I thought that nothing could hurt, anger, sadden and enrage me more then the destruction of the homes of my Lohar friends courtesy the Commonwealth Games. But that was not to be. The next morning an article tucked away in the inside page of a leading newspaper bore this headline: Flood victims camping near Village to be moved soon. Needless to say I began to read and saw it referred to the destruction of a slum school on the river bed close to the d***** Games village, something that had been written about even in a leading British daily. To put things in context the flood plain of the Yamuna river, where the Games Village has been constructed in spite of much opposition, is home to many families from time immemorial. Normally when the monsoons come and the plain gets flooded, they move their meagre belongings and camp on the main road waiting for the waters to recede. This year however the rains have been abundant and the place waterlogged and not likely to dry up soon. Some days back the little school that had been set up for the children of these families was raised citing security as the reason for such an aberration. Wonder what threat a handful of slum kids studying in a school could pose? Now it has been decided by the powers that be that these families cannot move back into their homes, even if the water recede as the whole place has been sanitised for the Games. Infuriating enough, isn’t it?

Wait a little, this is still not what made me see red. The article also quotes an official of our city and I will reproduce the quote verbatim: The Yamuna is showing no signs of ebbing and water in the flooded areas will not go down till the river recedes. This timer however we cannot wait for the water to go down so that the residents are able to go back since that will pose a security threat, They also cannot be allowed to remain on the main road since they will spoil the image of the city we are trying to portray.

Enough is enough, at least for me. I wonder though how long will civil society take to finally react and express their outrage. That a school is destroyed presumably because it poses a security threat to a highly protected area is bad enough but that citizens of this city are branded as party poopers is shocking. The people the official mentions with such disdain and contempt probably helped build the games extravaganza or grow the vegetables you and I relish every day. Today they are branded as outcasts and have become non grata like the beggars, the roadside cobblers, the street vendors, the horse cart owners, in a word like all the little people who are the real heart and soul of our city. The official at least had the honesty to spout the truth: they spoil the image of the city that he and his ilk are trying to portray.

Off with their heads or let us brush them under the carpet have been the real motto of these Games. But how can one do away with reality. It is an accepted fact, even by the officials and their ilk, that over 40% of our country is poor. So I ask how much of them can you hide. And if you are so embarrassed by them, then why have you not done anything till now to better their lot starting with providing them let us say better housing, better schools, better health care. Need I remind you that they too are protected by the same Constitution as you, and enjoy the same rights. The school you destroyed had been set up by a farmer couple for the 200 odd kids of the area as the closest state run school was 3 kilometers away! The couple was simply restoring the usurped rights of these children.

They will spoil the image of the city we are trying to portray are words that I cannot swallow. Who is the they! The answer is simple it is over 40 % of our fellow country men. As an activist said in the mentioned article: The urban development model followed in Delhi is all about the entitlements of the rich and not the poor since it is heavily loaded in favour of the propertied and the salaried classes, before sarcastically adding: Those who do not own property have been completely excluded from Delhi’s Master Plan. Let me take the sarcasm further and ask whether we are reay and willing to iron our own clothes, wash our laundry, repair our fuse istead of rushing to call the local electrician and so on, because the they we are treating with such contempt are the very ones who make our lives easier! Where are we going, can anyone tell me?

Delhi is getting a face lift courtesy the games! But there is a rider: only certain parts are being dolled out, the ones where the hallowed feet of the foreign guests will tread. And by the way during the games auto rickshaws will not be allowed to ply on certain routes. There goes our preferred and only mode of transport. Guess what: we will be grounded! That is not all during the games we common citizens will only be allowed to use half a road! There are even rumours that the dreaded section 144 – Joining unlawful assembly armed with deadly weapon – may be imposed on the lane reserved for the Games. Needless to say many are up in arms! For the state the Games are nothing less than a war that needs to be fought and won. Wonder who the enemy is? Let me try and guess: it is we, humble mortals, who still have a heart that beats in the right place and a modicum of honesty left.

I started writing about the Games way back in 2008 when the first slums began getting relocated and kept on writing trying to highlight the issues – the end of street food, the construction of the village on the flood plain of the Yamuna, the end of horse carts, flower markets, the wishing away of beggars, the obliteration of the poor, the multiple aberrations that spelt doom for those who were born on the wrong side of the fence. I wrote about the child labour on sites, the abysmal living conditions of the workers, the plight of beggars and so on. I guess I am who I am and what mattered to me was the terrible human tragedy that was slowly unfolding in front of our helpless eyes. The final blow came with the destruction of the homes of my dear Lohar friends. The sense of loss was indescribable.

Along way came the news of corruption and boy it was a big one. The crores spent on balloons, toilet paper, loos et al. It was comforting to see that many took up the cudgels and added their voice to mine. And then the Gods too lend their hand: it rained like never before and in a city dug to the hilt the dreaded Aedes mosquito proliferated and dengue invited itself to the Games. Wonder whether our masters of corruption will be able to bribe the beast? Maybe for once they will meet their nemesis. I believe special insecticides are being flown from other lands to stop the menace. Needless to say all the spraying is being done in places where the games guest will abide. In the rest of the city people are coping with dengue as best they can. As for the rains I guess soon yagnas and prayers will begin in earnest to appease the rain Gods, But who will appease the Gods of lesser beings?

The games are around the corner. The 60 crores balloon is up in the air, a stark reminder of days to come. We all need to survive the next 30 days as best we can. There is no joy in our hearts, how can their be…

As Neruda wrote… come and see the blood on our streets!

The book sat on my shelf for many weeks. It had been written by a friend I admire. I had been meaning to read it but somehow never found the time or hindsight I think that the right moment had not dawned. It did today a day after all the hullabaloo on the grain wastage that rocked our Parliament yesterday. Finally an outrage on the unbelievable amount of grains rotting whilst children die every day for want of food.

Her account on the plight of the Sahariya tribe where children die of hunger by the hour is heart wrenching. She writes: I have been thinking ever since. About comments from administration officials on the Sahariya ‘culture’ of dying. About pregnant women who chew bits of gum plucked of gum trees trying to kill hunger pangs. About women who have not eaten for three days giving birth alone in dark hovels, knowing their breasts are dry. About the dismissive assistant in the nutritional rehabilitation center who said that Sahariya women hardly deserve the state’s help, because they smoke beedis. About Lakshmi, and how she was lighter than my purse. About a state that promises handouts to a group of people who are clearly on the brink, and then fails to deliver. Is this what you call being squeezed off the map?

Squeezed out of the map. The words struck a painful chord. Is this not what is happening not only to he Sahariyas but to everyone born on the other side of an invisible fence. It seems that our state is squeezing them off the map. True that this very State has fab sounding programmes designed to help the poor, alleviate hunger, send children to school and more but this is all a wily and insidious head fake: you see these programmes are actually meant to line bottomless pockets!

But let us get back to yesterday and the rotting grain saga. Why does it take a supreme court order for our rulers and administrators to realise that grains should not be left to rot and is better given to those who are hungry. Do you have to be a rocket scientist to know that grain left outside will eventually rot? Now those in power are busy quibbling about semantics between the word suggestion and order while more grain is rotting. And why does the Minister have to have the order in hand to begin to act. It was also revealed in a debate on TV that in Punjab granaries are full of perfectly edible rice but that this is not being given to the poor as it is 6 and not 5 % broken and rules cannot be broken. If nothing is done then where will the new crop go. You guessed right in the open and allowed to rot and a child will die of hunger every 8.7804 minute. It is all a matter of squeezing them off the map. No one seems to care.

This squeeze game is being played out surreptitiously in front of our eyes but we seem to have lots the capacity to see. Promises are made and never delivered. The squeeze game is in full swing each time someone loses his livelihood, when a family loses its home and the promised one never materialises: the list is endless. And to be part of this game you just have to be born on the other side of the fence. There is no winner or loser, the aim is simply to squeeze out whoever gets in the way and there are no rules, anything goes.

You want to build a factory, you squeeze out those who live on the land you covet, you want to beautify your city you squeeze out those who live on the place you need, you want to build a parking lot, a mall, you squeeze out part of a school and so on.

So the grain will not reach the poor because they need to be squeezed out. Pulling them on to the other side is not part of the game. I wish it were.

Note: The book I refer too is Known Turf by Annie Zaidi. Do read it.

Our Chief Minister is now praying for the success of the games and urges to pray too. And what should we pray for? I only keep praying that we won’t let the country down says she. But dear lady who is the we, kindly don’t include us common citizens as we have not let the country down.

A befitting answer to her plea was given by author Chetan Bhagat in an article entitled Please don’t cheer for the 2010 loot-fest. Do read the article. It echoes much of what many of us feel. He writes: The CWG is an amazing opportunity because all Indians have been robbed at the same time. Add to that the fact that the government is desperate to save face. Now is when we can get them. And the way to do it is simply what the father of our nation pioneered in his time — non-cooperation. Yes, and i’ve deliberated long before saying this — do not watch these Games.

But let us get back to the prayers we have been solicited to offer by none other than the CEO of our city. What do you want us to pray for I ask again? For the success of what can best be termed as the most obnoxious display of corruption. For the success of the best example of mismanagement. For having frittered away our heard earned money? For the years we will have to toil to pay for your misdeeds? Do I have to pray for what you call national pride when the whole world is laughing at us? Do we have to pray for the rains to stop and the mosquitoes to vanish so that the corrupt Games can have their place in the sun?

You say we all have to pray for the success of the Games. I wonder who is this we! The ones who lost their homes and jobs? The ones who sleep hungry or die for want of a proper meal? The ones who fight each day simply to survive? I am at a loss.

Yes I will pray Ma’am but not for the success of the Games. I will pray in the hope that no child ever sleeps hungry in my country, that every one has a roof on his head, that every child goes to school. I will pray for the Heaven of Freedom that Tagore dreamt of. But I will not just pray I will continue to do my tiny bit to ensure that one day this does happen.

