apparently quibbled and lost precious time trying to decide the jurisdiction under which the case would need to be registered. The police rushed into damage mode giving figures and stats to prove this to be incorrect. But why should the young man lie? And giving the track record of our ‘beloved’ Delhi Police this seems more than plausible. We need to be asking for rigid protocols in all cases, protocols that need to be followed to the T. Protocols that lay out strict procedures that need to be followed in all cases. But alas this may just remain a chimera as just a day or so back, a young woman who sought police help after being aggressed by an auto rickshaw driver faced the same treatment when she called 100.  The voice at the other end gave me another number – 27854799 – and said that the area I was in came under the jurisdiction of the police who would attend to my call. And the much heralded women’s helpline kept ringing. What can one say!  The question will always remain in the minds of the grieving family and in ours too: would she have made it if she had been taken to hospital earlier? We will have to live with this all our lives.

The young man also said that he had to pick the body of his friend himself and put it in the police PCR. First of all why is it that well equipped ambulances manned by paramedics are not the ones that pick wounded people like it is done in every self respecting society. Picking a severely hurt body can be fatal if one does not know how to. This is something we have experienced first hand at project why! The police refused to pick up the body of a young mentally challenged young man who lay on the road with maggot infested wounds and screaming in pain. It is our staff who did it and accompanied the body to the hospital where we had to get the press to ensure that the young man was attended to! Over and above more PCR vans can we press for well equipped ambulances for all accident victims so that precious time is not lost.

Everyone is asking for change. Change in laws and in mindsets. The perpetrators of this horrific crimes were the product of our society. Hanging them will not stop us from breeding more of the same. Rapes have not stopped post our protests. Our patriarchal and feudal mindset is age old and is carried out first and foremost in our homes. The false and misplaced sense of power that men have in India, is the result of his upbringing and is mostly inculcated by the women in the family: the granny who wails at the birth of a grand daughter and places the ‘blame’ on the innocent daughter in law; the mother who mollycoddles the son and neglects the daughter, the sister who accepts a secondary role with silent acceptance. And this happens across the board! Should a sexual assault occur within the home and the girl have the courage to bring it up, it is the women of the family who rise as one and brush away the crime in the name of honour, thereby condemning the survivor to share a space with the perpetrator. Maybe it was time we as educated people stood up for our child no matter what the consequences. Can honour be more important than the pain of an bused child. It CANNOT and should not.

Perhaps it also time we stopped blaming a girl, no matter what her age is, for the assault she may experience. This is done time and again and in all homes rich or poor. She laughs too loud, dresses too revealingly and so on. And maybe we should start educating all people, men and women about the X and Y chromosome story and free the woman from the unfair accusation of being responsible for the sex of a child. WE women do not have the Y chromosome!!! I know of an educated gentlemen, or should I say supposedly educated, whose answered shocked me when we were discussing this topic. My son can do no wrong he quipped angrily. In the country where women Goddessed are worshipped night and day giving birth to a girl child is wrong. Maybe it is time we again looked into ourselves and see how guilty we are. Time to set our house in order before casting the first stone.

Another point that may see disturbing and unsettling to many and yet needs to be made is to look at who the perpetrators are and where did we as a society, go wrong. Let us take the case of the youngest accused. Before I go on, I would like to say that I am not defending anyone but simply trying to understand what makes a child a brutal criminal and assessing where we went wrong, as at this moment we have to live with the fact that rapes and sexual assault will happen. Today’s newspaper gives an interview with the mother of this boy. His family is the poorest in the village and lives under a plastic sheet. 11 years ago when he must have been just 6 he left the village to earn a living as he was the eldest and his father mentally ill. There are 5 younger children who do not go to school and need to travel 30 km to get work as labour. Today the mother does not wish to see her son. Her only worry is that now no one will marry her daughter. Take a moment to ponder over this. In 11 years a six year old kid became a barbaric killer. Six year olds need a home, the love of their family, food in their belly, a school to go to. Most of this is guaranteed under the Constitution. He is not meant to be thrown in the  big city alone. It took about a decade for him to become a killer, his only teacher the big city. A city that has passed many laws to protect children but failed to implement them. Had the child labour law been respected this boy should have been either sent back to his family or kept in a children’s home and received education. How many children have not seen working and yet how many of us have picked the phone and reported the matter. Many children work in homes of the rich and yet no one says anything. Another code of silence that needs to be broken.

There is debate about lowering the age of the Juvenile Justice Act. This Act was implemented as it was felt that children should be reformed and not punished as adults. This per se is a very sound approach. But it requires one important element: well run remand homes where the child is given an enabling environment that would allow hom to reform. All you need is visit one of these homes and you will realise that no one can be reformed in them. is it not time to demand for well run reforms homes for the children who have turned into criminals.

But before that we need to look at our school system. If our state run schools were well run, many problems we see would be set right. Perhaps it is time that all schools be made coeducational so that boys and girls grow together as buddies, competitors, friends.

It is also time that sex education, and here I do not mean a chapter on reproduction often hurried through, but age appropriate sex education, starting with good touch bad touch and explaining all emotions that children, tweens and teens go through, should be imparted to every child in school.  It is time we did that and not brush these under the carpet as we tend to do.

I could carry on and on but will not.

I simply would ask each one of us to look at the three fingers pointing back and be man enough to accept responsibility.

The past weeks has seen a city angry and outraged at the brutal and reprehensible assault on a young woman. One wonders what made this rape awaken our frozen consciences and come out of our convenient and self induced torpor. Rapes are not new. In fact there is a rape in our country every 22 minutes, that is 65 rapes a day! Not a figure to be proud of. Many of these are as reprehensible as the one that happened last month. What could be worst that the rape of a 2 year old and yet we kept silent. Perhaps it was because the victims were not ‘one of us’ and we felt immune from such aberrations. The rape of the young woman that shook us all was one we could identify with. It could have been our daughter or our sister as they too watch movies with their friends and may take a bus back home. This incident was too close for comfort and thus we shouted and protested and wanted to be heard. We clamoured for news laws, for severe punishment, for safer roads and so on. I can only hope that something positive comes out of our new collective persona.

Yet there are many things that should shake our conscience as human beings. One of them is the state of the homeless in the freezing winter. There are over 300 000 homeless in Delhi, including women and children. They are not hidden. We see them huddled under flyovers as we drive past. We see them sleeping on pavements as we return from a party or a late night movie. Every year the media run programmes on their plight. And yet we remain mute or at best to ease our consciences by donating a poor quality blanket. The same state that let down the one we call our braveheart, has only been able to make a paltry 154 shelters that can accommodate 7500 or a mere 2.5% of our homeless. In spite of court intervention nothing much seems to happen on the ground. Some homeless people have no option but sleep in public toilets to escape the biting cold.

While we layer ourselves with thermals and woollies, sit next to heaters and sip a hot mug of coffee, these people just pray that live through the night, and through every winter nights. No one cares for them. For politicians they are not vote banks and for the rest of the city they simply do not exist. They are brutalised by the police and often their paltry belongings confiscated. The women are abused and the children will never see a school. They are the most vulnerable and abandoned by one and all.

They too belong to the city we live in. Will the collective conscience that has been awakened by a brutal rape, raise its voice for these defenseless citizens of India.

Enough is enough! I have kept quiet for far too long. It is time I reclaimed every right that has been usurped from me. I do not want to be killed in the womb just because I am a girl. I want my birth to be celebrated and feted. I have the right to the same education, to as many toys, and to the same new school bag every year than the one my brother gets. I want to play outside like all children. I want to wear whatever I feel like and laugh as loudly as I can.

I do not belong to anyone. I am your daughter, your sister, your wife, your mother but I am first and foremost an independent being. I am ready to learn and respect values and want the right to abide by them because I want to, and not because you impose them on me. I do not want to be told what to do, think, see, touch, feel and  hear. I want to experience everything on my own. I want to feel the the coolness of the evening breeze and the warmth of the winter sun. I want to discover the world at my own pace and through my own eyes. I want to learn and grow with the same freedom as my brothers do. I want to go to school and not be used as a surrogate mother whenever needed and saddled  with household chores. I do not want to see my studies interrupted to look after ailing grandparents in the village. I do not want to be considered as a burden that one has to rid itself of by harnessing me to an unknown man.

I want to be the pride of my family. I also know what honour means so do not throw the izzat bogey to curb my freedom and make me do what you want. I want you to trust me implicitly and you must  if you have taught me right. I am not an object or a commodity. I am a person with dreams and aspirations. Please do not hijack them or stifle them. I do not want to be judged by a kangaroo court and killed if I decide to fall in love. I want the right to fall in love like any one else.

You worship Goddesses with a fervour that sometimes seems false and sanctimonious. When you sit and chant her name through the night, do you forget that she is a woman just like me and the best of respecting her would be to respect every woman you see. When will stop being so hypocritical! Your  double standards are galling. You will protect the women in your family but consider every other woman your plaything. I am sick and tired of all the groping, leering, ogling and all other kind of abuse you are master at every time I step out of my door. You rape with impunity be it a baby or a mature woman. Do you ever think that the 2 year old you violate could be your own child. You then unabashedly throw the blame on us for the crime you commit. It was what we wore, or the time of the day we were out, the place we were at and so on. Please tell me how a 2 year old in a play school was at the wrong place, at the wrong time and wearing inappropriate clothes or are diapers sexy too! You make me sick.

If a woman is violated and we demand justice you come up with asinine fixes: do not go out at night, do not wear skirts, do not own a cellphone etc. The best one is get her married. This is not acceptable. You have such disregard for us as even your prized abuses have to insult us. How many times a day do you f**** sisters and mothers. Have you ever thought of that.

Last month you abused and violated a young beautiful woman who only wanted to live life on her own terms with such violence and depravity that the nation shook and every woman in this country, young and old felt defiled. Yes you raped us all. But let me tell you one thing: you could not and never would violate her soul or spirit,

When we were on the streets  venting the rage we felt, you kept quiet at best, or blasted us with water and tear gas and broke sticks on our back. What were you trying to prove? That you were men! You even fell as low as  calling us painted and dented to once again try and denigrate us. You took a dying child on a plane ride when you knew she was going to die. And then you brought the braveheart back in the dead of night and cremated her like you would a thief. Was it because you were too scared of the very people you come and beg for votes once every five years.

How good you are at protecting yourselves. You clamp all kind of laws and restrictions against your own people. Let me tell you: you do not look good. We wanted you to come and grieve with us, to listen to our woes and suggestions. We did not want empty words that sounded so hollow. We have seen through your game.

Yes we want justice for the young woman whose dreams you crushed. But what about the millions of women waiting for justice and who have gone old waiting. Will you bring laws that ensure we do not get raped over and over again if we muster the courage to seek justice. Will you ensure that justice will come to all those waiting. Will you change the law that would make a rapist or abuser guilty till proved innocent? But that is not where it ends. We want to reclaim our space day and night. We want to be able to move freely at any time of the day and be safe no matter what we wear. We want to be respected and accepted as equal citizens.

We do not need protection, we need freedom be it in our homes or on the streets.

This is perhaps the first time that I am at a loss of words to usher a new year. Normally one is filled with hope and dreams and resolutions. But this year seems different as it has placed on our shoulders responsibilities we all have been shirking for far too long. Somehow 2012 can be divided into two parts: before December 16th and after December 16th and though the later is an infinitesimal part of the 365 days that make a Gregorian year, the last 15 days of the year gone by have shaken us of the comfort zone we had allowed ourselves to slink in. We were rudely awakened from an almost catatonic slumber that made us believe that all was well. Suddenly the conscience we had conveniently parked somewhere in the recesses of our minds was stirred and we had to accept the uncomfortable reality that we had we had failed in more ways than one. What was even more troubling was the fact that it had taken the most brutal and barbaric death of a beautiful young girl to make us come to our senses.