The day did dawn. The lohar camp was raised to the ground courtesy the commonwealth games. And this time we knew it would not be allowed to be rebuilt no matter how large the tithe. The camp had been in existence for over 35 years. Over time it had acquired what we could rightly call civic recognition: a postal address – Maharaha Pratap Camp -, ration cards and voter’s ID card for all its inhabitants, electricity etc. Over the years promises were made by all and sundry – politicians, social do gooders, administrators – that the camp would be relocated and its inhabitants given proper plots with space to carry on their trade. Let us not forget that these are nomads and nomads were promised rehabilitation by none other than our first Prime Minister. I would also like to add that in most other states they have been properly rehabilitated.

For the past 35 years they have lived in this camp. Children are born, they grow up and get married and have their own families. Sanjay and Vicky both teachers at project why were born in this very camp. Over the past 35 years their camp has been raised regularly and then allowed to be rebuilt after payment of an adequate bribe. It was almost a game that we too have watched from the wings helplessly as for almost five years we ran a small creche and primary outreach and got to know and admire this proud clan.

A few years back the head of the clan affectionately known as Tau – elder uncle – brought some papers to me. These were bits and pieces of a file, very official looking with green sheets and heaps of bureaucratic notings by senior officials. A quick look at the papers showed that a rehabilitation plan had been mooted and surveys done. The Lohars of Delhi should have got their place in the sun. But that was not to be. The plan got hijacked probably by land mafias as is always the case and the Lohars remained where they were. We decided to do something and try we did! A PIL was filed in the High Court and a case was also filed with the National Human Rights Commission. Had not the rights of these proud souls been hijacked with impunity. They had been used and abused by all and sundry: hungry politicians prowling for new vote banks, uncaring bureaucrats, greedy land grabbers and so on. No one seemed to care.

The Lohars continued to live with their head held high refusing to give up, their legendary resilience intact watching impassibly the will it won’t it game that was enacted in front of their tiring eyes. And somehow each time we thought the game was over, some extra time was doled out to meet some new wily agenda. Till yesterday when the final blow was dealt courtesy the commonwealth games and the tiny camp was finally destroyed forever. Our Lohar friends are now scattered all over this uncaring and insensitive city.

I will miss them. Over the years I had learnt to love and respect this proud people. I often found myself walking to their camp whenever I felt in need of a shot of optimism. I would spend hours over cups of tea talking to Tau and imbibing his age old wisdom. I would watch the beautiful children playing in the dust breathing the fumes of the cars revving up at the red light. Were they not children of Indian born with the same rights as others, then who had usurped and hijacked their rights! What could one do. The PIL in court was lost in translation.

Sanjay and Vicky have not come to the centre for the past few days. They are busy picking up the pieces of their shattered life and building a new one. I know they will succeed as they have the wisdom of the gypsies in their veins. I cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to have your home and life destroyed in front of your helpless eyes. I just feel angry and sad at the way those in power play with innocent souls and ultimately always win. Is this the India our freedom fighters fought and died for? I just think we have let them down. Is there a way out. I do not know.

How can we forget that for Rs 28,000 crore we could have established primary schools and health centres in tens of thousands of villages? Can we ignore this splurge the next time a malnourished child looks at us in the eye? writes Azim Premji in today’s morning paper. I have been saying this for quite some time. I hope that when an eminent personality echoes the same it would be heard. Then why do I have the uncanny feeling that it will not.

I fell of my chair when I heard a Member of Parliament and also an industrialist state on National TV that 80 000 Rs a month salary was no big deal! This was in the course of a debate on the raise in salaries for Parliamentarians. The MP felt that 80K a month was not such a big salary and wondered why it was being made into such an issue. I would like to remind our esteemed MP that the present minimum wage is about 5000 Rs a month and many across our country do not earn even that. According to recent statistics over 37.2 % of Indians live below the poverty line and 5000 children still die of malnutrition every day.

The question is not whether one should or should not hold international events. The question is one of priorities. And these seem to be totally skewed. But then we are missing the point: such events are wonderful ways of making money and these Games have given us ample proof of that. What is worrying however is the total lack of concern of those in power for what I call the other India. It almost seems as if for them it does not exist. Though if you care to look, it is at our very doorstep. Be it the malnourished child who taps on your car window, or the poor labourer toiling under the rain to meet some new impossible deadline.

The Games are an eye opener to all that is wrong in India. Anyone can see that but we seem to have lost our ability to do that. We are too inured, or perhaps too ensconced in our self created catatonia and unable to move when we should be screaming. If at nothing else than at least at the helium balloon hired at the cost of 40 crores for the opening ceremony, mind you in case you use it for the closing ceremony then you pay more! And let me remind you lest you have forgotten it is you and I and our children who will toil a lifetime to foot the bill. Yes I said let us at least scream at this wasteful expense as we seem to have lost our ability to do so when hundreds of thousands have lost their homes, their livelihood and more.

I have now words left.. I will simply quote Mr Premji again. He ends his article with the following: At times like these, it will serve our leaders well to recall Gandhiji’s talisman: “Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?”

Is anyone listening?

Sanjay did not come to the project yesterday. The reason: an eviction notice by the Municipality. Sanjay is a Lohar who lives in what is known as the Maharana Pratap Camp but is actually a motley assortment of 40 ramshackle tenements made of plastic sheets and tarpaulin. The Camp has been in existence for 3o years and Sanjay was born there and for the last 30 years there have been innumerable evictions notices. Along the way the camp gained respectability and recognition with a postal address and voter Id cards for its residents: you see they were after all a sizable vote bank. As for the eviction notices, they were warded away with a few coins. It was almost a game being played to perfection, with every protagonist playing its role faultlessly. This by the way is a play running in many locations across our city. However this time there was a new entrant in the plot: the Commonwealth Games and it seemed that this time the denouement could be different.

Sanjay to say the least was definitely worried. Would this eviction be for real? The red letter day dawned and passed. A hurried visit to the local politicos revealed that perhaps the camp would be saved and the ludicrous idea of hiding it, the one mooted by our Chief Secretary, be enforced. The camp would be hidden not behind bamboo screens as once thought, but behind some kind of screen, maybe even publicity ones to rake in more moolah! The jury is still out on this one.

This incident raises once again the question of our attitude towards what we call, for want of a better word, the poor. With the advent of the Games this attitude has come out of the closet and is out in the open. We are ashamed of our poor and yet unable or rather unwilling to address the situation and find lasting solutions. We just want to brush the problem under the carpet and hope it goes away.

A TV show aired yesterday tried to debate the issue. Sadly most participants did not get down to addressing the real issue but simply tried to defend their position rather unconvincingly. The debate was on the lack of concern of the middle class towards what was termed as the other India. It actually became a weak defense on the said lack of concern. This is the sad reality. We have lost our heart and soul in our quest for riches. Yet we forget that to acquire these very riches we need the other India be it to construct our new homes and malls or simply to make our every day life easier and better.

The question that begs to be asked is how long will the other India remain silent? How long are we going to simply ignore the facts that glare at us: children dying of malnutrition, people living in inhumane conditions, farmers committing suicide: the list is endless. It is time we addressed these issues if we want our good times to continue. As one participant tried to say: we need to empower the poor and we need to do it now.

The last few weeks have been replete with stories of corruption in the CWG. Yet nothing much was said about the people who lost their homes and livelihood, about the children who worked on construction sites, about the labourers who lost their lives. They do not make news. Nor does Sanjay and his kin. They may lose their homes or may be hidden behind a screen as we are too embarrassed to accept their existence. And after the games the screens will be removed and the eviction game will resume after a brief interruption.

Today, almost every child in our country has access to primary education. It is our endeavour that every child, irrespective of whether he is rich or poor and which section of the society he belongs to, should be given an education that enables him to realize his potential and makes him a responsible citizen of our country. These words were part of the Prime Minister’s address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on India 63rd Independence day.

How I wish this were true! Sadly it is not so.

Allow me to share a story with you, one that is true. It happened on August 14th 2010, just a day before our Prime Minister delivered his speech. We had gone to the I Day celebrations of the children’s boarding school to be part of the festivities which were to end with the launch of a Literacy programme in a nearby slum cluster. We were very excited as this is the very area where God willing planet why will one day be seated. The rain Gods were bountiful on that cloudy morning and by the time we reached the slum cluster it was pouring the proverbial cats and dogs. The programme was to be launched in the tiny roofless community centre of the cluster where a small tent had been erected.

A few days earlier someone had visited the cluster and made a list of children interested in joining the programme. The names of around 40 children figured on that piece of paper and they were to receive a small token: a notebook and some pencils in a smart plastic folder. The show began. The flimsy tent was not able to hold the rain and soon the piece of paper was soaked and the names washed away. This was almost providential as we soon realised that there were not 40 but hundreds of children in the small tent with the same amount outside. Children of all ages. I was moved to tears when a young girl, about 16 or so, who looked married also held out her hand and said she too wanted to study! The books and pencils were soon outnumbered by the little hands held out in anticipation.

I moved away and started talking to the parents. I was soon told that most of the children did not go to school though the parents were keen they do. The reason :the sole municipal school in the vicinity had more than 100 kids in each class and even an illiterate parent was aware of the fact that no learning could happen in such abysmal conditions. Children passed from class to class without any learning! This was the situation a day before the PM’s speech just a few kilometers away for the Red Fort. Where was the access to primary education the PM announced with such confidence. Was this the way Independant India hoped children would realise their potential and become responsible citizens!

There is a universe of difference between what is on paper and the reality on the ground Mr Prime Minister. The children of your own capital city do not have access to education, let alone quality education and nothing seems to be really happening. It is time we did something. I do not know whether you will, but we at pwhy certainly will.

I was recently asked by a friend to make a selection of my blogs as he wanted to publish them in a a small ebook. I must candidly admit that I was thrilled. He also mentioned that maybe I should chose those where I talk of the God of lesser beings. There are over 1200 blogs and I did not quite know where to begin so the suggestion was more than welcome. My blogs are like children to me, some perhaps smarter, better looking and nicer than the other, but each one as precious. Thanks to the wonderful search tool I was able to zero in on the blogs in a jiffy. As I started sifting through them a smile on my lips, I began to wonder how, when and why the God of Lesser beings had come into my life and who he or she actually was.

I realised that there were moments in my last ten years when everything went suddenly dark for more reasons than one: it could be the total lack of funds that made me wonder how the next day would dawn, or the helplessness of a parent who needed help to save her dying child; or an absolutely incomprehensible and terrible situation that needed a solution that was not forthcoming. In those moments I needed help and had no one to turn and yet felt deep inside that there was somehow out there I could reach out to, someone who would rescue me. There were also times when I felt lost and dejected and ready to give up. At those times I needed someone to steer me back and give me the courage to carry on. And believe me there was someone who again heard and sent a miracle my way. But I never knew who it was.

One day little Utpal romped around the house a God mask on his face stating he was Hamoumam! At that instant I realised that he was the one who helped me, the God of Lesser beings, the one little boys prayed to and the one that heard prayers forbidding Gos did not, the one who did not need to be propitiated with costly offerings and complex rituals. The one who only heard those who saw with their hearts.

He has been the one who has walked by my side each and every day for the past ten years and has strangely become the only God I pray to!

There is a post waiting to be published but I have decided to hold on to it, maybe till just tomorrow, as I wanted today’s post to be one of celebration and joy and the post I refer to was to borrow the words of a friend the kind that drives one to utter despair. But today is Independence day and in spite of everything, it is a day we need to honour. I must admit that two days back I would have been at a complete loss to find something to share with you but the God of Lesser beings decided otherwise and gifted me another perfect day.

Normally Independence day and other such celebrations are closed door affairs in the children’s boarding school but this year the school decided to launch a Literacy Mission in the slums near the school and were graceful enough to ask us to associate ourselves with them. The mission was to be launched after the I day school festivities. We were on cloud nine as this is the very area where Planet Why was to be located. And I must admit to be privy to what happens in school on days where parents are not allowed was indeed a rare treat.

The day was cloudy and humid but we were hoping and against hope that the rains would not play spoil sport. We reached bright and early and were greeted by a walk of honour where children held little flags and wished us Happy I Day! Utpal was one of them and I was terribly proud to see him smile and wave his little flag. We were then escorted to the tent where the show would take place. I must admit that I was a little weary as I wondered how long we would have to wait for the proverbial chief guest. We were seated on the front row making us sort of VIPs! A short while later a young student came to ask us to come for the flag hoisting and we knew the real VVIPs had arrived. The flag was hoisted as the school band played the national anthem and then there was a march past.

Once we were again seated the show began. I must again admit that I was on the look out for our kids and wondered when they would appear on stage. We had seen some of them all dressed up and were eager to see them perform. There were a few items by the older children and then it was time for the little ones and there they were Aditya, Meher, Yash and little Manisha who had been in school for barely a month. They performed what is called an action song to perfection and my eyes misted – as they always seem to do in such occasions – as I watched them dance and sing. It was a touching petition to God and I think that the God of Lesser beings was moved too as the heavens opened and it started pouring. The tent came down and every one ran for cover. My heart stopped. What would happen now. What about all the kids who had not performed yet. I dared not ask, too scared of the answer I may receive. I just waited with bated breath for what would happen next.

We were soon asked to move to the Principal’s room where the customary ‘refreshment’ was hurriedly served. There was tea and cold drinks and an array of eats. Then some time later as we were still guessing what would happen next the good news: the show was to continue in the dining hall. I was truly impressed by the speed at which everything had been reorganised. The show as the young MC said must go on! Babli danced in a lively number on national integration and Vicky was part of an enthralling yoga display. A few more songs and a great performance by the school band closed the show. There were a few speeches and then it was time to go. But the day was not quite over as the school had planned to launch its literacy mission on that day.

It was still raining but we were all very excited. The school had identified a nearby slum cluster and children and parents were waiting in spite of the pelting rain. A distribution of pens and notebooks had been planned but soon we realised that there were far more children then notebooks! The number of children was overwhelming and each one wanted to be part of the programme. Parents were eager too as the only municipal school in the vicinity did not really seem to be working as there were more then 80 kids in each class and not much teaching, and many children just did not go to school.

The literacy programme envisaged by the school was to be held on week ends when students would come and teach their little underprivileged peers. It was undoubtedly a great idea but we knew from past experience that much more was required. What was needed was an outreach programme like the ones we ran and I knew what had to be done. We had to start one as soon a possible. My mind went on overdrive trying to work out the logistics: how to start, when to begin etc. And as innumerable thoughts crowded my mind the rain stopped and the sun came out and somehow I felt that the God of Lesser Beings smiling.

I had been given my very special I day gift, one that showed me that for me the show was no way near over.

Your email has made my day (and if forecasting is allowed, perhaps my whole life! 🙂 ) Your words have given me the confidence to steer my life in the direction that I have always wanted to take. These were the words that dropped into my inbox late last night. It all began the previous day with another email that began with the words: dear Maam’ji and immediately caught my eye. Maam’ji was hallowed ground. I read on. The mail came from a young woman engineer working in a big corporation. She wrote about herself: her work, her dreams but what again caught my eye were the following words: occasionally, I accompany my grandfather and my mother to an old age home and an orphanage…and perhaps those are the only moments that make my life worthwhile. My eyes misted: here was a young woman who could see with her heart! What she wanted was to come and work with us in our special section. My heart went out to her. I wrote back to tell her it would be an honour to have her with us. Her reply were the words that begin this post.

This was indeed a very special moment for me. Let me explain why. When I set out on the pwhy journey my primary objective was undoubtedly to help make a difference in the lives of those less privileged and I must admit that we have not fared badly. But unknown to many if not all, there were many head fakes consciously strewn along the way and one of them was to be able to touch hearts of those on the other side of the fence. I always hoped that our work would inspire young educated souls and act as a catalyst for change. This is perhaps why I have spent so much time writing these blogs that as you all know are not simply a journal of our activities, but have over time become passionate musings on what I like to call the real India. I know that often what I write is old news, but I somewhat believe, or would like to do so, that I anchor it into a different reality. The hope being that the words would touch some heart. They did touch one and that in itself is nothing short of a miracle. I did begin my journey with the words: If I can change one life it would have been worth it. So I feel vindicated and elated.

But nothing comes easy. Today a young woman is willing to steer her life in a new direction and though I feel almost euphoric I also know that the road she wants to travel is not an easy one.It is wrought with obstacles, humiliation and hurt. Though you do see the best of what life can offer in the eyes of a trusting child you also see the worst: the callousness of people, the lack of concern, the cynicism and more. And yet if you want to carry on you have to battle them all holding on to the memory of the child’s eyes. It is not easy. In spite of my years and grey hair I often did come to the verge of giving up but the little child who christened me Maam’ji ensured I did not. You see I held all his morrows in my hands.

Today a young woman seems to have entrusted her morrows to me. Was I not the one who dreamt of being a mentor. Well the day had dawned. I hope my friend Godji will once again show me the way.

Yesterday was PTM day. A day I have come to look forward to for more than reasons than one. First and foremost it is the one and almost only forced day off I find myself taking with regularity. Come what may, rain sunshine or biting cold,the monthly trip to the boarding school has to be made. It is also the only time when for a few hours I get off the spinning wheel for a few blessed moments. But above all it my special time with what I would like to call the real India, where no differences exist, where all children grow and learn together freed of all labels and tags. So you would have guessed by now it is a day I look forward to with glee and excitement.

The morning dawned and blissfully there was no rain. Had there been rain the journey would have been a nightmare given the present state of our city!. No it was a warm day but the breeze was cool and clouds were playing hide and seek with the sun. It was also a special day as my little grandson was coming with us making the day perfect. The previous day had been spent shopping for goodies – cookies, pizza and doughnuts – and some little knickknacks that good old Maam’ji is supposed to have in her bag. This time we were also accompanied by Steve our volunteer from Cambridge and Gary a photographer friend who also brought along his vintage camera with tripod and black sheet. By the time the clock struck 10, we were at the school gate.

Mamaji our trusted trustee had preceded us and we were greeted by all the 8 children almost at the gate. Seven beaming smiles and one tiny unsmiling face. That was Manisha who had just been in school for three weeks and was still a little lost. It was her first PTM after all. I remembered Utpal’s first PTM and his tearful face and murmured words: I want to go home with you. Today, three years later he was more interested in the boxes and bags we held and in sharing all the happenings of the last month. Boxes and bags were retrieved and it was soon time to make the customary rounds: each child’s class and then the hostel after which we would all sit down and break bread – oops I mean pizza together.

As usual walking from classroom to classroom was a pleasure as every child was given a glowing report by the respective teachers. By this time most of the children’s parents had joined us and little Manisha had broken down as she held tightly to her mommy’s hand and murmured the expected: I want to go home. At the hostel the children once again proudly showed off their little beds and cupboards and once again we expressed our wonder and admiration. It was all part of the act. We spent a few minutes with the warden and were given a list of missing items: Utpal had broken his sandals and Manisha needed some undergarments. After warm farewells and see you next month, it was time to let our hair down.

We found a place to sit under a tree and boxes were opened and goodies handed out. The pizza tasted like heaven because it was laced with so much joy and hope. The cookies fared well too. It was a blessed moment. A picture perfect glimpse of my real India. There was Mullaji, Meher’s Muslim cleric uncle and Yash’s christian dad. Then the rest of us from all walks of life and both sides of the usually impregnable walls. All labels and tags had been left outside the school gates. Here we were one, brought together by our children. You cannot imagine what a wonderful experience it was. I am getting goose bumps writing about it. It was the India of my dreams come to life for a fleeting spell. I could feel the presence of my friend the God of Lesser beings.