It is apposite that the young braveheart has remained anonymous and unnamed. She thus becomes every one’s daughter or sister and makes our irresponsible behaviour that much more unpardonable. For years we have been passively accepting rapes and other reprehensible acts without the outrage that must be felt by any self respecting human being. We conveniently brushed these aside by telling ourselves that such aberrations did not happen in the tiny confines of our lives. We clucked away news of children being abused and hurt when we should have screamed our indignation. As supposedly educated and aware citizens we never lend our voices to ensure that justice was done. We accepted corruption, inefficiency and venality in every realm of our lives. At best these made juicy drawing room  chats and never went beyond that. We accepted the arrogance of politicians and bureaucrats  and found ways of circumventing things when it concerned us. We too surreptitiously became partners in crime.

This how we have been shaken to see ourselves and what we see is not pretty. It makes us hand our heads in shame. But at the dawn of this new year we have been given a chance to redeem ourselves. I hope we will. If we do not then we are doomed.

It is a new year and I cannot but hope and pray that my family and my extended family and all my friends and supporters have a wonderful year. Is this not what one wishes fro those we love? As for myself I hope that I can walk that extra mile that would make the two Indias we live in come closer and learn to accept and respect each other just like the two little Angels in the picture, Utpal a child of the dark and Agstya my little grandson.

May 2013 bring the wisdom, sagacity and healing we so need.

2012 is coming to a close. It is time to reflect and ponder about the year gone and ask one’s self as candidly as possible whether we really walked the talk. 2012 was pwhy’s 12th year on the field, more than ample time to make the difference we set out to make more than a decade ago. I will in this post highlight some of the important moments of 2012 and view them in the light of the mission we gave ourselves when it all began. I would also beg your indulgence in case thing are not in chronological order, but isn’t that expected of a project that has always followed its heart.

Project Why has always endeavoured to keep in sync with the reality that surrounds us and put in perspective for the children we nurture. Thus I cannot but begin this narrative with today, a day when a whole nation mourns the death of the  braveheart who suffered the worst form of assault imaginable. Since that terrifying night I have been following the story with horror and dread, more so because the barbaric perpetrators come from the same social strata as the children we teach. This makes our responsibility and task that much more critical and compels us to look back at the gone years and assess the work we have done in a whole new manner. True our mission as stated time and again was and has been to provide quality education support to children from slums and give them the required skills to excel in school and in life. But was our definition of quality education broad enough? We always followed the Delors 4 pillars – learning: to know, to do, to be and to live together. But did we emphasise enough on the ‘live together’? Were we not swayed by the ‘to know’ as every parent across the board is? But it is not the moment to delve on what we cannot change. Today the people want to see a new India, one that is safe for all its citizens, one where every man learns to respect women, where laws are strong and justice delivered. Where little girls are taught how to protect themselves and sex talk is not taboo. Yes we need a change in mindsets as well as laws and mindsets can only be changed one day at a time starting at a young age. So as 2012 ends, we at project why have taken certain resolves.

We strongly believe that one of the best ways to get boys and girls to learn to accept and respect each other is that they grow together. We would like to see all state run schools become coeducational. However till that day comes we have no option but teach boys and girls at different times. However since last week we have decided that on all holidays boys and girls will come together to the project and interact in every way possible. It is heartwarming to see that though there was some reluctance and hesitation, particularly from the boys, within no time the children were working together as pals and chums.

Several workshops on self esteem and gender biases were held along the year. We will ensure that these are held with more often in the new year. We also plan to hold gender bias and sex education workshops for the staff as we realised that coming from traditional backgrounds, they are hesitant and uneasy and need to be taught how to address this issue with children of different ages.

We alas live in a society where the girl child is still in danger and needs to learn to protect herself. Therefore we are launching regular ‘good touch’, ‘bad touch’ classed for all our primary girls. We also plan to have awareness programmes with the parents and hope these will be useful.

The horrific rape that shook all of us was also discussed with the older children. They were then asked to write their feelings. I will share this with you in a subsequent post.

Now let me briefly share the main happenings of the year gone by. As always the children did us proud   and the project why results for all centres and all classes was 100%. Hats off to all children and their teachers. I guess we have by now fulfilled one of our main objectives: to contain drop out, mainstream children and ensure good results.

This year we held several workshops in all our centres: a  work shop on self esteem in our Okhla and Khader centre as we have realised that children from underprivileged homes have poor self esteem. A workshop on the girl child was also held at our Khader centre. A workshop for the teachers of the special section was held in September to introduce new approaches in teaching.

Our main workshop however was a workshop on Right to Education, held with the support of an eminent jurist and that ended in a postcard campaign whereby the children wrote of the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court about the situation in their school. The children were charged up and wrote unabashedly about the violence and abuse by their teachers, the lack of facilities be it toilets or desks, the overcrowding of classes and the poor quality of teaching. These cards were included in a PIL with the judges demanding immediate action. Action was taken but the suspension of 2 teachers named by the student resulted in a huge problem for us as the teachers belonged to Khader village where our centre is located. Our landlord almost threw us out. It is the extremely wise and diplomatic skill of our coordinator Dharmendra that saved us from this explosive situation. Our children were also targeted in school but tempers calmed down and today the schools are functioning a tad better. This was  a lesson for all: bringing change is never easy. It needs courage and staying power.

For the women centre, it was a musical year as they had a western music workshop run by Diya, a young student from Singapore. A group of 8 children were introduced to western music and tried their hand at the guitar, the keyboard and bongos! In January 2012, Praveen one of our extremely talented student, began professional singing classes. His dream is to enter a singing reality show! More power to him.

2012 was also dancing year for the project children. It was decided to run dance workshops for all children, including the special ones.  And even though their performance would not meet  Bolshoi standards, the children had great fun and laughed to their hearts’ content.

We hope to have the children perform somewhere in 2013.

Everyone is invited!

This year it was the Okhla children who had the chance to get behind a camera thanks to the workshop run by one of our summer volunteers. You can see the pictures they took here.

We managed a few outings in spite of paucity of funds. The Govindpuri children went to the Science Museum, the Red Fort, the Children’s Park and India Gate. It was still open to the likes of you and me then. The special children went to Delhi Haat and Lodhi garden.

A group of children from Khader were taken to a movie and to an outing at the mall by some supporters.

As always we celebrated festivals: Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti, Children’s Day, Diwali, Teacher’s Day, Eid and Xmas. On these days children often put up their own show with dances, exhibitions, speeches and song.

The star this year was undoubtedly our very own Santa.

We also had our share of visitors from all corners of the planet and of course our volunteer who make a huge difference as they bring a little of the world into our planet! We thank all of them warmly!

Some statistics and facts now: we are now a family of 1000! And to say that when we began we were a mere 40! We have a team of 45 and each one of them is precious and deserves to be saluted. The computer centre, library and secondary were shifted around. Secondary classes were started in our Govindpuri centre which now goes to class VII.

We would like to share two very special events.
Preeti from the special section has now been admitted to the Open school and is preparing for class X  and Shamika our special section in charge got the Karamveer Chakra award.

We are proud of you girls!

Our boarding school kids are well and growing by the day. They are good in their studies and participate in many activities: skating, yoga, dancing, music. I wish we could give this opportunity to every child.

Over 200 women completed their sewing and beauty courses this year. many of them have got employment and some of them even opened their own beauty parlours, two of them in the village. More power to you.

Planet Why remained frozen this year. All our efforts came to naught and we are now seriously thinking of alternatives. However our special children and Khader children kept the sustainability light alive.

The special children now make dream catchers that are on sale and our Khader chiildren made beautiful greeting cards that can be purchased on line. We hope these enterprises grow by leaps and bounds.

But all this would not have been possible without those who have believed in us and trusted us through the years. We hope you will continue to help us make a difference. To everyone a big thank you.

Happy 2013.

Yes I, the Indian woman, am dented and painted but not in the manner you politicians think! I am dented – and here I would like to use the verb ‘dent’ in its meaning ‘diminished’- from the very moment I am conceived. Even as I entered my mother’s womb, I knew everyone hoped I was a boy. If it was discovered that I was indeed a girl, I ran the risk of being brutally aborted and my tiny life ended in a pool of blood or a garbage bin. The day I was born, I was greeted with wails and tears and my mother cursed for not having born a son. You see the X Y chromosome story is understood by no one, or I guess they do not wish to understand as how can I boy do anything wrong. In my country giving birth to a child is wrong.

As I grew up I was often bewildered at what I saw. My brother always got what he wanted and I did not. I was often chided and put back to place. My brother got better food and even a better school bag. he even went to a private school while I had to go to the municipal one. I was often made to miss school as there was always something to do t home, and after the birth of my younger sibling, I became a surrogate mother even though I was just 6. I often heard my parents talking about me in disturbing words. Was I really a burden?

Imagine my surprise when as I grew a little older, I who loved playing on the street with other children, of being told that I had to remain in the house. It was not only my mother or father who scolded me, but even my younger brother, the very child I had carried on my hip for so long, never complaining. If I laughed too loud I was told to tone down as ‘girls’ were not meant to behave this way. If I peered out the window my brother pulled my braid and told me to ‘behave’. I never figured out what I was doing wrong as others laughed and peered out of windows.

I soon learnt one indubitable truth: a girl was controlled by a male – father, brother and the elusive husband that loomed large from the very moment I began understanding things. Time and again I saw my father abusing my mother in every way possible and saw her keep quiet or at best shed a few tears. I felt a boiling rage inside me and wondered why my mother did not react. Slowly I understood that this was the way things were and we as girls had no other choice but to comply. As my brothers grew older I even saw them abusing mother. I realised that we women were diminished in more ways than one.

If I was lucky I would escape the groping and harassment that many suffer within the confines of the so called safety of my home. It could be an uncle, a neighbour or even a friend. If I did gather the courage to speak up, then I was likely to be introduced to the deafening code of silence that is invoked in such cases by the very one who gave you life. That is when another stifling word was added to my vocabulary: ‘izzat’ – honour- ! I suddenly became the repository of the honour of my family even it I was the one who had been damaged and taken advantage of. I had to bear a shame I could not fathom. That is when I realised that we women had to live a double life and put of a show for the world to see. That is the day I knew that we dented women also had to be painted. Painted in the shades of patriarchy and its biased and baffling mores. I learnt to slowly reconcile myself to my station in life.

In spite of missing many classes to tend to chores at home, in spite of not being given the tuition so easily proffered to my male siblings or the books I needed, I studied hard and passed all my examinations. I guess it was the attraction of extra money that made my male handlers accept I take up a job. I was over the moon as it was a step to the freedom I so longed for. I stepped out of the house on that first day with a song in my heart and a head filled with dreams. How was I to know that another set of men would appear and remind me once again that I was just a woman in a world that belonged to men. The journey to my workplace made me open to sneers, lude remarks, groping and misplaced gestures. I learnt to make myself as small as I could and hope that I would reach my destination safe. Anger boiled inside me but I learnt to control it, in a way all women learn to in this land. That is also part of the paint job. If God forbid, something would have happened, I knew what awaited me. The ‘izzat’ scenario again from my very own, and had I gone over that then more abuse at the hand of law keepers and justice givers. If a woman is raped, she has to accept to be raped over and over again and even then she never gets justice.

Had I met a boy and fallen in love like every girl has the right to, I ran the risk of being killed by my own father or brother again in the name of ‘izzat’. So if I did fall in love, I knew it could only be covertly, till the day the men in my family found the next man to hand me over to. But those few days of love would be my silent rebellion and my few moments of freedom.

One fine day I will be told to get ready and look my best as a boy was coming to see me. Once again I could not but realise that I was a mere object. Should the boy like me, then I was to be hitched to him with a great relief from my family. Their duty was over, the burden passed on. Thank God the ‘izzat’ was intact.

Life would have come full circle. I would get pregnant and so conditioned was I, that I too would wish for a boy. I too would be chided for giving birth to a girl. I too would bear the abuse of my husband. I too would curtail the freedom of my daughter, buy a better school bag for my son and so on. I too would one day teach my daughter her place as a dented and painted object in a land where we venerate Goddesses.