But all good things do and must come to an end or else we would turn complacent. After a fun photo session the antique way, one that even the Principal joined, it was time to go. The spell was broken and the world awaited us at the other side of the gates. The only thing we knew as that come September the magic would be recast.

I keep reading your blogs, and they keep me in touch with the real India wrote a friend recently. Made me wonder about what the real India really was. Is is it the one we desperately want to show the world, even if it means hiding all else. Or is it the one that lives in the the very places we so desperately want to hide?

In the recent weeks a saga has enfolded in front of our bewildered and helpless eyes. I refer to the now (ill) famed commonwealth games (CWG). Actually snippets of news about the aberrations committed in the name of the CWG had appeared time and again in the print media, often tucked away on an inside page, and we had not bothered. They did not make headline news and somehow did not touch us where it hurt. I mean the slums destroyed, the people rendered homeless, jobless et al, the shelters raised in the name of beautification, the children working on construction sites, the workers living in terrible conditions, the beggars being branded as criminals, the workers dying…! Somehow we were too blase or inured to even take note. It was only when we were told of instances of corruption that we somehow woke up from our slumber. Treadmills hired @ of 900 000 Rs for 45 days struck a chord in our jaded minds. How could that be, and it was our money to boot. So we needed answers about toilet paper rolls, umbrellas, and shady foreign deals. Homeless people were not up our street.

True there have been more than sufficient dodgy occurrences in these Games and the jury if out on them or so one would like to believe though it may well seem that the culprits will one again slime out as national (somewhat misplaced) honour is salvaged. Are we not masters at crisis management better knows as jugad. And then is public memory not dangerously short.

When the dust settles on the closing ceremony and the last light is switched off some realities will still remain. In a hard hitting article that I urge you to read an activist writes: In recent months, at least 100,000 of New Delhi’s 160,000 homeless people have been booted out of night shelters, many of which have been shut down or demolished in a bid to spruce up the city before the Commonwealth Games. Besides shutting down 22 of the city’s 46 night shelters, plans are afoot to raze slums, stamp out hundreds of street food vendors and deport 60,000 destitutes to their home states. Voluntary agencies have documented that as many as 300,000 more people may have been evicted from other parts of the city. Recent reports reveal that 44 slum clusters are being removed from around the roads and stadia where the athletes and the delegates to the games will travel and play. To add insult to injury, Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta unapologetically preened that since it is not possible to remove all the slums before the deadline, the government had decided to use bamboo screens to simply conceal the slums from sight.

Take a moment and ask yourself where these hundred of thousands of people have gone. What has become of them, of their families, their children. All in the name of beautifying a city for a 14 day show. Are the few medals we may or may not get enough to justify this? One look at the city makes you wonder whether anything will be beautified at all. I am sure we would get medals for numbers of potholes and dug roads if there were any. And do you hide slums behind bamboo screens or any wall simply to conceal them from sight as our Chief Secretary says. Slums are an intrinsic part of the city and if the powers that be are so ashamed of them why has nothing been done to house the city’s poor who Mr Chief Secretary are not second class citizens but precious vote banks nurtured over the years by hungry politicians. Off with their heads seems to be an easy way out but we are not in wonderland!

All this talk about national pride is making me balk. What national pride when 5000 children die of malnutrition every day and rains rots in the open for want of granaries. Something is terribly wrong. So I ask again what is the real India? Is it the one our heartless leaders want to showcase in spite of everything or is it the one beyond the bamboo screen. For me it is the later. The one that carries on living in spite of all odds and is a lesson in courage, dignity and above all forgiveness. We simply seem to have forsaken them.

Delhi is soon to lose one more of its wonderful landmarks, one that is as fleeting as its sunrise at dawn: its three flower markets. Wonder at whose alter they are being sacrificed? I do not know how many of you have actually imbibed the wonderful experience of this buzzing riot of colour and fragrance. It is truly unique and pure magic. Roads which are normally choked with fumes, get transformed into a carpet of shades and hues and then when the clock strikes nine, all vanishes just like Cinderella’s attire! And the flowers begin their journey to the four corners of our city: some into flower shops, others to roadside vendors, yet others to your doorstep in the shape of the daily garland that adores your house deity. These flowers touch the lives of each and everyone of us.

True this happens on public land, but so what. These markets add beauty to a city that is turning into a concrete jungle by the second. Could one not just legalise them? Soon these wonderful places will shut down and be shifted to the outskirts of the city next to, hold your breath, the meat wholesale market! And what about the livelihood of all those who work in these markets? How many families will be uprooted? But then who cares. The powers that rule this city have proved time and again that they are heartless. This is just one more instance. Will we for once raise our voices and fight for these markets or as is always the case, will we just sit and watch silently?

I am livid, hurt, upset and totally speechless. Yesterday night a news item was aired on a TV channel stating that an upmarket school in Bangalore labelled poor children as criminals. This aberration was stated in a circular sent to parents in the wake of the new Right to Education Act, which stipulates that all private schools have to admit 25% children from underprivileged backgrounds. The said circular referred to this and proclaimed that admitting poor students into the school will be detrimental to the psyche of those that are already studying there. It even added that such children beat up your child, smoke on the campus, misbehave with a girl or a teacher!

This is scary. First of all let us remember that the Act stipulates that children will be admitted in class I and thus I am at a total loss to even begin to comprehend what the school is trying to say. Do 6 year old children smoke or misbehave with girls? Wonder where. But that is not the real issue. The reality is it that this attitude though politically incorrect, is one that pervades the very fabric of our society. I have often mentioned it whenever I have talked of the elusive common school. My son cannot study in the same class as my driver’s child. Period! This is where the truth lies. We are feudal in our beliefs and will remain so. The 25% reservation was a sort of a back door entry into inclusive education and a semblance of a common school. The circular of the Bethany school just brings out in the open what many think but dare not express. In a way it is good this has come out in the open before the real implementation of the reservation policy. It shows how such back door and half hearted efforts are doomed to fail. Inclusion has to come the other way if it is to succeed. The so called school for the poor has to become a centre of excellence that will attract the so called rich and become a viable alternative to expensive private schools. You cannot make poor children second class citizens in their own country. They are full fledged citizens protected by the same Constitution and having the same right to Education than any child born on the other side of the invisible divide.

Now let us address the aberration of equating poor children to criminals. I urge you to look at the picture above. These 8 kids are form the most deprived homes you can imagine. They have been studying in an upmarket school for 2 years now. They are the pride of their school as they have excellent results, each topping its respective class, and are extremely well behaved. they do not misbehave with teachers, do not smoke or beta other kids. Need I say more.

For some time now, courtesy creaking bones and aching back, I have come to realise that the courting and honeymoon days of pwhy are over and that it is time to set the house in order. Sounds cryptic? Let me elucidate. For the past ten years I have been trying to answers many deafening whys and I must admit with a sense of pride that we had done quite well. Be it arresting the school drop outs, securing the morrows of the most wretched or empowering those no one believed in, we have done it all. Today over 500 school going children study in our various centres, over 100 toddlers and young souls are off the street and spend the day in a dafe environment, about 20 special children and young adults are learning to live with dignity and 3 of them even have a home and 8 children whose future was in jeopardy now study in a boarding school and who knows may one day take over the reins of pwhy!

But this can only happen if pwhy lives on or in other words if I can put my house in order. Can I, is the question I ask myself over and over again, a question that frightens me and keeps me awake many a night. Planet Why was the solution we came up with but one that is not an easy one as it requires a huge shot of funds before it can see the light of day. We have been working on it and still hope for the best. We have to remain optimists till the very end. Or so I thought till yesterday.

A phone call received yesterday almost brought the house crashing. Let me explain. Even at the worst moments, when accounts are empty and promises few, I have never thought of giving up. Yet, I almost did yesterday! The call was one of many that have been coming our way for the past few months from our bankers! Each ask an inane question, one that had been answered ad nauseum earlier and yet does not seem to register. Who is this donor? What is the money for? is this donor Indian? and so on. And each time one asks why these queries, pat comes the answer: a government requirement. When one seeks a written answer one gets an elusive reply. Mails remain unacknowledged. Everything is on done on phone, making us that much more vulnerable. How can I forget the terrible day when the same bank shut our accounts for no fault of ours: that day David took on Goliath.

To set the record straight we are an organisation that fulfils all Government stipulations and requirements. It is not easy to run a charitable organisation in India. But we do it with application and honesty and our work is there for all to see. Till recently all seemed to be on even keel. But the past months and the prying and almost humiliating questioning by small bank officials has been unbearable and this after the same bank did a due diligence on us recently in the name of new Government regulations! Then why the constant harassing with no reason given? Donations are sent back without informing us, and the pound continues mercilessly. For all these days I have been taking it with patience and restraint answering everything as best I could. How could I forget that hundreds of little souls depended on my endurance. But yesterday something snapped inside me and I was a breath away from throwing the gauntlet down and giving up. I had done enough in the past ten years, more than any and had earned my place in the sun. What no one else could so a large corporate bank had done! They had killed my spirit.

I must admit that it takes a lot to bring my new persona (post pwhy) down. I have battled authorities, slumlords and others and never batted an eyelid but somehow this constant pestering by small and petty bank officials hit me below the belt. It was nothing short of humiliating as you knew they did not have a clue about what was at stake. I was left wondering whether this was the due of anyone wanting to take the road less travelled. What made it worse was that I had made a trip to the bank last week and explained all. I was given the sleek and glib welcome you expect from huge multinational banks, with the expected ‘we will get back to you’ for every query asked. Needless to say they never got back!

As I write these words, I am trying to pick the pieces up and try and weave them together again hoping that no cracks will remain.

Courtesy the Commonwealth Games, Delhi India’s capital city is going to have 300 Heritage Toilets, whatever that means. Each will cost 1 crore (10 million) rupees. Of course, the municipal corporation is quick to add that these loos will be seven star and better than those in any five star hotel.

A recent article in a leading weekly highlights the abysmal state of public toilets in India. There are still places where women have to walk miles in the dark to relieve themselves. Girls drop out of schools because of the lack of toilets, and women from all walks of life master the art of holding on. I remember doing that too many a time. The article goes on to say that girls are now are making toilets an essential demand to a marriage proposal. I wonder how many no star loos could have been built with ten million times three hundred!

The Commonwealth Games seems to be the playground of the rich. The poor, even if they are over 50% of the population, are not welcome. A leading NGO has published a report on the games. I urge you to read it (available as PDF at the bottom of the link). The Games seem to have violated every right enshrined in our Constitution. Over 200 000 people – men, women and children have already been evicted and as I write these words, 44 slums will be demolished and 40 000 families rendered homeless to beautify the city!

Need I say more!

You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you wrote John Wooden. Yesterday was one such day. We were taking Manisha to boarding school. Manisha had spent the night at the foster care and was ready early morning, her little bag in tow. She was quiet though a little perplexed. I wondered what was going on in her little mind.

We were a little late and had to set off in a hurry. There were four adults and the tiny tiny girl. She sat in silence throughout the journey. When we reached school she followed in silence and sat in the office waiting for the next step. Soon it was time to write her entrance test and she did to the best of her ability. You must remember that this little girl’s world was till now restricted to a tiny hovel in a slum and to project why. And here she was today in a strange place, one larger than anything she had ever seen, one filled with strangers: enough to rattle anyone, let alone a little girl. But she did us proud and soon it was time to take the little bag and move to the hostel. She still sat in silence but when it was time to bid farewell, a few silent tears rolled on her little cheek. I sat bravely knowing that this day would change the tiny soul’s life and was a blessed one. The tears were just a small price we all had to pay.

Once Manisha was settled in what was to become her home for years to come, we set out looking for our little gang. The bell had just rung for morning refreshment and the children were gathering in the playground. Someone was sent out to gather the brood and soon we saw them all: Utpal, Babli, Nikhil, Aditya, Vicky, Meher and Yash. They all wore huge smiles on their faces . After a short photo session it was time to catch up, we knew we only had a few minutes till the end of recess bell rang. We also were aware of the fact that these were stolen moments as parents were not meant to be in school!

It was a perfect moment with each child trying to tell us something and frankly I must admit sheepishly that I cannot quite remember what was said. I just imbibed the mood, the joy, the smiles and laughter, the kid speak: all small ways in which these wonderful children were telling me that all was well and that they were happy. I felt blessed and rewarded beyond words. In their own inimitable way my incredible seven had repaid me for everything.

Enjoy some pictures of that perfect day

Last week’s torrential rains made even the most optimist soul wonder whether we would be ready for the much heralded Commonwealth games! Just an hour or so of good monsoon showers threw the city in total disarray: water logging everywhere and traffic snarls that lasted for hours. Even our quiet and placid backstreet was choker block with traffic and a friend parked outside my gate could not leave for over two hours. Now monsoon rains are predictable and every self respecting city should be prepared for them but you see with the CWG round the corner, our city is undergoing the mother of all face lift with every single road dug up.

The wisdom of hosting such games is debatable. I would urge you to read an article on this issue written by our former Sports Minister. The article may seem a tad rabid but it comes from a responsible person and quotes very trustworthy sources.

Those of you who read by blogs regularly know how I feel about the Games and how I have reacted every time some aberration or the other has taken place. But even I was shocked by some of the facts highlighted in this article and wondered at why our Government was so keen on hosting this 10 day extravaganza. Well I guess it is a matter of misplaced prestige by people who seem to have conveniently forgotten the realities that plague our land. So what began as an acceptable show soon became a free for all. Every good pavement dug up to make place for a new one was a simple means to line some pocket or the other and as everyone wanted its share of the pie, no road has been left undug, even the one on the tiny road I take every morning to reach work, one that no esteemed visitor to the CWG would ever drop by!

As an Indian I am in a fix. Much as I despise the whole Games saga and am appalled and upset at the way the poor of this city have been treated, I guess one would not like them to bring dishonour to the country as they say the show must go on and must go on well. It is a matter of pride however misplaced or false. But I also wonder why the press that has been so vocal on many issues of public interest has remained silent till date. Maybe they too are waiting for the Games to be over. I do hope they take up the issue after the last medal is won and the last guest seen off. As the article rigthly says: the only good that will come out of the Commonwealth Games would be a decision to never again bid for such games until every Indian child gets a minimum to eat, an assured basic education and a playground with trained coaches to discover the sportsperson in himself or herself. I second that!

The Commonwealth games claim one more victim, the tongas! The death knell has sounded for the age old horse drawn carriages that were part of Delhi’s heritage. True only a few remained, 200 or so, but the clack of their hooves and the sound of their bells were an intrinsic part of old Delhi, and added to its old time charm. In a few days they will all be laid to rest. I guess the day had to come but what is terrible is the way in which it all happened and is happening. The past should be allowed to fade out gently and gracefully. But that was not to be. You see the Commonwealth games are coming and someone had decreed that all that is not modern has to be sanitised: smells, sounds and sights: so street food is banned, street vendors are evicted, beggars are hidden, slums raised and tongas taken off the roads. Strangely the common denominator seems to be the poor! They simply have to be wished away.

Yet all that is thought ungainly, ugly and apparently un-modern and thus not worthy of the Game is also part and parcel of this city. They are what gives Delhi its soul and thus need to be handled with care and sensitivity. This so called cosmetic modernisation is unacceptable and yet we watch it helpless and hurting.

I know tongas would have had to go one day. But the way in which it has been done is nothing short of inhuman. The 200 odd tonga owners find their livelihood snatched from them overnight. They were promised a space with hawking rights. They were promised covered stalls, all that is being handed out to them is a pavement along a busy road, miles away from the place they called home. Some have been promised three wheelers or rickshaws but the author ties are still working out the rehabilitation plan! God knows how long it will take! Most of the tonga owners are old and have never done anything else but tend to their animals and drive their carriage. Asking them to become hawkers overnight is nothing short of inhuman. They all plan to sell their horses to a state across the border and then try and reinvent themselves.
Street vendors or horse carriages have never upset any foreign visitor, on the contrary they were part of every picture a tourist took and every memory they carried back. Modernisation does not mean dealing a fatal blow to tradition.

I am sure there were more humane ways of phasing out the 200 odd tongas left in this city. Maybe they could have been spruced up and made a tourist attraction as is the case in many cities the world over. My heart goes out to the tonga drivers today as they set out finding new ways to feed their families.

If you call 9811424877 in the mornings, you will be greeted by a very sweet Project Why, Namaste! Yes we have a new receptionist trainee and it is a very own Preeti from the special section. Preeti is one of our special girls!

Preeti walks on her hand as polio struck her when she was very young and by the time she came to us, her led muscles had become too atrophied for calipers. But that does not stop her from living life to its fullest dance and even be a karate kid!

So when we started dreaming planet why, where we had decided that we would walk the talk and show off our special children to one and all, we knew Preeti would be the one to man the reception desk. So now Preeti is making up for lost time, learning English, computers and training for a few hours a day at the project why office!

I must admit that there are times where my old bones and aching back nudge me to give up the daunting task of setting up planet why, but the soft Project Why, Namaste brought be back to order. Preeti deserves her place in the sun and I just have to see she gets it.

Yesterday I got my first monthly report from BiharWhy. I sat a long time reading the two neatly typed pages, my eyes moist and a lump in my throat. Was this really happening? Somehow it all seemed to good to be true but true it was. All the years spent trying to empower people and make them believe in themselves had borne fruit. Even the gentle prods on the wisdom of taking the road back home and reversing the migration seemed to have worked. It almost seemed I had come full circle, even if it was in a tiny way.

I was reminded of the umpteen staff meetings where I had urged my proteges to walk the extra mile and fly on their own wings, and where I had despaired at the sullen or at best blank looks I got and yet I had never given up. I guess that is the one thing I personally learnt at pwhy: never to give up!

Today I stood vindicated and somewhat liberated. BiharWhy was not some pipe dream of seeing the why spirit soar in the land of my ancestors but a vibrant reality. And Chandan who I must confess never seemed to be the one to take the lead and had made this dream come true. And as I read his report I saw that this quiet and sometimes sullen looking young man had learnt his lessons well. In a month he had managed a parents’ meeting (something we still battle with), filled admission forms, made time tables, held a painting competition and taken a monthly test! What warmed my heart was that he had even convinced 18 parents to come for adult education classes. Soon he will be starting computer classes and even stitching ones. Wow!

His report ended with a simple statement: We are taking the classes in Bihar why project without roof. The words were pregnant with meaning: they need a roof on their little heads and I hope you will help us give them one.

Please take some time and look at these pictures: they speak volumes.

Got a call yesterday. It was all the way form the USA. The caller was a passionate young Indian who wanted to make a difference. He had been deeply disturbed by the hunger that still prevailed across our land and wanted to help alleviate it. A young professional, he had quit his lucrative job to follow his heart. A young man after my own heart! He had been given my number from another young man who thinks with his heart and I was all ears.

We chatted for a few minutes and then the young man stated: My ambition is to somehow work to appease issues of hunger in Delhi. Wow! That was a stunner. Millions of images zipped through my mind and though some were undoubtedly of hunger per se, most were of the enormous amount of wasted food I have seen over the years I lived in this city: be it the humongous wastage one saw at up market dos – weddings, parties of all hues, religious functions etc – but more than that on the streets and garbage dumps in slums. I remember an instance a few years ago that made me write a blog entitled morning after! It was the site we saw the morning after a wedding that took place in our street and the wise words of a little girl who simply said: why did they not give the food to the cows.