Since last week concerned citizens, students, women, children, senior citizens gathered around India gate and then decided to move towards Rashtrapati Bhavan to voice their anger, concern, hurt, indignation and outrage at the horrific incident that occurred a few days ago and at the increased insecurity for women in the city. They wanted to be heard. They wanted to be reassured. They wanted harsher laws for crime against women. They wanted to share their angst with those they elected. And that is why they approached the hallowed gates of our first citizen and meet him. After some persuasion a small group was allowed to meet  one of the President’s men. They were informed of the protocol regulations and told to seek an appointment. My question is why could the President not meet these kids! Was the situation not important enough to break protocol. It was not.  The letter the kids wrote hurriedly and with hope; it must be still lying on some table along the protocol journey.

The crowd were swelling and the mood angry. Kids are kids and the young are known to be in a hurry. They are not like our antediluvian politicians. They fretted and got restless. They pushed and shoved like the young do. A simple meeting would have calmed things down. But instead they got hit by water canons in the cold, had tear gas lobbed at them in scores and even got lathi charged – a preferred show of power of our cops – and pushed back. No one came to meet them or talk to them. Their anger rose and more water and tears were sent their way. And as the news spread on Live TV, angered people joined the groundswell and sadly many lumpen elements. The mood got angry.

It was a spontaneous crowd, the kind one has never seen. It was not a protest organised by a political party where people are paid to come. Here every single protesters felt the anger and the hurt. It was perhaps for the first time that we saw true democracy where the electors wanted answers. No one in power recognised this reality. Had they done so, the events that ensued.

In the late evening the Home Minister finally address a press conference. We were subjected to believe it or not praise for the police! Praise for those who had earlier used water cannons and tear gas shells! Then we were given the vapid platitudes we normally get when any aberrations occur: setting up for commissions, empty promises and more of the same. And that is not all: we were told that the minister himself and his second in command had 3 daughters and thus felt the pain and anguish of us all. Who are you kidding. First of all nothing would ever happen to YOUR daughters as they come under the hallowed and super protected category of VIPs. And had it ever happened, god forbid as this should never happen to any one, the rapists would have been killed in a convenient encounter. We were also introduced to a new concept, one that is unacceptable: the gradation of rape. There are rapes, rare rapes and rarest of the rare rapes. Believe me Mr Minister every rape is and should be considered rarest of the rare as it is the most cowardly, heinous, ugly, disgusting, despicable crime.

The day ended. The protesters were angry, the authorities felt smug.

What the young were looking for was their statesmen and leaders. For the first time young Indians – students, professionals – concerned parents, and simple citizens had come out on the streets to express their anger and hurt. For years we have born stoically all the aberrations thrust upon us. We have turned a blind eye to issues like gross corruption, poor governance and arrogant behaviour. We have waited as patiently as we could to see laws enacted and waited helplessly to see them implemented. We have paid our taxes and have reconciled ourselves to poor amenities. We even performed our civic duty by voting every time we had to.

 Saturday the 22nd of December 2012 was a red letter day for us, simple Indians. It was the day we wanted to see our Leaders and share our pain. It was a day when we still believed in them. It was a day that comes just once. Our leaders did not see the writing on the wall. How wonderful it would have been if our First Citizen broke protocol and accepted to meet a few young Indians. How healing it would have been if our CM had come and sat with the young protesters. How uplifting it would have been if one of the younger politicians has broken all rules and come and met the very people who make them leaders. Then all the ugly incidents that ensued would not have happened.

One may wonder why this rape incident struck such a chord in the hearts of so many when so many rapes and other aberration occur. It was probably the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The story of the young woman so brutally raped was the catalyst that made us scream ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

The next day genuine protesters were back. Some had even spent the night despite the cold. But the police swung into action and pushed everyone out of India Gate and surrounding areas. However how far can you push people. They had to be let in. Protests continued. Against the rapists but also against the cop’s behaviour. Sadly lumpen elements joined the show and very ugly scenes ensued. The brutality of the police was shocking: women, young students, senior citizens – no one was spared. It was vicious, barbaric, more so as the main issue that was being addressed was the safety of women. Need I say more.

The next day the entire India Gate area was shit to Indians. Even morning walkers were not allowed in. An alternate place has been given and young people are still protesting. But there are less people. I guess many parents must have not allowed their girls to join in after the terrible events of the previous day.

The Home Minister spoke again. According to him every demand has been acceded to. I guess he is in sync with the powers that be: commission set, empty promises spouted. He also insulted our intelligence by trying to make us believe that the unruly happenings were politically instigated. A terrible sense of deja vu! He has missed the point though as this time we are protesting against this very attitude. When asked by a reporter why no one from the government did not go and meet the young people on the first day he was  horrified: how can they come and meet us. It has to be the other way! He missed the point again: this is the attitude we are protesting against: the VIP culture, the disconnect between those we elected and us. We were also subjected to more platitudes. The Congress President and the heir in waiting missed a golden opportunity to reach out to the very people who could have made all the difference in 2014. Now it is too late. Nothing you door say can make us forget the terrible images of December 23rd 2012.

And finally when the Prime Minister did finally condescende to speak to the nation, a blooper or Freudian slip said it all. It was all a show.

We need statesmen and leaders. Till then nothing is theek hai!

(I begin this post by urging you to spare a thought for Aruna who was sexually assaulted and brutalised almost 4 decades ago. Since she lies in a vegetative state abandoned by one and all: her fiance, her family, her friends and even the justice system. She waits in a dark room for death to release her from her terrible ordeal. This is what happens to victims of rape and sexual assault.)

She went to a movie with a friend in a swanky South Delhi mall.. After the movie she boarded a bus with her friend. What happened next is nothing short of a nightmare. She was  gang raped by six or seven men including the bus staff and mercilessly beaten with an iron rod. Her friend who tried to protect her was also beaten. She was then stripped and thrown out of the bus. As I write these words she is fighting for her life in a hospital. As always the authorities – in this case our Chief Minister – have promised strict action, whatever that means. Five of the six suspects seem to have been arrested. I only wonder what punishment will be meted out to them.

This happened in a city which is ruled by a woman, in a country where one if not the most powerful political person is a woman. The incident occurred in a posh area of the capital city makes it that much more alarming. In any civilised city one should be able to go and see a movie with or without a male escort and return home safely using public transport. That is what this young girl believed! Then things went terribly wrong. Many questions come to mind all begging for answers. First and foremost how was this rogue bus allowed to carry passengers? How does a passenger know whether the bus she is getting on is a genuine one? How were so many drunk staff on the bus? Maybe the transport authorities should look at that? But these are not the real questions. What really needs to be asked is why is our society churning out so many men who feel they have the right to view women as commodities, use them and then throw her away like a used object? Why do such men brazenly feel that they can get away with it?

What is horrifying in this case is the brutality meted out to this young woman. The doctors have stated they have never seen a victim of sexual assault subjected to such brutality. What could provoke these men to behave in such an outrageous manner. I heard on a new channel that they wanted to teach a lesson to the girl. A lesson for what! For being out at night; for being with a man; for fighting back; for having broken the unsaid covenant that says that women ONLY are the keepers of a family’s honour. Many questions that need to be answered one by one if one has the will to do so.

Everyday women are abused, raped,  molested, assaulted sneered at, leered at and more of the same. Many, too many, remain silent. Some cases come to light because of their being out of the ordinary like the one of the young woman. Then the show begins: politicians find a new way to espouse their agendas; the media to increase their TRPS; civil society to vent its pent up anger. The question is how long with this anger last? The authorities are masters at the waiting game. This too shall pass as everything seems to.

I think it is time we gave a thought to a woman named Aruna that we all seem to have forgotten.  It was on the 27 November 1973, almost 40 years ago, that she was raped, sodomised and strangulated with a dog chain. She has been living in a vegetative state for 4 decades, abandoned by all: her fiance, her family, the justice system, collective conscience.  Aruna’s story movingly recounts what happens to a rape victim in reality.

We clamour for quick justice for the perpetrator; but who gives justice to the victim. Even if she is not physically mutilated, she is emotionally shattered. Our system is such that if she wants justice then she has to accept being raped over and over again: by the police, the defence lawyers and the whole caboodle that makes our weak and spineless justice system.

When I was a young woman I too lived in Delhi. That was 40 years ago. I worked at the radio station and my duty hours were at night. An official car use to come and fetch me at 9 pm and drop me back at 2 am. Sometimes the cars broke down in far off places as we had to fetch people from many locations. I often would be the last one in the car but when I look back at those times I remember an array of emotions: anger, frustration but never fear. Delhi then was safe. True there was some Eve teasing and misplaced comments but not the chilling fear we are experiencing today. In those timed a stern stare would make the person look away. In those days we went out alone or with friends. I remember how we sneaked out of college at night to have paranthas at a known outlet and came back safe. We saw evening movies and caught public transport back without feeling scared. If we felt a tad apprehensive the presence of a male – pal of relative – was enough to set things right. Even the parents approved.

The recent incident has put an end to that sense of security. The girl who is fighting for her life was with a man. And  she was so brutally and inhumanely aggressed because she dared fight back. It seems that the perpetrator resented to having been bitten by her and flew in a manic rage.

Come to think of it, even the Taliban views women as  safe with a male escort. But that is not the case in India today. Women are unsafe no matter what. When they get molested or abused, authorities are quick to find fault with them, it is always what they wear, where they go etc that is the cause of the reprehensible behavior of their male counterparts.

What make men take such liberties and feel they can get away? One of the obvious reasons could be the fact that most of the cases of harassment go unpunished. Perpetrators seem to get away with alacrity and impunity. But there is more. It seems that our society has become one where though we still loudly praise Goddesses in all shades and hues, we treat our women with abject contempt.

The men that committed this heinous crime were one of a multitude that inhabit a city that has seen an exponential population growth in the past decades subsequent to the wave of migrations that we have witnessed courtesy the ever growing need of a city aspiring to become a world class one. For that to happen it needs hands willing to get dirty and those come from across its limits. The perpetrators of this week’s crime were a bus driver, a cleaner, a fruit vendor, a gym trainer. Young men eager to spend a Sunday on the prowl in their pals bus. Now rape is a power game and power comes courtesy hooch so easily available across this city. (The government seems on an overdrive in opening watering holes in every nook and corner of the city!). The perpetrators in question have been well honed in the art of denigrating women as they belong to homes where women have scant authority. They come from homes where their mothers are beaten by their drunk fathers and little girls are killed before they are born. They come from a section of society where boys are treated like demi Gods and made to believe that they have license to do anything. They come from a place where one’s whistles at the passing girls or sings cheap film lyrics that denigrate women. They come from a place where if women dare step out of line they need to be chastised at once. So when a young woman dares challenge them all their misplaced manhood is violated and they act the only way they know. That is not all. The move to the city has brought into their lives realities they cannot process or handle. It is a recipe for disaster and one sees the outcome in every aberration you hear about each and every day: children and women raped and assaulted. The question is how to we address the crux of the problem. Education? Awareness? Gender sensitisation? But what can you do when even the basic chapter on sex education is not thought in state run schools. The teacher often asks the student to read the said chapter.

The city is in damage control mode. Old laws yet to be implemented are suddenly revived:  ban on tinted windows in vehicles, more patrolling etc. Will it change anything? I for one remain sceptic. There will be a lot of hue and cry for a day or a week and then every one will revert to old ways.

It is heartwarming to see the outrage across the Nation. But can we sustain it till we ensure that things change? I do not know. But that is not enough. What needs to change is our attitude to women. Can we hope that the young men protesting on the street will be as vocal when their parents demand dowry or their sister choses to marry a person of her choice? Or will the traditions and misplaced code of honour silence their newly found cause.

There is a long way to go. Are we ready to walk the talk.

What does it take to get people to open their hearts? I am at a loss to find the right answer. This is why.