Rewind to 1986. My first visit to an Indian village. It was a godforsaken village in the Jehanabad District of Bihar where I had gone for some developmental work. What surprised the most when I visited the home of one of the poorest family of this village was the pristine cleanliness of this small mud house: no flies, no garbage, no filth. Everything was spotless; it was the perfect example of recycling you could think of. The leftovers ,if there were any, and the vegetable peels were fed to the animals, the dung turned into cakes and used as fuel, the ashes used to clean the few utensils that sat sparkling on a small shelf, next to the Gods. Voila! No need for garbage bins, plastic bags and all the implements essential to urban life.

Forward to 2010 and after. On the sights that greets us each and every day is wasted food lying helter–skelter on the street, in the slum lanes, in garbage dumps, just about everywhere. You see there is always a wedding, a birthday party, a jagran, a religious do, you name it and it is there and at each and every venue there are heaps of plastic and thermacol plates still filled with good and clean food. It is just strewn on the ground till the cleaners sweep it away and carry it to the dump. But food is not only wasted during festivals or special occasions, it is wasted every day in every home as if throwing food was a way of stating that you had reached, that you had graduated from the rural to the urban status. It seemed the be the new mantra of success in the slums. I see it every day. In every home I go if it is meal time every member of a family will leave something on the plate. But come to think about it, this was not the case a few years back. In the same household no food was wasted and children were chided if they did not finish their plate. So what had changed.

The family in question had bettered its plight. More members had jobs now and thus the household income had taken a quantum leap. The advent of credit had enabled the family to buy two TVs, a refrigerator, coolers and many household items. In other words they had arrived. Their rural antecedents were laid to rest, the young adults of the family were all to the city born. The parents ere the only ones who still remembered the ways of village life with nostalgia and no one to listen.

From a people who worshiped food and deified it, we have turned into a nation that wastes with impunity and alacrity as we feel that we have all arrived! But have we? Look around and there are still people rummaging for food in garbage dumps but that is not all and believe it or not every 8.7 minutes a child dies of hunger while mounds of grains rot in the open. But we seem to have got inured to every and any thing. Have we really? I urge you to click on this link and look at the picture of a little three year old from Madhya Pradesh who weighs the same as a three month old healthy baby. It is not trick photography but stark reality in a land where 3000 children a day die of malnutrition. The picture of little Neeraj should be enough to make us think twice before we throw any food in the future. But will it? I do not know. It seems we have put our conscience on hold while we are busy arriving!

In the light of the above I wonder what to answer my young friend when he writes : My ambition is to somehow work to appease issues of hunger in Delhi. True there is hunger in Delhi but there is more wastage and disrespect for food then ever before. Should we mot address those issues, or at least find a way to address them first. I am at a loss.

After more than ten years of working with the less privileged, I often think I have seen it all and am now inured to things. But that is not quite so. Yesterday we went to Manisha‘s home to talk to her mom about her going to boarding school. Yes you rad right our little Alien is off to boarding school sooner than we thought! We had hoped to catch her mom at lunch time but that was not to be as she was still out picking rags and was not expected till late afternoon. However the little home was not left unattended as Sonu, Manisha’s elder sister, was in charge. She is just eight years old.

Sonu welcomed us with a serious smile and asked us to sit down. We did and looked around.

Manisha’s home is not bigger than a store room and yet what struck us was that it was spotlessly clean and well organised. Everything seemed to have a place be it the little school bags in one corner or the mom’s sarees that hung in another. A tiny plank set on two bricks in the third corner was the kitchen and well organised. To beat the incredible heat a table fan was tied to the wooden beam that held the low tin roof of the house in place. One could see that in spite of all odds Manisha’s mom had tried to give the best she could to her children. I cannot find the words to describe what we felt: awe, respect, bewilderment laced with anger and even helplessness. This was the world of the survivor, one we could only salute.

We sat a while talking to Sonu. She told us she was very happy Manisha would be going to a big school and then little a true little mommy she turned to Manisha and told her quietly in a tone way beyond her years: you must study hard and do well! We asked her whether she too would like to go to school and again she relied with a wise smile: how can I, who will look after the baby, she does not stay without me. Those simple words summed up the plight of so many little girls across India. Here was a little girl, one who should still be playing with dolls, who had become an adult overnight. If she did not look after the home, the mother would not be able to earn and no one would survive. She knew it and what was killing was that there was no resentment or bitterness in the girl, it was simply her life.

As I said I thought I had seen it all but this little girl moved me beyond words and was a stark reminder of how little we had achieved and how much more needed to be done.

A few months back one of our regular and committed donors came to visit. We of course discussed future funding and in the course of conversation he quite candidly admitted that it was easier for him to market individual stories. Finding funds for larger projects like primary classes was more difficult. He wanted me to ‘find’ more possible candidates for boarding school as he felt that was something donors ‘liked’. I must admit I was a little vexed but did not let my feelings show as beggars cannot be choosers! And though I told him that it was not easy to find parents who would hand over their kids and even if they did then it would open flood gates we would be unable to handle, I also promised to look into the matter and find him a suitable candidate.

The one child that came to mind was little Mehajabi. Would it not be wonderful to give this little girl a good education. It would transform her life. So sure were we of this possibility that we wrote to our funder friend and he was all set to send Mehajabi to boarding school. But that was not to be. Her mother who at first accepted came back a few days later telling us that she would not send her child away. And when mothers decree one cannot but follow. We did try to gently tell her that this was a one in a lifetime chance for the little girl but the battle was uneven: the mother won. Nothing we would say could change her decision. We had to let it go.

I must admit we all felt sad and even a little unnerved. More so because we knew that mommy’s was jeopardizing the little girl’s morrows. But we did not have the arguments to bat for her. The mother’s logic was simple: she stated that after the heart surgery she could not bear to be parted from her child. Never mind if food was scant, if the roof leaked, if there was no money to pay the few rupees needed to send her to school. She was adamant and we were helpless. No logic could counter the almost irrational love of this mother. We knew what awaited Mehajabi: a few years in a third rate school and then perhaps she would join her mom in cleaning other people’s home just like her young aunt did, till a suitable match was found. Then her life would simply mirror the one her mother was living. On the other hand Babli who also had an open heart surgery was busy making up for lost time and excelling in school. Her mom’s love had not stood in her way.

We wrote to our funder and told him that in spite of our best efforts we were unable to convince the family and thus Mehajabi would not be joining the other pwhy kids at boarding school. He wrote back telling us to find someone else as he really wanted to. We promised him we would do so. A few days later, Vinita our early education coordinator suggested Manisha’s name.

Manisha is a quaint child. She is spirited, vivacious and her little puckered face and uneven teeth makes her look like a little endearing ET. Her teachers fondly call her ‘alien’. But this child’s story is heart wrenching and her future as it stands today very bleak. Manisha comes from an extremely poor family of migrants from Bihar. She has 2 brothers. Her father is a drunk. He is abusive and violent and does not give a single penny towards the running of the household. All they get is blows. Her mom has learnt to survive. She is a rag picker. Every morning she sets out with a big bag and ferrets through garbage heaps trying to salvage anything that can be sold. What she earns from her effort determines what the family will eat.They live in a sunken, dark, dingy hole with a tin roof which is their home.

Manisha six though she looks four. She has been in our creche for 2 years but soon it will be time for her togo to school. Given her circumstances we know that she will never make it to school as school though free requires some resources. Today it is because we go and fetch her that she comes to pwhy. If that did not happen she would turn into mother’s little helper be it with home chores or rag picking. No one invests time let alone money in a girl child. Her life will simply clone her mother’s. Yet Manisha is bright and intelligent and had a hunger for learning, a hunger we see in many children like her.

We have asked her mom whether she would be willing to send Manisha to boarding school. Unlike Mehjabi’s mom, Manisha’s mom was quick to see that this was a one in a life time chance for her daughter, one that would free her from the invisble bonds she was fettered in and maybe give her better morrows. We hope that this will happen though we know that we will need to be with her each step of the way.

It is absolutely inane that as a society we have reached the sad day when we need to debate the issue of whether, what I can only call a cool blooded murder, can be viewed as socially acceptable and be called honour killing. I have listened with horror to the recent debates where those in favour – and yes believe it or not there are such monsters around – try to justify taking young lives to protect some misplaced value system.

There has been a spate of such murders in our city in the past few days and those who committed and/or favoured these barbaric acts justified themselves by saying they had no choice or it was inevitable! The story goes like this: if a young girl dares fall in love with someone of another caste or from the same clan then it is taboo and needs to be dealt with and deal they do: they simply kill the child. And to crown it all instead of downright and vehement condemnation by all we hear muted voices that say things like: we do not condone murder but… The but is too loud and unacceptable. The but reeks of vote bank politics, of misplaced and medieval and feudal ways, of weak minds and of rigid ones that refuse to bend. No one is willing to address the situation head on be it within the family, the society or the vote seekers.

Winds of change are blowing and will keep doing so. There is nothing you can do about it. And each such murder is simply paving the way for the next one as politician and law makers remain silent or split hair in ways best mastered by them. So instead of addressing the core of the problem they simply hover around the periphery in the hope of protecting their vote banks. The perpetrators get bolder and bolder and all hell breaks loose. Murder gains acceptability and is even glorified once you call it honour killing!

Since time immemorial parents have opposed their children’s choices but it is almost inconceivable to think that a parent would kill or order the killing of its child. Even in the recent cases the dastardly acts have been committed by brothers helped by their friends and the reason given is to salvage misplaced honour. I have seen this at work.