It has been almost a month since a little crew of very special children decided to craft dreamcatchers. A little background first. It has been our endeavour at the special centre to try find something that children with special needs could craft and sell. This is because the ones I call children as some have been with us for more than a decade, are now young adults and like all young adults they too want to earn a living and become independent. We have explored many avenues but they all fell short in some way or the other . Some were too heavy to mail – our waste material mats -, others too fragile – our painted earthen pots –  and so on. And of course we needed something that was not seasonal. And one more thing, we wanted everyone to participate in its making in some way or the other. That is when I thought of an object I had stumbled upon quite by chance and warmed to immediately: dream catchers. I had always been attracted to the wisdom of Native American tribes and found solace and comfort in many of their sayings.

Dream catchers are meant to filter out bad dreams and let good dreams and thoughts enter our minds. The legends are many but the bottom line is that dream catchers filters out bad forces, and help us stay on the right path in life. Is that not what all of us want! I for one believe that dreams come true and thus the dream catcher is something right up my street. Moreover it was lights and unbreakable thus solving the problems we had with our earlier ventures.  The idea was opportune and God sent as it came when we have Emily with us, a young volunteer who knows how to make dream catchers. And above all is this not the right object for our very special bunch of dreamers who can all participate in some part of the making of dream catchers. Ok they may not look perfect but remember they are made by those we far too often tend to forget or ignore.

Our dream catcher crafts persons are a motley crew of people with a huge heart. Some cannot walk, others cannot hear or talk and yet others cannot understand the world in the same manner we do. Yet they put their heart and soul in the beautiful dream catchers they create and in with each turn of the thread or feather hung they add their little prayer just for you. They wait with bated breath for orders as with each dram catcher sold their future seems a little more secure.

Behind them is a marketing team: Emily, Shamika, Rani and yours truly. We set up a Facebook page and an on line payment option. We all thought that with the thousands of friends we had, orders would pour in, particularly as it was Xmas time. But that did not happen. True some die hard friend and supporters reached out and placed orders. But that was it. Irrespective of the number of reposts, the results remained the same: a deafening silence.

 I guess people have lost the ability to see with their hearts. Wonder if anyone could tell me why.

This morning I went to INA market. For the uninitiated, INA is probably Delhi’s treasure trove for food, and a cornucopia of pleasures for the senses in every way possible. The abundance of colour, fragrances and aromas make it a sensorial delight. You can amble for hours feasting your eyes on the beautifully arranged vegetables, the mounds of assorted spices, the stalls of fish and meat and so much more. For me INA has become a kind of pilgrimage since the day my father breathed his last, as it has he who made me discover this unbelievable place. So today, his 20th death anniversary I found myself amidst fish and vegetables, remembering the man I so loved. Ram was not just my father. He was so much more: my friend, mentor, guide, my confidante, my first and perhaps last true love and even my partner in crime. He taught me so many things, actually most of what I know today. Ram was larger than life. A master in the art of living on the one hand, and in diplomacy on the other. One of the youngest recipient of the coveted MBE, but also a Commander of the Wine tasters. With him I rubbed shoulders with the high and mighty and dined at the finest tables. Thanks to him I discovered the pleasure of reading and was primed in to every art form possible. It is Ram who also took me to every corner of the countries we lived in and imbibed me with many cultures.

But that was just one side of Ram, probably the lesser one. What he truly taught me was the art of looking with one’s heart. Our visits de the INA did not end with impersonal shopping sorties. Far from that. Most of the shopkeepers he frequented were known to him at a personal level. For many he had provided pro bono legal help. He knew about their families, their problems, their achievements. To them he was topi wala sahib, the men in a hat, as he always wore some kind of head gear. So every trip to INA was never a short one. True we came back laden with baskets of fish and poultry, fruits and vegetables and often a warm treat for Mom  who shunned food shopping. But we also came pack with precious human stories that made the experience unique. When he died, many of the INA shopkeepers closed their shop to attend his funeral. And when I gathered the courage to go back to INA after his death, I was overwhelmed by the number of persons who stopped me to say: Topi wale sahib bahut yaad aate hain – we miss the man in the hat so very much. And the bonds remained as once when I went to Papa’s preferred meat shop to get some meat for a party, I was shocked and rather annoyed when the owner ignored me whilst attending to another customer. The mystery was solved when the customer left and Abdul Bhai turned to me and said with a broad smile: the meat is not good enough for you! And though I came back empty handed, having just got a cup of warm syrupy tea, the moment was one to be cherished as it brought memories of Ram in abundance. So imagine my surprise when today, after 20 years I found the meat shop owner at his shop, a rare occurrence as he has aged and now leaves his sons to run the business. For me it was a boon: an occasion once again to reminisce about the topi wala over yet another cup of luke warm over sweetened tea!

This truly special moment made me realise what my true legacy from Ram was. It was not just Ram who taught me about life but also topi wala – for want of a better name! If Ram initiated me to the high end of life experiences it was topi wala who taught me about life itself. From the pleasures of caviar laced with non alcoholic bubbly to the delight of a rustic roti eaten with mustard oil and salt, he made me discover the true meaning of things. From the pleasures of the intellect via books and art to the soothing lull of a bhojpuri berceuse, from dining with royalty to sharing the table of the house staff, he ensured that I remain grounded in reality at every given moment.

He taught me to always keep an open mind; he taught me to learn from the smallest and the humblest, as that is were one found the truly inspirational stories and real values. When he left this world I was to say the least shattered. I mourned him for many years and simply gave up on everything. Life simply seemed to have lost all meaning. I was rudderless and lost. In hindsight I feel terribly ashamed of the time I lost. It is not what he would have wanted me to do. But I needed time to pick up the pieces and rebuild myself into something that would appear whole. I know if he were here he would have given me a kick in my butt and told me it was time to put all the lessons learnt to the test. But I am not as strong as he was, or he thought I was. I needed time to process the loss and reinvent myself. It took 8 long years: from November 1992  to June 2000 when I met Manu. I wonder today if Manu was not sent by an exasperated Topiwala ! The bottom line is that something happened that day. It was as if I had finally awoken from a long slumber. The rest is history and there for all to see.

Sometimes people wonder why I taken on every challenge that comes my way be it opening a new class or mending a broken heart. You see, for me it is honouring Ram’s memory in every way possible. He for one would not have wanted me to chicken out of any situation and I intend to agree. So the road ahead is long and filled with challenges. I will walk because I knowRam walks by my side!

A rather irksome and totally unwarranted incident occurred a few days back needing my intervention. It was a rather unwelcome moment, as I do not like playing boss! But it  did need my attention as one of my dearest staff member had been deeply hurt and I absolutely had to show my displeasure to the instigators. I did,though I did not like it at all. But when you are in a position of supposed ‘power’, you have to exercise it when you see your carefully erected edifice in danger of crumbling. Everyone is looking at you to set things right and you have to walk the talk.

However this post is not about the incident which I hope is done and gone and will not have any ugly repercussions. This post is more about how this occurrence brought to the fore my role at project why. It is true that I was the one who created, founded and seeded project why. That was more than a decade ago. In those early and somewhat benign days, project why was a small organisation, with a handful of staff and volunteers. Its outreach was small, the beneficiaries few and the problems fewer. Funding simply required me to take out my cheque book and sign a cheque as one has to be in existence for a stipulated 3 years to get all the registrations and other official stamps to be eligible for serious funding. The papers were in process and one could only wait. That was the time where I spent most of my days with the children. It was also the time when one could sit with a cup of chai and dream big. I remember the lunches shared with Manu in the warm winter sun. I also remember how I spent my day sitting on a red plastic stool on the little street where we were located, ‘lording’ over what was project why: behind me a small mud hut that housed our English classes and across the tiny street  the pavement under a plastic awning that was our first class for special children. Those were moments of intense satisfaction and pure joy. Today I sometimes find myself yearning for them, knowing in my heart they will never come back.

Time passed. Formalities were completed. Project Why was ready to take off and my role would change surreptitiously with each passing day. True I still spent a lot of time at the project having graduated from my red stool to a small office in a mud hut next to a family whose income came from slaughtering pigs. I today wonder how we managed to carry on day after day in spite of the howls of the pigs! But we did. Somehow we human have the capacity to bear anything if the need arises. I simply remember murmuring a prayer each time a pig was put to death. The project was now larger as we had been given the use of the derelict park nearby. From 40 children we were now a few hundreds. And though I still spent time with the children, fund raising seemed to be what I found myself doing day in and day out as we had the nasty habit of taking new challenges without thinking where the funds would come to meet them. Actually this is what is called seeing and thinking with your heart and we were masters at that.

In the initial days we were lucky to be supported by several expats in Delhi: the French community, the Irish and the British. I can never forget how the then British High Commissioner’s wife and dear friend came with a posse of gardeners and a truck laden with pots, plants and bags of organic pesticides. You see we had been given a park but its previous inhabitants were pigs and we needed to make it fit for human kids. She spent the day with her hands in the mud, much to the horror of her staff and to the surprise of mine. By the end of the day we had a clean park with new plants and even flowers. That was our space for a couple of years till the authorities decided to bulldoze us with the false promise of building a centre for us. The centre was build but given to an outside organisation. Thus began our nomadic existence. The expat community organised many events for us: a ball, an Irish evening, a Parisian night and thus we could not only carry on but grow. But then our friends left and the successors found other projects. It was the end of our Page 3 status and back to the grind for me. Mercifully it was the time we got our permissions and could start raising funds seriously.

As I said no more page 3 status but nose to the grind! I had always been a disaster with money and related matters. That was probably my bete noire. But then it is said that the Gods have a way of getting back to you and the one who found it infradig to ask for money, even what was owed to her had to master panhandling in a jiffy as hundreds of smiles dependent on her just doing that. By that time the easy option of dipping into one’s pocket was gone as no inheritance, however large, is eternal. Blissfully this was when a wonderful soul dropped by and decided to help us big. He set up a support group for us in France and a chunk of our needs was taken care for. But there was always a shortfall to be met. And having become a sort of recluse, I found myself happier creating of network on the world wide net. The initial days were laborious to say the least. I was an Internet neophyte and I remember writing individual mails not having found the magic of bcc! The mails were long and often recounted the day to day activities of  pwhy: the challenges, the achievements, the failures. I chose to be as transparent as possible and relate things as they were. It was a mind numbing task. Then one day, one of the recipient of my mails took pity on me and introduced me to the magic of blogging. That was an ah ha moment for me in more ways than one.

Dreams have an uncanny way of becoming reality particularly when they are heartfelt. They often strike you out of the blue when you least expect it. When I was a young girl and even later in life, I always wanted to write but never found the right avenue. I never knew that I was at the threshold of my dream the day I began to blog. Blog I did, a tad hesitant at first and then with more confidence. The proof almost 1500 blogs on my site and counting! Along the way I also wrote a book; the next is on the anvil. That was an aparte I needed to write. Apologies for that, but let us carry on with my supposed role. As you may have guessed I had graduated to chief fund raiser with just one skill in hand: words. In hindsight it seems I did pretty well as we managed to create a worldwide network that today supports   our work. However it needs constant cosseting as any prolonged absence is quickly noted. This method is somewhat relentless, you are not allowed to have a writer’s block.

Somewhere along the way I became aware of the fragility of this approach to fund raising. It was time to think long term. Planet Why was conceived and ‘marketed’. But to no avail as I was unable to raise the funds needed. My words were not good enough. I really missed the page 3 days but getting them back was not possible.

Today I am still the sole fund raiser juggling two hats: the short term and the long term! Not an easy task and one that has to be completed before curtain time. So no respite there.  I still go to the project everyday, even if it is just for a short time. That is because I want my team to get the confidence to work independently without the somewhat smothering presence of AnouMa’am. But I too need my feel good shot! I need to see my little ones and hear their laughs; I need to see my special kids as they always make me walk the extra mile effortlessly. I need to imbibe the spirit of pwhy, the very spirit I help create. I need to feel humbled and elated at the same time and sometimes give myself a pat in the back.

I have a dream. I want to see project why become sustainable and freed of the need of an ageing woman. I want to spend time with the kids, sharing their joy and pain. I want once again to sit on that red stool and watch pwhy live. Today I need my very own dream catcher.

 Good dreams slip through the hole, and bad dreams get caught in the web.. says an old Chippewa tradition… whereas the Lakota tribe believes that good thoughts get retains in the web while bad ones slip through the hole… which ever way you look at it, I wish I had a dream catcher today. I wrote these words way back in 2008. That was a time when problems were abundant, some insurmountable, and I resorted to every trick in the book to try and conjure miracles.Then slowly things settled to point where problems simply vanished and sadly dreams too. Things were on even keel and the ship sailed on calm waters. One simply forgot dreaming. Till a few days back when the very special kids of project why decided to make dreamcatchers to remind us that dreams can change lives, dreams can make miracles happen, dreams are precious and above all that dreams can brighten the todays and all the tomorrows. As I was handed over the very first dreamcatcher, I woke from a deep slumber as I realised that I had forgotten to dream, so ensconced I was in my comfort zones. It was a huge wake up call. It was time to dream again. Dream of all that was still unaccomplished, of all that had to be done. I held the dreamcatcher and beseeched it to let all the good dreams flow through as I knew that each and every dream held within it the seed of its realisation. I for one would never stop dreaming.

But the special children had more in store. They want to ensure that everyone dreams, and dreams only good dreams. So these precious dreamcatchers made by children who may not be able to walk – do you need to walk to dream – or talk – who said words were needed to dream – or see the world the way we do are for sale! You can order them by going to their Facebook page and they will reach you where ever you are. And there is one more secret that remains to be told: these priceless dreamcatchers will allow these incredible kids to become self sufficient. Isn’t that enough to motivate you to order your own unique dream catcher. You can also gift one to those you love, hang one on your Xmas tree and tell all your friends about this new venture.

My daughter Shamika was awarded the  Karamveer Chakra by iCONGO yesterday evening. This award was instituted for the real unsung heroes, the people who work silently and in the background to make change possible. She more than anyone else deserved the recognition. her citation read: Shamika was 9 when she first told her mother she wanted to work with special children. She could not finish school and at 15 began volunteering with children with autism. It did not take long for everyone to realise that she was made to take care of children with special needs. She trained for 6 long years and brought smiles to many children but soon felt she wanted to do more. Shamika joined the Project Why special day care centre when she was 19. For the past years she has been looking after 20 children with special needs and bringing joy and laughter in their lives. She passionately believes that special children need to be treated with respect and dignity and can have a future if we care to give it to them.In spite of her young age she can take on any parent and fight for the rights of her children. She has proved that you do not need degrees or pieces of paper to care for those in need. What you need is the ability to look with your heart.

Every word stated is true but there is so much more in the life of this young woman of substance. Shamika has always seen with her heart and continues to do so every minute of the day. My thoughts got back 31 years, on that beautiful morning when I first held her in my arms. She was beautiful. Like all moms I counted her little toes and little fingers and looked into her tiny face. I knew she would be very special. Many had hoped for a boy as I already had a daughter but in the nine months I carried her in my womb I knew she would be a girl. That is what I had prayed for and my prayers had been fulfilled. She was an adorable baby and a delightful toddler. But it did not take long for me to realise that she was different and would not fit the mould. She tried poor child, as best she could. Those were difficult years when too pushed her mercilessly to fit frame that was too small for her. She was made for far larger things. Even today I am not proud of myself though I could find million of reasons to justify my actions. It would take many years for me to hear her deafening yet silent screams and  have the courage to break the mould. I am glad I did and though everyone was dead against my decision to have her drop out from school, I knew it had to be.

It was time to fulfill Shamika’s biggest dream: to take care of special children. I did to the best of my ability. The rest is history. There was no looking back. From the moment she entered their world, things fell in place and her course was charted. She was home safe and sound.

Shamika put to test the very essence of motherhood, wherein a mother is the one who can and should hear all the unsaid words of her child and having heard them, take on the world if need be. Shamika made me do just that. I can never tell her how proud I am to be her mother. To be a mom is to stand by your child against the whole world if the need arises and I stand very humbled yet very tall. Shamika also proves that you do not need to walk the well trodden road to succeed. Success comes to the one who has the courage to walk the road less travelled.

I am so happy that she has got recognised by the world at large, she more than anyone else deserves the honour. I know the world awaits her. I also know that I will be by her side for as long as God allows it. After that I will watch her from the heavens above.

PS The husband and I are the worst photographers in the universe. These are the two pictures taken yesterday.

Utpal spent Diwali at home, like he has been doing for many years now. It has been four years since his mom vanished and six years since he has been in boarding school. Things have not been easy for this little braveheart as he has had to deal with many disturbing questions, questions that do not sometimes have obvious answers. The most poignant has been: where is my mother? The only answer I could honestly give is: I do not know. One cannot and should not lie to children, even if one knows one is hurting them. So Utpal gets the truth even if it sounds shallow and flimsy. His mom did leave one fine morning. No one knows where she went. For the past three years the little chap has been trying to deal with this absurd reality. What can a 7 year old do? He tried being aggressive, impossible, demanding and challenging, hoping against hope to get our attention and make us tell him what he needed to hear but we remained mute: we had no answers. His behavior become so impossible that we had to seek help.

It began with sessions with a counsellor. Each session was a nightmare: he refused to go, kicked everything in sight, banged doors and howled. Nothing worked: cajoling, bribing, scolding. The situation was hopeless and we all felt helpless. At home questions after questions were thrown at me. Every attempt to soothe was met with a counter question that stunned me. The sessions with the therapist were going nowhere. It was time to take out the big guns. A visit to the child psychiatrist was scheduled. The verdict: SMD (Severe Mood Dysregulation). Popples was put on medication. His sessions were to continue. The outcome was miraculous at the beginning. Gone were the mood swings and the pouts. But not the questions. They were still there, crowding and choking his little mind. They surfaced many a time and were met with the same answers. We did not have new ones.

Time went by, interspersed with sessions with the therapist. Slowly the fears were expressed and then dealt with. Utpal realised he had no home. We had to build him one, with a family and all that it entailed: love, care but also discipline and counsel. It was not easy. True a piece of paper had made me his legal guardian almost 3 years ago but it was just a paper. We all had a lot to learn, to deal with and to conjure. It was an adventure with unknown morrows. They had to be crafted one day at a time, one challenge at a time. I would have given the world and more to know what was happening in his little mind. But I could not rush matter; he had to take his time.

It isn’t easy for anyone, let alone a 9 or 10 year old. Imagine having to close a chapter of your life, however bad and then walk into a new one, however good. Many may think that the choice is obvious: from slum to big house! But that is not the way it works. Slum was where mom was and that made all the difference. And the big house does not have mom. The challenge was huge. Would we be up to it?

Slowly we began to notice imperceptible changes. One had to find a way to his hurting heart and be accepted. The biggest achievement was when one day he came to me and said quite candidly: Maam’ji you are old, you will die. The rest of the question was left unsaid but I guessed it: What will happen to me! I was on cloud nine. The battle was won, he had adopted us.

This Diwali, Utpal was an angel. He took interest in every aspect of the festivities, from helping to make sweets, to purchasing ornaments, to decorating the house. He even made a beautiful paper garland for the temple. And he sat doen for prayers and shut his eyes, I knew he had come finally come home.

I was reminded of Dorothy Sayers’s words: I love you- I am at rest with you- I have come home.

Welcome home little man!

This picture was taken this morning. Diwali morning! For this young rag picker it was just another day. He had loaded his rags on his hand cart just like any other morning and was now going to set about sorting the trash so that it could be sold by the evening maybe just in time for Diwali prayers with his family of he was one. There are many children like him, children who should be in school and not rag picking or panhandling at red lights. Children who are born with the same  right are our children and yet who do not have anyone to ensure that their rights are protected. Laws are passed, and more laws are passed: Right to Education, Prevention of child Labour and so on and yet one does not have to be a rocket scientist to see that millions of children are denied these rights every single day. These kids are not invisible as many would like us to think. It is just that we have lost the aptitude to see them and by we I do not just mean you and I, but the very people who make the laws aimed at protecting them.

Even today as we will whizz through the city to make our last minute shopping or drop the now proverbial box of sweet and/or Diwali gift – ranging from a set of cheap glasses brought from a China market or a box of the finest crystal from branded stores – we will not see the little girl who taps at our car window, and even if we see her and even give her a coin, we will not get outraged at the fact that a child of India, protected by the same Constitution we have such pride in, is begging. We will not remember the laws that exist and certainly not ask ourselves what we can do to make sure that the childhood of children that are not ours is protected.

How quick we are to take up the cudgels on behalf of our children if they are slighted in the least? How we run to school to meet teachers and principals if we feel that our child has been hurt? Then why is it so difficult for us to feel a light empathy towards the child that begs at a red light or the one that works at your neighbour’s home? These are questions that have always disturbed me and continue to do so each and every time I see a child in pain. How I wish I could take each and every child and give him what he truly deserves: love, security, care, education and the right to see his dreams come true. Even after 12 years of working with underprivileged children and trying to fulfill their dreams, I still feel extreme sadness and helplessness.

It is only when we all feel responsible for all that is not right that things will really change.

Happy Diwali

Some astonishing statistics have been in the news lately. Let us start with the 1 crore (100 million) dais for a politician’s daughter’s wedding. Most of the money was spent on flowers imported from faraway lands. What happened to flowers grown in the country? And come to think about it was just a one night stand. The flowers withered the next day and must have simply be swept away. Not to mention the outrageous use of official machinery courtesy you and I. And all this while his party is busy polishing its tarnished image by highlighting its concern for the common man.

But that is not all. What was a bigger shocker to me, though it may not be to others was the cover story of a prestigious weekly entitled: where’s the party tonight? The article is about the new partying habits of urban Indians, the rich of course.  I urge you to read it.Your grandchild turns eight, you bring snow to hot sweltering Chennai. The tag 20 million rupees. Your husband is busy and you are bored, you catch hold of a few friends and take off for some exotic location thousands of miles away. Every thing is good for a celebration and nothing too expensive. Millions to fly international stars, 30 million for a party, 50 000 for a bottle of sparkly. And wedding can now cost two thousand million dollars! Birthday cakes all the way from Paris@ 300 000 Rupees! Mind boggling? Outrageous? Galling? I am speechless.

Please do not think this post is a case of grapes are sour. I do not grudge anyone for spending what they earn honestly. That is your right. I only ask a simple question: where is your conscience as most of the people who are indulging in partying as if it was the last day on earth, rarely reach out to the less privileged. I am sure these people leave their ivory towers and golden gates and even if the windows of their luxury cars are heavily tinted and their eyes shielded by luxury sun shades they see the reality around them. At every red light some child must be tapping at their window; along their speedy travel they must be coming across building sites where malnourished women carry unbearable loads on their heads; and how can they not go by the innumerable shanty towns that exist every where being the only habitat the poor have. Does these not make them stop and think? Does it not disturb them?

In spite of having spent the last 12 years of my life reaching out to the less privileged in every which way possible, my heart still bleeds each time I see a little child holding his hand out. A few days back at  the Nehru Place red light a beautiful little child with light eyes and a heart warming smile came to me. She must have been 6 or 7. In her arms was a tiny baby perhaps a couple of months old. The little girl held out her hand with a smile. Sadly I had no toffees of biscuits in my bag. By then an older child who knows me told her that I never give money. The little girl simply went to the roadside and sat on the curb hugging the baby and smothering it with kisses. I had tears in my eyes. I wanted to whisk the girl and the baby away from this terrible reality but knew it was hopeless. The light turned green and we drove away.

The image of the two children stayed with me throughout the day and a big part of the night. My helplessness vis-a-vis their plight was tormenting. My mind travelled back to the first few days after the creation of the Trust and the very first thought/idea that came into my mind: the beggar children. Way before project why as you all know it when our dream was to try and find a way out of children begging. Our simple but naive idea was to get people of our city to hand out biscuits instead of coins to every beggar knocking at their car window. What was truly troubling was not the beggar children who were quite happy with their biscuit, but the attitude of the likes of you and me who could not see the core issue and how they could help.