The incident happened when we first began our work at pwhy. In those times I had no real knowledge of social norms and aberrations. There was a birthday party in the street where we worked and we had been invited. As is often the cases part of street had been covered with a tent and there was a music system in attendance. As is also the often the cases though the birthday party was that of a one year old child, the guests were mostly adults: the entire neighbourhood and a plethora of relatives and friends. And again as is always the case there was a lot of booze though it remained invisible. The party was in full swing and spirits were a tad to high. Bollywood dance numbers screeched through the bad quality speakers and people danced. A young girl, she must have been seventeen then and was one of our staff, started dancing too with her friends. She is a mean dancer and she twirled with abandon. One must understand that young girls rarely have the chance to dance, and parties and weddings are the places where they can show their talent. Her parents where there too seated on the chairs that are part of the decor. Every one was having fun. Suddenly her two brothers appeared and dragged her away hurling abuses. She was dragged to their house where the two lads started beating her. I followed and screamed at them but to no avail. All I could here was the word izzat – honour – shouted repeatedly, as well as – jaan se mardege – we will kill you. Soon the parents came and the beating stopped. The poor girl was in tears and deeply humiliated.

What must have happened is that some drunk guy must have passed a leering comment and the brothers instead of defending the girl who was doing no wrong, decided to salvage the honour by punishing her. It was the same kind of reaction as the one we witnessed in last weeks incident where the murderer brother stated in an interview that he was facing regular humiliation because his sister had married outside her caste and was constantly taunted by his friends. So male ego is hurt and the only thing to do is to eliminate the cause once for all. Never mind if the cause is your sister, the one you played with, laughed with or shared moments. In a split instant all that is forgotten and all the remains is misplaced honour that has to be restored ,so off with her head!

As an eminent lady journalist said recently: that in such cases the daughter’s body has become the vessel holding the family’s honour. She is not considered an individual with her own dreams an aspirations and her own rights. And this cannot be particularly when girls even from extremely traditional families have now stepped out of their homes to taste the world outside.

It is now a matter of choice. Many girls may still accept old ways and this has to be their choice. But if one of them does decide to do otherwise those who love and care for her must understand her choice and accept it. The young girl who danced many moons ago is today an empowered young woman who has been able to get her family to accept her choices. She is aware of the so called honour of her family and I know she will respect it but in her own way and manner and her family has accepted it, in their own way. The battle between generations will go on as it always does and solutions will be found. Murder is not one of them.

When I decided to start project why many years ago a host of supposed well wishers came out of the wood work to dissuade me to do so. There were the hard core cynics, the gentle detractors and the over anxious friends and relatives. I guess they were all stunned by my decision to sink a large chunk of my newly acquired legacy to as they said: help the poor!

The arguments used to discourage me were varied: what difference can you make in a country as big as India; you know nothing about running an NGO; you will waste you resources and be disappointed; you must be mad; what would your parents say if they were here; you are hijacking your children’s future; you cannot change things, it is a big bad world and you will not survive and so on.

At that time I must admit I had no defense to proffer. All I had was a deep intuitive feeling that what I was setting out to do was right and a stubborn nature that would ensure that I do it ans succeed. It was imperative that I do so and prove my detractors wrong. I set out on my journey with just one thought in mind: if I could change one life it would be worth it.

In the past ten years we have changed many lives and I will not subject you to a string of examples or try to blow the pwhy bugle. But I can say without hesitation that I have been vindicated on all counts. But what really struck me today as I looked at the two little sisters in the picture above was that when you change a life you set in motion what can best be called a ripple effect. Let me explain what I mean. Kiran and Komal are the nieces of Rani, a young woman who today practically runs our field operations in Govindpuri. She first joined pwhy as a unpaid volunteer way back in 2000 but soon graduated to the princely honorarium of 500 rs a month. A school drop out – not for academic reasons far from that but because she was beaten for not paying her fees and her mom decided that enough was enough – she joined us as part time volunteer but slowly she just became indispensable! Today she practically runs project why. Along the way the managed to pass her class X, XII and is now doing her BA second year. Along the way she also became computer savvy and even crossed the seven seas to go and root for pwhy! You must admit her life did change. But that is not all. Along the way two beautiful little girls were born in her family and that is when the ripple effect set in motion.

Today K and K are both in an upmarket school, the kind you and I would send our kids too. Tre admissions are not easy when you have a slum address but Rani never gave up. She wanted to give her little nieces everything she never had. The very best. But it was not easy. However all hurdles were overcome and the two little girls are now in school and doing exceedingly well. What is amusing is that we are all a part of this exciting journey helping with home work when needed or with the inane holiday projects children are subjected to. I must admit that when I watch them laughing and giggling I feel terribly proud and wonder what would have happened had I meekly listened to my detractors of yore years.

So today let me be a little cheeky and address all the barbs thrown at me a decade ago: you can make a huge difference even in a country like India; even if you know; nothing about running what is called an NGO, you can do so if you do not lose heart, your resources are never wasted if they can bring a smile on the face of a child; I guess one had to be a little mad to walk the road less travelled; my parents are surely proud and have walked with me every inch of the way; my children’s future was never hijacked but got better; things changed as the ripple effect set in and the world is not so bad when you learn to look with your heart. I have not only survived but thrived!

Not so long ago the nooks and crevices of our house were regularly home to sparrow nests. At that time we often consider this invasion a nuisance though we never destroyed any. I cannot remember exactly when the sparrows stop nesting. I cannot even remember when we actually stop seeing any sparrow at all. But come to think about it it has been a long time since one has laid eyes on that tiny bird, one that once was an intrinsic part of our lives. When a friend told me that new urban designs were responsible for the disappearance of the sparrow, I accepted the fact quietly and learnt to live without our little friends. It was one more instance of man versus nature and man had won again.

Last week an article in a magazine brought back my little sparrow to life. It seemed that it was not architectural designs but cell tower radiation that had spelt the death knell of not only sparrows but of bees and other creatures. The article makes frightening reading. The cell towers with seem to be proliferating on the skyline with obsessive regularity seem to be the cause not only of the disappearance of little creatures, but of illness and death in human beings. EMR (electromagnetic radiation) seems to have invaded our cities and homes and we are helpless.

In the span of a short decade the cell phone, which was once the prerogative of the rich, has become an essential commodity for all. Look at people walking on the streets, every second one has a cell phone. I was surprised to find out that everyone that works in my home has a cell phone, the maid, the cook, the gardener. Our washer man who comes once a week has one too and so does the plumber, the electrician and everyone who rings the doorbell be it the courier boy or the delivery man of the local grocery store. Look some more, children of all age are proud owners of cell phones. And to meet this exponential growth in demand, cell towers have mushroomed everywhere. For many allowing a cell tower on one’s roof is simply added income. According to the survey done by the magazine even hospitals and schools have offered their rooftops to house cell towers. One can safely say that we are in the throes of a new invasion!

And yet there was a time not so long ago when we managed without them. I belong go the generation that grew up with one fixed phone in the house. Often, as was the case at home, the lone phone was placed in neutral space like a corridor. The phone had a short lead wire and I remember how one use to try and tug at it to get behind a door for those private phone calls that are the prerogative of every teenager. That was the only privacy one got. I also remember how one paced the corridor at particular moments of the day so as to be the one who picked up the phone, or how one glared at anyone else on the phone if that was the time one was expecting a call. The lyrics of an old favourite come to mind: Time it was, and what a time it was, it was , A time of innocence, a time of confidences, Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph, Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you (Bookends, Simon and Garfunkel). Come to think about it I have no photograph just fading memories.

I also remember the advent of the cordless phone and how it spelt an new kind of freedom. Never mind if there was a limit of a few meters, one was freed from having to pull and tug at a wire. When the first cell phone came it was way beyond every one’s reach and we all looked at it with some kind of wonder. We could have never thought that in the span of a few years
everyone would own one.

Bees are not your irksome insect that needs to be shooed away. Their hum is a comforting reminder that all is well on planet earth, that the plants will be pollinated in time and food will reach our table. The silence of bees is frightening and the harbinger of terrible times.

Every time one feebly attempts to try and listen to those who extol the elusive virtues of the Commonwealth Games, heralded as the panacea to all our urban woes, as the magic wand that will transform our disorderly yet cherished city into a world class one, an aberration appears and calls us back to order. The latest was a news item on the front page of a leading daily. Vendors to be evicted in Games clean-up screamed the headline.

The vendors in question are part of the life line of our city. The local roadside cobbler that one rushes too in times of need, the lady who irons our clothes each and every day and has been doing so for decades now, the vegetable vendor who is an intrinsic part of every colony. They are the heart and soul of our city, people we depend on and cannot do without. My ironing lady has been ironing my clothes for the last 30 years. I have seen her children grow. She comes every morning to collect the day’s clothes and her smiling face is something I have got use to seeing. It somehow makes my day. When I was in Paris for 3 years and had to iron clothes myself…ugh… I remembered Phoolmati with fondness and realised how much we depended on her and needed her. The husband’s shirts were always ironed to perfection on so where my crisp cotton saris of yore years.

Many of our parents are such vendors. They are brave and proud people who left their homes many years back to come to the city in the hope of giving a better future to their children. Today their children are working in swank places but they still continue to labour and toil long hours, come what may. This is the only life they know, and quite frankly the only one we know too. I shudder to think where I will now have to head to get my shoe repaired or or to buy the missing element for the nights dinner! And the idea of not having well pressed clothes to wear is nothing short of abhorring.

Vendors, the powers that be say, are a security risk. I find that difficult to fathom. Gentle Phoolmati cannot hurt a fly, nor can our poor old cobbler. Then why this inane decision? The street vendors are the heart of the city and a real necessity. Why be ashamed of them? These small marginal economies are needed in a country with a population like ours. They help the poor survive. But then who cares about the poor. Off with their heads seems to be the order of the day.