After 12 years of having doors banged at my face when I dared seek help for the poor, I am still shocked at the widening gap between the two Indias separated by invisible yet impregnable walls. If the people who spent with alacrity and impunity spared a tiny amount for the less privileged every time they went on a spree, what a difference it would make. Spend. It is your right. You have earned the money but spend with a conscience.

How does one get people to look with their hearts. The pride in the eyes of a child when she hands you an A report card after years of failing is worth any party you can host; the fast steps of one who could not walk or the first coherent word of one who could not speak is worth more than the crores you can ever spend, particularly if these miracles happened because you were there!

When I first dreamt of project why, in the days when I was still a green horn and did not know the reality, I conjured a lovely and enabling space where slum children could come and spend time after (or before school as even after 65 years of freedom our capital city has not been able to build sufficient schools for its children and thus the same building runs 2 shifts a day) school. I envisioned a place where there would be some tutors to ‘help’ with the homework and loads of fun and creative activities. Board games, paint and colours, musical instruments, computers and whatever else a growing child and fancies. In hindsight I was a little like Marie Antoinette when she was told about the people not having bread and quipped: Let them eat cake! (Though it is said that it was another princess who uttered these words). You may wonder why I am using this simile. Well the bread and cake of French royalty are   akin to the studies and extra curricular activities of Indian underprivileged children. How could I offer them extra curricular knowledge when they were no way near getting to terms with their basic studies.

The lovely enabling space had to be sacrificed and replaced by a down to earth school support one. So Project Why became what it is! Creativity was quietly laid to rest or so I thought.

A few days ago an organisation contacted us. Their aim was to promote art and institute an Art programme in pwhy. They asked me to write a proposal in which I was to highlight all the artistic pursuits we had undertaken till date. My first answer was almost a loud None but I held myself back and promised to get them what they needed asap. Time to put the thinking cap on and revisit the recesses of my ageing memory. Quite frankly I was not expecting to find much creative activity. When I think of pwhy I see a multitude of little heads bent over books and looking extremely serious. But then    I had to get over this image and delve deeper. It just took a little time and wonders of wonders a found a real treasure trove. How could I have forgotten the three Annual Days we wad in the first three years of our existence. They were a mine of creativity from the unusual decor made with bits and pieces as we was as always short on funds to the terrific performances.

There were dances choreographed by our staff often inspired by evergreen Bollywood but executed to perfection. There were action songs by the tiny tots in an English taught to them by our Ugandan volunteer Stone and sung with great aplomb in an accent that was almost impossible to fathom where circle sounded like socko! And what about the plays written by the older children with the help of the teachers and touching on issues that disturbed them or felt important to them: importance of education for girls, alcoholism and its effects on families and dowry and bride burning. The play had even got a scene where the young bride was burnt. It took a lot of persuasion to made them change the ending and have the young bride saved by her sister-in-law! Talk of creativity! It was there in ample measure. Oops and how can I forget the piece de resistance of one our Annual days. It was a Bollywood dance but three of our senior boys and had been choreographed by the local Michael Jackson, a young man who had christened himself Michael in hommage to his favourite star.

In our shows every one performed and the most touching item was the one presented by our special children often an action song where all the class was on stage. Sometimes a kid or teacher wanted to sing solo and sometimes it was not quite in tune, but who cared, they were ours and deserved a big hand.

But the the project grew and spread out in different locations. Annual Days were given up as they were a drain on our meagre resources. Stage performances had to be abandoned. But creative activities were insidiously present though not center stage. In each of our locations however all festivals were celebrated and children put up small performances in their class space: dances, folk songs and even little plays. There were two plays in English performed by our Okhla kids and our Khader kids. They may not have been the best but they were unique as they had all been written and produced in-house and were loudly applauded.

My memory is on over drive now and long forgotten things surge from everywhere: the lovely friendship bands the children made with the help of some  volunteers and what about the candles and diyas made by the special children Diwali after Diwali? Are they not creative pursuits? And how can I forget the liters and kilos of paint and paper that have been diligently turned into works of art week after week in each class during drawing hour. True it took a long time to graduate from the mountain/river/sun/tree syndrome that seems to be the preferred theme of all Indian kids but we got some stunning paintings along the way. Should have kept them. And what about the brown paper gift bags with a child’s drawing pasted on it that we made one Xmas. They too were one of a kind.

Oh and I just remembered the lovely hand shaped Xmas decoration made by our special children and hung on their tree. A true treasure.

Our kids have made papier mache masks, terracota objects, bead jewels, finger and vegetable printing, face painting, murals and much more. The special children do face painting once a week and the results are really something!  The Khader children even painted pictures of two fairy tales for a Pantomime in Bedford (UK) and have made many drawings that were used for greeting cards. We have had a dance teacher come and work with the children. Praveen a young student from our Khader centre expressed his desire to learn singing and is now attending regular singing classes sponsored by a friend.

We have also held drawing competitions of specific themes, one of them being pollution. The results were truly impressive.

And that is not all. Some children of Khader and Okhla participated in photo workshops and mastered the art perfectly. They gave us some stunning pictures. I am sure that if I had time to scroll the tens of thousands of pictures I have, I would find more examples of the creative ventures of project why. It is simply that they got forgotten and ignored in the face of the dreaded exams and ensuing studies. We are truly all stars!

I have not seen Oh My God, the recent movie about something that touches all of us: religion! I believe  it shows us how from God lover we have become God fearing and how religion has become a business. I think most of realise this or am I being too optimist?

For the past 2 days, thousands and thousands from all walk of life are fervently washing feet of nine  little girls to mark the end of Durga puja. This is done as a mark of respect of the Goddess the symbol of the purest creative force. There are many interpretations of this ritual but one thing is certain: young girls are meant to be the image of the Goddess. So  they worshipped, venerated, idolized just for the few minutes of a ritual whose meaning everyone had forgotten. Come the said morning and in every Hindu home pressure cookers whistle, potatoes are peeled and cooked into a spicy dish and sweet halwa is eagerly stirred in large woks, flat breads are rolled and deep fried. The food is then served in nine containers and money or gifts as is the fashion now – pencil cases, lunch boxes, hair clips – are added.The feast for the Goddess(es) is ready. Every family has ‘booked’ their goddesses of the day – children of neighbours in slums and shanties, children of those who work for you and so on. The little girls are sat in a row, their feet are washed by all members of the family, then they are given the food and the gifts. Often little girls are seen going from home to home collecting their bounty of the day. It is not every day that girls are feted in India! No wonder project why classes are quasi empty on these days.

The status of women has known many mutations in India. From having equal status to men in ancient India their history has been eventful. It sad to learn that according to a recent study by Reuters India is the “fourth most dangerous country” in the world for women today. And though the are supposed to enjoy equal right to men the reality is different. In a male dominated society women suffer immensely. So is not hypocritical to worship little girls and the next moment forget that they are the image of the Goddess you venerate with so much false piety.

I for one do not wash feet of little girls once a year. I would rather continue in silence the work I do where I worship them in my own way every day by giving them what they need to fight for the rights so many of us have usurped.

To the idiosyncratic remark that stated that 90% of rapes are consensual, there was the added one that rapes are a conspiracy against the ruling party. I cannot begin to imagine where all this will end. But what is reality is that rapes are continuing unabashedly. Yesterday a 50 year old was gang raped by 4 men. For a person of the female sex is do not matter what age you are: 15 months or 50, you still run the risk of being raped. And that is not all, the 62 year old rapist of the 13 year old child is now being shielded by his community by offering the victim’s family money. 35K is the price of innocence.

There is seems to be no justice for the innocent victims. Instead of immediate and punitive actions against the perpetrators, one what sees is shielding the rapist, finding ludicrous explanations ( consensual rape, eating chowmein), blaming the victim (the way she dresses, she drinks, she goes out at night etc) and so on. Everyone is on a single mission: protect the perpetrator! It is time to stop this nonsense. But how? That is the question.

What all the above shows is that in the mind of the law makers, protectors and enforcers rape is a trivial crime where the victim is a much if not more to blame than the perp.

When a little girl is born she has the same rights as her male counterparts. She has the right to live, to laugh, to play, to grow, to study, to work. She has the right to be loved, respected, cared for and protected. She has the right to dream about her morrows and to see them become reality. Sadly in India all these rights are usurped in the name of false honour, false morality and social mores made by a male dominated society. Her life is controlled by a series of males: her father, her brother, her husband and even her sons. She has not much say in anything. Is she steps out of the line drawn by these male relatives she is reigned in and even branded. Her dreams remain dreams shared with no one.

When she hurts or is hurt by anyone, she is far too often held responsible and ordered to step back in line. The extreme instance is rape where the first accusation falls on her: why did she step out, why did she wear ‘revealing’ clothes, why did she stay out late etc. She seems to be the custodian not only of her family’s honour but of the honour of the entire world.

Trivialising rape is the highest insult to women. It is time this stopped!

Today is the first day of Navratri or the nine nights in which we will worship the Goddess Durga .We will worship her in each and every form from the young Kumari, to Parvati to Kali to Lakshmi to Saraswati and along the way we will beseech her to protect us, to give us wealth and prosperity and knowledge and wisdom. We will end our devotion by worshipping nine little girls whose feet we will wash and who will endow with gifts and blessings. The we I refer to here is all of us Hindus, men and women. It is also all those who normally deride and dismiss women, treat them like second class citizens, who rape them with impunity, who use and abuse them without mercy, who even kill them in the womb! The disparity between the way we revere our Goddesses and treat our women every day is glaring.  Is it not hypocritical?

True some of us do not feel or act that way but do we hot keep strangely mum and behave like ostriches when aberrations occur? What right do we have to worship Goddess Durga if we are unable to protect girls and women? Why should she bestow anything on us when we forget once the nine nights have passed that she resides in every woman?

For the next none nights Durga will be adored and worshiped in every way imaginable. On the eight or night day nine little girls will also be worshipped as many will wash their feet as a mark of respect to the Goddess, each one symbolising one of the Goddess. Yet once the festivities over these very little girls will go back to the reality of not being wanted and treated respect and love. Every little girl has the right to ask why she is being worshipped once a year and abused for the rest of time.

I guess I am a believer though I cannot accept to be part of a show that his to say the last hypocritical. I have in days gone by been guilty of falling prey to the lure of ritualism. I guess it had to be a rite of passage, mercifully a short one. I was blessed to have had the privilege of entering a world that may seem alien to many but that brought straight back to reality and showed me the way I sought.

Today I do not go seeking the elusive God I believe in, in temples and faraway pilgrimage sites. I see Her everyday in the eyes of the little children who have been forgotten by all, and yet who open their hearts to anyone fortunate enough to look into their eyes with their hearts.

For the next nine days I will worship all the little project why girls and seek protection, prosperity and wisdom. 

The horror lasted for 3 months. Just trying to imagine what she must have gone through day after day makes my blood run cold. I also cannot fathom what was the tipping point that made her break her silence and tell her father. I must salute the father who believed his child and contacted the police. The rape was confirmed. But the outcome was not what one would expect from a civilised society. The victim was arrested but one wonders for how long but the school authorities and the local political entity decided to expel the child and her sisters!

Yes you read right, the victim, the girl who had been repeatedly raped was thrown out of school. This is justice India style. Hang your head in shame or speak out the choice is yours. But this is a reality and we cannot run away from it. A young rape victim has been denied her right to education because she was raped. How that works is impossible for me to comprehend. Even the warped and skewed logic of a politician who wants us to believe that 90% rapes are consensual cannot be applied here. The victim was 13, the rapist 62. In any law book it is a rape!

My mind travels back some 7 or 8 years when I was faced with a similar situation. In one of our primary classes a girl always sat alone, never next to the others. No one spoke to her. She came and went alone. She was about 12 or 13. When I enquired upon the reason of such behavior I was shocked to hear that she had been raped when she was 3 year old, the rapist was her neighbour. he had been caught and served a sentence and was freed. But the girl had been branded forever. We took matters in hand and ensured that she was accepted by her class mates. I even got her to learn karate and she was a star. Slowly she regained her lost confidence but sadly her mother died and the family moved away. I wonder where she is now. I just hope and pray she is safe.

How long will this terrible injustice last? When will we gather the strength to say enough is enough! I feel so helpless.

Are we responsible for the arrogance of our law makers and rulers is the question any self respecting India should ask him/herself in the wake of the spate of incidents that have occurred in the past 48 hours or so. Let us begin with the premise I hope still holds true. We are a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. We are the ones who elect our representatives both in Parliament and State Assemblies. These representatives are supposed to protect our interest and  put forth our views. I guess we are all agree on this. So in the best case scenario representatives should be a reflection of who we are and it is our responsibility to ensure that.

However the reality is quite different if we are to go by what happened recently. We are agree that rape is a heinous and loathsome crime. It is a crime against women and girls, the worst form of abuse you can imagine. No a political leader of the ruling party in a State that has seen an unacceptable number of rapes in the past month stated two days back that in 90% of cases rape was consensual! Please explain how rape can be consensual as I am unable to figure this one. The last rape was that of a 6 year old who was lured with a bar of chocolate and raped by three men. Now is accepting a chocolate consent to rape? And what about the 13 MONTH old that was raped yesterday! How can we hope that with such a mentality our politicians will take rape seriously and get the victims justice they deserve and hope for. As I write these words, a Khap Panchayat, read Kangaroo court- is busy discussing lowering marriage age for girls to solve the rape problem. It is never the man’s fault, is it?

Let us move on. Some days back a senior politician and Minister insulted a priestess. The altercation was cost on camera and it was horrific to see how he abused the poor woman and ordered that she be locked up to teach her a lesson. Now Mr Minister there are laws in the land and no one can and should get locked up at the whim and fancy of anyone, let alone a person who can only aspire to the holds without the help of people just like the woman he was abusive to. It is a democracy and not your fiefdom.

But that is not all. You agree that an official needs to do his duty. The duty of a toll tax officer is to collect the toll tax. Now some people are exempted – why is that I do not know – and need to show proof of their identity. If I told you that one such exempted person – a Member of Parliament in the occurrence, the kind of bloke you and I are supposed to put there – chose to jump out of his car gun in hand and threatened to shoot one and all in true John Wayne style. Now wonder what would have happened if you and I had tried that!

And last but not the least, should you not like what an officer is doing and want it done your way, then kidnap him! Yes you read right! That is exactly what another Minister did recently. It is true that he has since resigned, but on the other hand no FIR has been registered against him.

So it seems that when we – and by we I mean voters – elect a representative we give license to shoot his mouth, license to insult and abuse, license to brandish a gun and maybe even kill and license to kidnap. Wow that is something I was not aware of.

But let us come to the main point. We are a democracy and a democracy can only function well when each and everyone of us exercise our right to vote freely and intelligently. We are proud of being a democracy and cherish the freedom it gives us. Then why is it that most of us – so called enlightened electorate – fail to go and vote. I too have been guilty of this crime, for crime it is. We have to accept responsibility and take our role as citizens seriously.

The recent spate of rapes in the state of Haryana – 13 in just one month – have once again brought the extreme vulnerability of women in our country to the fore. It is not just the crime that is heinous and reprehensible. What is more shocking is the reaction of the law makers and keepers. Last week a young sixteen year old girl was gang raped by four men. Not able to bear the shame, she set herself on fire and died. In another case the father of a rape victim committed suicide as we was not getting any justice.

Rape is an abhorrent crime to say the least. What makes it worst in our land is the fact that it is the victim that is put to trial. Some months back following another spate of rape the administration had come up with astonishing prevention measures: women should not be working after 8pm, and should wear appropriate clothes! This time the local village council leader as come up with an even more astounding solution to rape. He feels early marriage would put a stop to rapes.  “I believe this is happening because our youth are being badly influenced by cinema and television. I think that girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don’t need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur,“. Voila! Rape over! And that is not all, a political leader of the ruling party goes on to call rapes a conspiracy to defame the government. How that works is beyond my comprehension.

The bottom line is that in our country, where Goddesses are worshipped with passion and devotion women and girls are treated with utter contempt. If they are not killed in the womb then what awaits them is a nothing short of hell. As they have been branded as the keeper of the family’s honour they are divested of any form of freedom. Should anything untoward happen, they are the ones to bear the consequences. This is what the recent stories seem to tell. Rape is the worst form of crime where a man or many give themselves the right to use and abuse of a woman’s body. The tragedy in our land is that the onus of the aberration is squarely placed on the shoulders of the victim. They dress wrong, they watch the wrong movies, they have sexual needs that they need to fulfill being the latest accusation. How does all this apply to a minor who has been gang raped is a question begging to be answered.

It is sad that instead of being condemned by one and all, a reprehensible and depraved crime like rape becomes a political issue. I have no words to describe how it makes me feel. The country has a democratic system and an independent judiciary and the law is in the hands of judiciary and nobody else said one leader. We all know how the law works. We all know how humiliating the process is for the victim. Some countries have chemical castration of rapist. Maybe we too should consider that. It is time that women were treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

How many times have you seen your favourite film? I wonder. Personally I am not a great cine fan and rarely go to the movies. I did once, but cannot remember having seen a film more than 2 or at best 3 times.  Often the extra times were to please a friend and were not my cup a tea. I would have preferred spending the two yours reading. So if I told you that in the past few weeks I have seen a single film so many times that I have lost count you would not believe me. But this I a fact!

Now before I carry on I must admit that this new fad, if I can call it that, is courtesy the new man in my life: Agastya my grandson. This little man has changed my life in more ways than one and managed to make me do things I never dreamt I would. One of them being seeing a movie n times. It all began like this.

One day my husband showed the little fellow bits of Mamma Mia on his computer and the little one got hooked. After that day, every time he was allowed to watch the screen, he wanted to see Mamma Mia. I honestly thought he would get tired of seeing the same movie over and over. No way. So for the past month or more I was treated to Mamma Mia day in and day out. He would get up in the morning and even before saying Good Morning, would turn his endearing eyes to his grandpa and say ” Put Mamma Mia”and if the old man did not comply then he would turn to me and say ” Nana is not putting MM!” So MM it was early morning and MM became our good night song.

But that is not all, in between viewings of MM, I was made to discover other things: Doraemon and Chotta Bheem. I must confess I have never been a cartoon nut even in my younger days but lo and behold grandma had to get hooked on these two cartoons and rather than resist and turn my face around and pick a book, I decided to follow the little leader and watch these shows. I must say rather sheepishly that I got somewhat hooked and found myself following the stories. Utpal watches these shows too and never got me to follow them as the fleeting images I saw as I came in and out of the room were never enough to make me want to sit down and watch. But having to forcibly, well not quite, sit with Agy made me watch and enjoy the episodes. The endearing cat robot  Doraeomon comes or the daring little Chutki became part of my life too. Grandma had to rock!

My little boy flew away yesterday night after a last viewing of Mamma Mia. The house is so empty but my head is ringing with Abba songs. I am missing my little man. May be I should simply go to my room and watch Mamma Mia!

Square foot for square foot your maid’s rent is probably higher then yours. The rents for shanties and jhuggies across the capital have hit the roof. People are paying 30 rs a square foot for flimsy tenements not larger than 10 square feet with no bathroom, kitchen or running water. This fact was revealed in a study by the the School of Planning and Architecture’s (SPA) National Resource Centre.

We have experienced first hand the skyrocketing of rents over the past decade. Ten years ago you could still find a shanty for 500 rupees a month. Today the same space is nothing less than 2000 Rs. And migrants have no option but to rent such jhuggis are rooms in any part of the capital is nothing less than 5000 Rs a month. A poky, windowless room with an apology of a bathroom  goes for 5K in the Govindpuri lane where we are located. And Madanpur Khader village that till recently had rooms @ 1000 a month and provided shelter to migrants is undergoing a mutation. With medical tourism at its height and Apollo Hospital a stone’s throw away, landlords are evicting their poorer tenants, knocking off the old structures and erecting swanky guest houses and service flats for the relatives of long term patients. It is a roaring business with many takers. The erstwhile tenants are now running helter skelter to find alternative accommodation in a city that has none.

We may turn up our noses in disdain and even disgust while passing through a shanty town. We may feel that such aberrations have no place in a city like ours. But have we ever stopped to think as to why this has occurred? And above all do we realise the strong link that binds us to the inhabitants of these shanties. But let us begin with the first statement: how and why have we reached this situation. Have you ever wondered if our city has adequate provisions for housing its poor? Big cities normally have poorer quarters with high rises. We have zilch. Many years back private houses had the ubiquitous servant quarter that were meant to house those working within the premises as well as their family. So your maid husband could be an plumber, electrician, carpenter or simply an employee in a shop. Then slowly the concept of large well constructed servant quarters was transformed as people redid their houses taking in the servant quarter space to make a new flat that could be rented. The servants were relegated to tiny rooms on the roof often with just an asbestos sheet to ward the heat or cold. The room was barely sufficient for one person.

When migrants came to Delhi  many many decades ago they looked for space to live. They often found  some vacant space and erected bamboo poles and a plastic sheet begin with. They knew the space was illegal and so did the authorities. But the later did not evict them as they saw a way of lining their pockets. The poor migrant had no option but to pay. When the numbers grew the political parties started looking at them as potential vote banks they needed to woo. They were given an identity in the  form of a voter’s card and soon became legal! This game carried on. The migrants felt emboldened and the flimsy structures were soon replaced by more concrete ones and then just as the rich did, they too decided to become landlords: roms were built on top of the one they lived in and rented to newcomers. This happened in every slum in the city from the larger ones and even the legal rehabilitation colonies to the tiny ones that often sprung up on small pieces of empty land across the city. These are the rooms that now fetch a hefty rent.

These places house the people who are the backbone of the city and as I said earlier people who are closely linked to us. The ones who carry out repairs or even build our homes, the ones who look after our every day needs and care for our very own, the ones who make our lives a tad easier. Have we ever stopped to think about where our maid  or our plumber lives? I think we should.

The shanties and hovels a large part of the city live in are homes to those who stay in them. I have been always impressed by the care taken in setting them up: the kitchen corner with shelves lined with gleaming utensils, the sole bed that always dons a bright cover, the school bags of the children that hang neatly in another corner and so on. The space is squeaky clean. I have visited many such homes and been warmly welcomed each and every time with smiles and warm cups of delicious tea.

But these living conditions are abysmal and appalling. Any city that expects any of its inhabitants to live in such conditions should hand its head in shame. The surroundings are dirty and often dangerous. Many such homes are build next to factories and often lower than the roads. Many factories discharge their chemical in the open drains where children often play.

It is time something was done for these people and time for the city to embrace its own with the dignity they deserve. But for that the Government would have to build proper housing. I do not think that is about to happen if we are to believe today’s headlines: Government plans to sell surplus land to ease fiscal crunch!

 Six years ago a supporter and friend asked me the following question: Excuse me saying this, but why don’t you sell this house.. imagine how many heart surgeries it would sponsor.  I answered the question then to the best of my ability stating that liquidating an asset, no matter now big was against the essence of pwhy. The question was disturbing to say the least and remained in my mind. Yesterday a very young volunteer asked me a similar question. His was perhaps less direct as he wanted to know whether I felt guilty staying in such a large house after seeing the conditions in which the children of pwhy lived.

Six years later I was on the rack again and though I gave him an answer I hope sounded sincere, I realised the need to address the question once again as I presume it is one that undoubtedly comes to many minds but often remains unsaid. Yes I live in a big house, this is an indubitable fact. The house was built by my parents and being their only child it came to me with a rider though. It was to be in my custody and then revert to my daughters after me. So legally it is not mine! But the question has a deeper meaning that needs to be addressed. I think what people want to know is whether I feel guilty living a privileged life or to put it in kinder words whether pwhy has changed my outlook and directions in life.