Last week as I drove to the project down our little lane, I saw a small posse of men standing on the street in front of our centre’s door. There were about 3 or 4 of them, and one held a sheaf of papers in his hand. They looked harried and worried and I knew at once what was happening. It had to be another broken heart that needed to be fixed. I must confess that my initial reaction was one of mild exasperation: not again were the words that fleeted across my mind. We are just barely recovered from the tragic death of brave and beautiful Heera. I really did not feel we could quite face another ordeal. But of course I did not let any of my thoughts appear on my face: the show had to go on.

This time the little heart that needed to be repaired was that of Kajal all of six years old. Kajal is a tiny little girl who hails from Bairi Aghu a small village in the Beghusarai village of Bihar. She has one older brother age 8 who is in school in class I. Her father earns 2500 rs a month and her mother stays at home. This is their sole income. The family does not won any land or property. When she fell sick last month the family took her to the local dispensary, then the hospital who referred them to Delhi and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. They came to Delhi, and took a little room on rent @ of 1000 rs and set off to get the little girl checked. They wanted to do everything they could for their little girl. They were told she has a hole in her heart and would need surgery. The cost a whopping 70 000 Rs, almost 3 years of the father’s wage. They were stunned and did not know what to do. Someone told them about pwhy and that is why they stood in silence clutching their papers on that hot morning with hope and fear in their hearts.

My mind was working on overdrive as I alighted from the three wheeler and braced myself to meet them. At that moment I did not know whether we would be able to once again raise the needed funds. Our erstwhile heart fix supporters had long vanished and getting funds now was a long and tedious process. I could imagine myself composing the appeal, posting on the net an hoping for the best.

Not wanting the family to have too much hope. I told them quite frankly that we would do our best but that I promised nothing. I added that I needed a picture of the little girl and that I would get in touch with them as soon as I had some news but it would not be before a few days. I remember the early days when one spent time with the families, trying to talk to them and counsel them. This time there was nothing like that. I was taken surprised at my dismissive behaviour. Had I become inured at the pain of others. Not quite. In hindsight I realise that I was apprehensive and did not really know whether we would be able to live up to the family expectations.

Some time later we had the photograph of the little girl and I set the operation in motion. The first appeal was posted on the pwhy page of facebook. At that time I did not even know the little girl’s name. I wondered how long it would take to garner the needed funds.

I had forgotten that pwhy was a place where angel’s do not fear to tread. A short time later a response appeared on our page. It asked a simple question: how much would the surgery cost? I answered and a few instants later, thanks to the magic of the net, from thousands of miles across the globe I got another message: I will sponsor the surgery. I was stunned. It was all over. Kajal’s little heart would be fixed. It was only a matter of time. The God of Lesser Beings had hear, listened and acted. One of his angel’s had appeared.

This angel is a very special one as she has often appeared in our lives. I remember the first time many years ago when we were battling to survive, she came out of the blue and took charge of things and settled everything right. And since she has always been around, watching us form far. And yesterday she knew we needed her and there she was dispelling all clouds and making the sun shine again. God bless her.

Yes, pwhy, is truly a place where angels do not fear to tread!

Note: we have the funds for surgery but do need some more help to ensure that Kajal gets all her medication and proper nutrition to make sure that all goes well.

Delhi’s flood of deaths that don’t matter screamed the headline of the morning paper. The writing was on the wall: 10 homeless persons die every day in our soon to be state-of-the-art capital courtesy the Commonwealth Games! The article makes scary reading. A third and soon half of India’s population will be living in cities unprepared or unwilling to build support systems. Solutions are “simple”: Shelters, affordable housing and hundreds of community kitchens. “But we aren’t making these happen,” says Harsh Mander to which the Minister in charge quips back: Delhi didn’t have the resources to build shelters.

Well said! We have zillions to build infrastructure for the upcoming games, to pave , unpave and repave perfectly good roads but cannot put up a shelter for those who have been rendered homeless to make way for these hubristic endeavours. But that is not all. The article also states that 93% of the deaths – 3381 souls – are due to starvation. That too in a city where every garbage can is replete with castaway food of the rich, where every wedding is a free for all in food waste, where milk is poured on stone deities and then runs free in the drains.

And it gets worse: men who die aka the homeless are not old and decrepit, but young working people.

A leading newspaper decide to track hunger. Do visit their home page. Browse the statistics of malnutrition of children in our country and if you have the guts browse the titles of their previous articles: mud for meals, 405 million poor by 2011, where tribals kill hunger with flowers, hot rod horror brands children in Jharkand and so on. I did and sat for a long time stunned and shocked. True I have seen more than many. But in spite of that the sheer magnitude of the issue is staggering. Where are we going? Where is compassion and care? Why have become inured to every aberration?

I know first hand how difficult it is to gouge a coin out of people to help others. I have been in the business for ten long years: the business of knocking at hearts and hoping they will open. But they rarely do, particularly in this city. Everyday more people become homeless. We have been silent and helpless witnesses to the destruction of slums, to people losing their homes and lives, to the silent human tragedy that no one sees. I have listened with seething anger to the reasons given for such acts and yes I know how illegal most of these homes are, but then why were they allowed to come up and not only that why where they tolerated for decades and why above all where people dwelling in them given voter’s IDs and ration cards. For political reasons of course as they were large vote banks that could be easily manipulated. Then why do the said politicos disappear when the bulldozers come!

The city is clearing away the poor to make place for the rich: slums get raised to build malls, road side stalls that feed the needy are destroyed to make the city more appealing to look at and yet the so called poor and now homeless are the ones who are busy toiling in the heat and dust to make rich dreams a reality. Something is wrong and we cannot simply be silent and mute spectators. We need to act or at least open our eyes and start looking with our hearts.

Charity needs to be sustainable was the headline of a recent article in a leading magazine. Needless to say it caught my eye and I hastened to read it. It was an interview with a top honcho, a lady at that, who shared her view about CSR about charity. For her charity was a redundant term because it is a ‘one-time’ gesture and unsustainable. More power to you lady! I read on and could not but smile as once again it seemed our tale of forgotten biscuits was being revisited.

Ms Bali wants to make her biscuits healthier by fortifying them so as to fight rampant malnutrition ‘covertly’. Hence everyone who consumes the biscuits made by her company, and they are consumed by a large cross section of society, would be ‘healthier’! As she says: Our products are available throughout India. And, by fortifying them, if we are making them accessible to a large mass of people, we are not solving India’s malnutrition problem, but we are contributing to alleviating it. That is what she means by social corporate sustainability a new mantra I presume. Good wishes to her. I will not debate the issue here as this is not the aim of this blog. CSR has always been my ‘bete noire’ and I am yet to comprehend its true motives. I do wonder how enriching biscuits that are then sold amounts to CSR. But I agree with Ms Bali on the fact that charity has to be sustainable and not a one time gesture.

When we sought help to launch and sustain our nutritive biscuits programme, targeted mainly at the beggar children of our city, we were hoping to address the child beggar issue by making the business of begging non-sustainable. If one gave a biscuit instead of the expected coin maybe the handlers and mafia would look for other more lucrative ways. In the bargain you also gave nutrition; a real win-win situation. But sadly it did not work out for reasons I am yet to fathom.

The same happened with our rupee a day programme where we hoped to tap in the one perennial resource of our land: the numbers of people. What we asked was something that each and everyone could part with as one rupee got you nothing, not even a cup of tea. The idea was to make everyone a donor and make everyone participate in bettering the morrows of others. And it seemed so doable as all we were looking for at that time was 4000 such donors. In a land of a billion it seemed simple. But again we failed. And again I do not know why. It seemed so logical.

This has been my battle for 10 long years, a battle I am still nowhere near winning. Right from the outset, when I was handed over my first donation, I knew that this was just a temporary phase and that we would have to look at long term sustainability. The idea of depending on others is neither acceptable nor feasible. Planet Why still seems very elusive as we wait for the expert validation. And where it to go our way, the whole project is daunting in more ways than one. The other side of the spectrum is the tried and tested corpus fund, something I have always abhorred. But has not pwhy been a personal journey of getting over my own bete noires. What is at stake is too precious: the morrows of children and their dreams. So help me God!

When Ruchika’s tormentor was handed over a laughable sentence some months back, the nation was outraged. Television channels were replete with debates on the issue and everyone wondered how the matter would end. It had taken many years to nail the elusive perpetrator and all one got was a suspended sentence and a paltry fine that any one could pay. I too had vented my anger and sadness in a blog entitled will I be safe tomorrow!

Today, six months later, the high profile molester is behind bars. he has been there for a week and will spent at least three more weeks there. The law has caught up with him in spite of all his contacts, his connections and the power he once yielded. That it took over two decades is another matter. It took a public campaign to get him nailed. When young Ruchika was molested there was no 24 hour TV, no activism, no public outcry. The family could just knock at various doors that failed to open. And battle lines were drawn with one side playing dirty. The family was humiliated and scorned. The young girl took her life. Justice remained blind. Even today the accused is behind bars not for having caused the child’s death, but for having molested her. Whether he will pay for the bigger crime remains to be seen.

There are millions of Ruchika who suffer in silence every day. They often lock themselves and loose the key. They know that they will not be heard, believed , let alone protected and vindicated. They are far too aware of the reality that surrounds them. They know the might of the adversary and what is often worse is that they often have to continue sharing the same space as most of such cases are perpetrated within the so called safety of one’s home. They just suffer in silence and try to perfect the art of becoming invisible, living in fear day after day. How does one protect such children? How does one protect the little girl abused by a kin? Who will ring the bell for her?

I hope that Ruchika’s case will help us open our eyes. I hope parents and caretakers will begin to look with their heart and see the reality as it is. That they will reach out to the child who sometimes slowly and almost imperceptibly begins to ‘change’. That they will find the time to listen and believe and not be swayed social or other pressures. Till that day does not come little girls will never be safe from lurking predators who prowl secure in the knowledge that no one will dare challenge their power.