I have said loud and clear that for me pwhy is the repayment of  a debt. I realised how privileged I was when I visited my ancestral village in 1983. The village my family hails from is one of the most backward you can imagine. When I visited it it had no proper road access and none of its girls had been to school. Had my ancestor not left this village I too would have been uneducated, married in my teens, grandmother in my thirties. Instead there I was a diplomat’s daughter, smothered in luxury, highly educated and so on. That is when I realised that there had to be a big payback time. What it would be, I did not know then, but that it would happen was certain.

The years went by, but the feeling never left. I carried on with my responsibilities waiting for the opportune time. It dawned in 1998. My parents were gone, my children grown and my wandering the world done for once for all! I was in my late forties and felt it was time to sink roots and redeem my pledge. Pwhy was born.

I did not know what shape it would take. Only time would tell. And somehow from the very moment it too seed, it seemed as if destiny had it all chalked out. Every step was taking me in the right direction. When friends and well wishers tried to put a spoke in the wheel proclaiming that the task at hand was too huge, I retorted that all I wanted to do was change life.

But I am not here to tell the pwhy story. We are talking of guilt. Honestly I do not feel guilty about having a big house. It has been part of the plan. It is something I cannot change so I humbly accept it. But things have changed for me. And the biggest change has been that for the first time in my life I feel complete.

What has changed for me is that I am humbled each and everyday. Humbled by the love and generosity that has come my way, humbled by the miracles I see unfold, humbled by the love I am given in ample measure. 

Every morning my grandson Agastya comes with me to Project Why before setting off to his school. We land up at the gates of the Project roughly the same time as Radhey brings the special kids in his auto rickshaw. And almost every morning Radha is sitting in the rickshaw waiting for someone to pick her up and take her to class. Now Radha sits in the corner that is Agastya’s spot and normally when anyone sits in that corner, Agastya has a tantrum. You see no is meant to take Agastya’s spot be it in the rickshaw, the dining table or any space he has claimed. But strangely when he found Radha sitting in his spot, Agastya said nothing but simply went and sat beside her. He stared at her malformed legs for a long time, questions puzzling his tiny mind but said nothing. He simply gave her a huge smile. A teacher soon came and picked her up. She waved bye bye and Agatya waved back.

As we left the centre he asked me what had happened to her. Now what do you tell a 3 year old. How do you explain osteogenesis imperfecta to a toddler. How do you tell him that it is an incurable condition that will ultimately take the little girl away. So you do your best and simply say she is hurt, badly hurt. That is what I did. She was hurt and could not walk. He accepted my explanation but his face remained serious. I wonder what was going on in his head. After some time he simply said: but she will walk tomorrow.

Oh how I wish these innocent words coming from the mouth of a child could be true. What would we all not give up to see Radha walk. But the sad and bitter reality is that she will not, even the God of lesser beings cannot conjure this miracle.

Every morning as we set off for the centre my darling grandson asks me whether Radha will be there, in his spot. He looks forward to that brief encounter probably knowing without knowing that she special, truly special. And I take comfort in his words: but tomorrow she will walk knowing that that tomorrow will never come.

We will take a few blows, but do not throw us out of school are the chilling words many pwhy students told their teachers last week, a day after the High Court heard a petition on the abysmal plight of the schools they study in. The story goes like this.

For the past months or more children have been regularly complaining of the state of the schools they study in. From lack of basic facilities like toilets and drinking water to cramming of students in classes – in some cases 150 in a class meant for 50 -, from corporal punishment to teachers absenteeism, from broken ceilings to non functioning fans, the complaints were many each more shocking than the other. This was supposedly XXI st century India, the India our rulers would like to showcase as a glitzy and shining land, yet the accounts of these children seemed to be out of a Dickens’s novel. Moved by their concern I decided to get in touch with a lawyer friend known for his social activism. He asked me to bring the kids to his office in the High Court. The children shared their woes and were asked to write them down, get them signed by as many as possible and send them to the lawyer. Days passed and we kept waiting for the children’s letters but none came. Instead we got a litany of excuses. The penny dropped: the children were scared of writing their problems. It was time to act again and empower our kids

I rung the lawyer up and he told me he would come and talk to the children of their rights and organise a postcard campaign where children would be given postcards and would be urged to write their woes. The cards were to be addressed to the Chief Justice, Delhi High Court. So on a bright Sunday morning a post card campaign was organised in our women centre and heaps of children shared their concerns. It was touching to see them write what they had carried for so long in the hope that someone would hear. They has just one wish: to be able to study in the best conditions possible. The post cards were written and handed over and a few days later a petition was filed in court and heard by the Acting Chief Justice. The government was given 4 weeks to file their reply. The voice of voiceless children was finally heard.

But the feeling of achievement was short lived. The next day itself the furore of the school fell on these kids. A sample letter was written of the blackboard for all to copy. The letter said that an NGO – us I guess! – had plied them with toffees and biscuits and ‘forced’ them to write these letters. Some older kids were even beaten resulting in them saying: We will take a few blows, but do not throw us out of school ! The fear of being cut off the rolls loomed large.

We will take a few blows, but do not throw us out of school  are words one must ponder on as they reveal how much these children want their education. In spite of the fact that corporal punishment is against the law, they are willing to take some blows as long as they remain in school. The scare of being thrown out of school is used and abused by their teachers. They know they hold a trump card however unjust. I cannot but remember the young girl I found many years ago crying on her home from school. When I asked her what happened she told me had been beaten by her teacher. When I asked her why she replied she did not know. And how can I forget the secondary boys’s answer to my question: what would you change in your school? I would have bet my last rupee that their answer would be: we would stop the beating. Imagine my schock when they said: we would tell the child the reason for which he was receiving a beating. Acceptance of beating without reason is nothing short of scary. And nothing has changed over the past 12 years. Kids are still being beaten in schools and have simply learnt to accept it. How would this translate in their adulthood is question begging to be asked.

The state of Government run schools has deteriorated over the years. This is sad but true. If one side of the spectrum has witnessed a proliferation of private schools of all shades and hue, the other has to live with degradation and decay. One wonders why as the State runs perfectly good schools like the Central Schools. Why then is not each and every school of the same as calibre as Central schools?

Today we are a city that prides itself of having an Ice Bar and Jimmy Choo and Louis Vuitton outlets. But in this very city an innumerable amount of bright and innocent children are being denied their right to a good education, the only way they could better their morrows. Is it no time to do something for them!

“Have the people stopped eating and drinking because of the drought?” is what an MLA on a junket said in his defence. Thirteen such MLAs are on a South American spree, many with their spouses and you and I are paying for it! Another MLA defended himself with these words: “There has been enough rain in my constituency and farmers are busy cultivating crops. Due to the recent rainfall, our canals are full and plantations are lush. So, I am rid of all guilt.” The cost per legislator is 600 000 Rs and on their way back they have a two day shopping stop in West Asia. These are the people WE elect to represent our needs and issues. I guess we bear some of the responsibility. The crassness of their remarks is nothing short of shocking. The study tour of course consists of Tango classes, a lesson in Mayan culture at Machu Pichu and discovering the Copacabana beach! All this whilst those who elected are busy surviving

This is one story.

There is another which is even more insensitive. At the London paralympics our athletes do not have coaches or escorts living with them in the village but officials and their wives/daughters are enjoying their stay in the games village! A wheelchair bound athlete needs an escort to help him gets dressed, go to the toilet and get ready for the event. But our officials do not understand that or should I say do not give two hoots. We all know how the disabled are treated in our country. I guess the paralympics are just one more option for regular junkets and not really an apportunity for brave athletes.

In a country where 5000 children die every day of malnutrition do we need to pay for junkets for our elected representatives and officials. A question that needs to be answered but who will?

The Human Development Report of 2011 states that Gujarat is the worst among the high per-capita states in the country in fighting malnutrition. The state is placed even below Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. That the CM of such a state chooses to trivialise the issue of malnutrition is appalling, distressing and totally unacceptable. Malnutrition is not a lifestyle issue in India but a terrible failure of all concerned and something we that should make our heads hang in shame. The Gujarat statistics are nothing to be proud of: 41% children underweight, 55% women anemic! That the CM wants the world to believe that this is due to vegetarianism or beauty consciousness is sickening.

5000 children die every day of malnutrition! They are all under 5 and in no way beauty or figure conscious. The 415 underweight children of the state do not have the luxury of refusing a glass of milk. They never get any!

No Chief Minister or any other political or administrative person has the right to pooh pooh malnutrition. Malnutrition is undoubtedly something every self respecting Indian should be ashamed of.

 At the recently held convocation of IIT Bombay the Prime Minsiter said that “his heart is pained” by the high cut-offs for college admissions. “We are placing limits on opportunities for our youth,” he said. I agree one hundred per cent!

Yet there is another statistics I wish our honourable PM also looked. I am referring to the abysmally low figure needed to pass an examination, and particularly the class XII Boards. It is just thirty three percent! You will be surprised to know that in some Government schools the curriculum is not completed because as I was candidly told by a school principal: all they need is 33% we cover 40% of the curriculum. I was to say the least speechless. So you need over 90% to accede to a good and affordable university education but all you need is 33% to pass your secondary school examination.

The equation is skewed and incomprehensible. The only ‘logical’ explanation seems to be that is that University education is not for the poor. Le me elucidate. A first generation learner is often the child of poor illiterate or semi literate parents. She or he has no option but to study in a state run school. The state run school often offers second class education and with the no fail policy till class VII the child goes from class to class till class VIII! Then many of them muddle through and can manage a secondary school certificate with 33%. Not an impossible task as she/he is a master at learning by rote and has access to a plethora of badly written guide books that do the job. Now armed with the precious certificate the student does not have many options is she or he wants to go for further studies. The 90%+ institutions are closed to her. The private institutions are out of their reach. Study aboard is an impossibility. The student may get admission in an evening course or a correspondence or distance course but these are of little value.

33% does not even give you the possibility to apply for a job as most of them ask a minimum of 50%. Your parents who do not comprehend the meaning and importance of marks are baffled at the fact that the education they gave you at great sacrifice and with great hope is not opening the doors they hoped for. What is so frustating is that that majority of these kids CAN do well if given the chance. For the past 12 years a few hours at pwhy has enabled many of these kids to get marks in the 70s and even 80s. But even those are not enough to get a good college education.

So Mr Prime Minister you should only be pained at the cut off marks for admission in higher education institutions but shocked at the abysmally low pass marks your system adheres to. I know that everyone in the country cannot aspire to higher education but the very Right to Education that you have given to all the children of India should at least help them break the cycle of poverty in which they were born. And talking of shocking figures why is it that this very RTE stops at the age of 14 when a child is nowhere finishing his school even if he or she is bright and talented. So 14 is another figure that should pain you. Your system does not even grant her/him the right to complete school. Moreover with the poor quality of education offered this fourteen year  old has few doors open to her/him.

Your speech sounds very rosy and hopeful when you state: Our government has opened new IITs, new IIMs and new institutions for teaching and research in the sciences. We have increased investment in school education. We have increased scholarships for the disadvantaged sections of our society. We have set up new institutions in different parts of the country so that our children can get the best education available closer home. The ground reality is something else! The new IIMs and IITs are again for the the chosen few.

As stated earlier, higher education is not for everyone. But at the same time opportunities should be given to one and all. At present the school education we are giving is worthless. It cannot give any job opportunity. In some countries skill are imparted at an early stage and students can opt for a school leaving format that introduces the candidate to the work environment whilst still in school. The Bac en Alternance offered in France has the student working for part of the week and studying in school for the remaining days. So a student interested in catering would be working in a kitchen for 3 days and studying for the remaining 3. Once he or she has passed the final examination the student can apply for a apprenticeship in the chosen field and work her/his way up. A wide range of options are open to her/him. Skills like plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, beautician, stitching and tailoring etc should be introduced early so that at the end of school the student is ready for employment. Unless some such option is created education in India will remain useless and futile.

So there many statistics that should disturb anyone who holds the interest of children at heart, specially the PM.