Radha is definitely the new celebrity in class. Yesterday a TV crew came to the special centre to film her and then today the whole class went up to the foster care to watch the programme. Radha sat very quietly not quite understanding what was happening. She had never seen television.

After the programme was over, some of the boys of the junior secondary came back to look at her. Radha felt she was on top the world and could not stop smiling.
You can see the story here.

She still sleeps on the footpath with her family, under a tree with no protection from the heat, dust or lashing rain. Her face is the kind Modigliani would have painted and she does look pretty as picture. But one look at her frail, distorted body is enough to tell another tale. Little Radha has brittle bone disease, a rare condition that affects 1 in 60 000 children and where the prognostic is grim. Little Radha’s life is bound to be short.

In spite of her distorted bones and frail body, Radha has an incredible spirit and wants to do everything her friends do in class. She plays every game even if that means running on her hands. When asked what her dream was she simply said: to be able to walk!

She lived in a house so tiny that you could not stand in it, and yet that is where she and her family laughed, cried, hoped, and dreamt. It is there that her father died and that her young mother tried to rebuild a life: one of simple survival. Not an easy task for a young widow as predators lurked everywhere. We had hoped that the young mother would agree to come and live at our women centre with her 4 children but that was not to be. Perhaps she was too free a spirit or was it her extended family that did not allow it. One would never know. Radha and her family continued to live in their tiny home till it was destroyed two weeks ago by the municipal authorities. The family lost what they called home and the protection it gave them.

From that day onwards the little family slept on the roadside
without any protection from the heat or the rain. Their few belongings are carefully arranged on the kerb, or packed in plastic bags. When it rains each member of the family covers him or herself with a plastic sheet and waist for the rain to pass. A small earthen stove is built in a corner to cook the meals. The family sleeps in the open an easy prey to any kind of predator. The mother runs her food cart in the day and feeds her little family. And little Radha whose fragile bones can snap at the slightest touch navigates herself on the tiny pavement of what is now her home.

This little story is replete of deafening whys that need to be answered. Why is a child with a rare and complex condition born in a family that can barely look after a healthy child? What does a child like Radha do in a land where social security and sound medical care are non existent? Why is there no proper habitat for the poor and why can anyone be allowed to live in the abysmal conditions Radha’s family did for years? Where are the laws that protect children? Where are the rights enshrined in our Constitution and why are people like Radha’s family deprived of them?

For the last 15 days I have asked Radha every morning where she spent the night and for the last 15 days her answer has been: on the road! What is touching as well as saddening and infuriating is the calm with which little Radha answers the question and then goes to finish the task at hand with a smile. I do not know the answers to all the questions posed above. Perhaps only the God of small creatures can answer them. I only know that we need to do something, and do it now. We will find a new home for Radha, one that is livable and move them off the street today and help them with the rent if need be. I cannot hear another: on the road anymore!

It was a hot sultry summer morning but a long gone promise had to be redeemed. Meher and Utpal had behaved well for a whole week and wanted the promised ice cream. because of the heat we decided to go to a mall near the women centre as I knew that if nothing else, it was bound to have an ice cream parlour!

The mall all glitzy and shining looked like a ghost city. Only a few of the hundreds of shops were occupied. Thank God one of them was an ice cream parlour. The rest were mostly eating joints of all shades and hues with a lone toy and shoe shop making one wonder how it survived. It was a true picture of the recession everyone is talking about. A few people were seen loitering around mostly staff, I could barely spot a client. Meher with her expanders in her scalp looks like an endearing real life ET and was a once the cynosure of all eyes. Everyone looked at her but she did not feel awkward or odd and simply strutted in, screaming in delight at the new things she saw, the most important being the glass elevator!

Kiran and Utpal acted like the elder siblings and took her under their tiny wings and marched towards the ice cream parlour. After a session of intense tasting everyone selected their ice cream and we all sat at a small table. Keeping the flies away was left to me as the children dug into their little cups.

While helping Meher to navigate through her over frozen ice cream my mind wandered as I took in the picture these three children made, a picture that told a touching and wonderful story.

Kiran came into this world almost exactly on the day project why began its activities in Giri Nagar and that too on my mother’s birthday making her that little more special. She is probably the only person in the world who calls me Anou with authority! I remember carrying her around everywhere I went in early project why days and she grew imbibed with the spirit of what pwhy stands for. No wonder that till date some of her best friends are the students of our special section, a place where she spends all her holidays with her very special pals.

Utpal came into my life as a bonny baby I use to watch being bathed every morning till the terrible day he had a tryst with fire and his little life changed forever and so did mine then barely two overcame her initial pangs of jealousy and become the elder sibling and then the soul mate. Recently when Utpal had to complete a piece of holiday homework where he had to write about his family Kiran was very much part of that family.

Little Meher completes the trio. I still remember hearing her very loud voice before looking down at her scarred face. Today as she undergoes complex reconstructive surgery she has two little protectors who make sure that no one bothers her as she struts around like a an extra terrestrial princess!

A beautiful tale of love, compassion and hope that could only be weaved at a place called project why!

Does recession makes you less compassionate is an interesting article by Ed and Deb Shapiro. I urge you to read it. The authors make a brilliant analysis of the state of affluence versus the state of poverty. And they conclude by saying: if we relate to the recession with fear, then it will close us down further. If we relate to difficulties with an open heart, then we will enter into a culture of greater sharing and compassion. Our economy is built on greed and a fear of scarcity. But we can transcend this by reaching out to each other in acts of fearless kindness and caring.

For the last decade I have been actively engaged in the charity bizMess and quite frankly I have seen more fear than open hearts. When I began my journey almost exactly 11 years ago, I was a real greenhorn. I felt that it would be easy to ask people around for tiny amounts, the kind that would not make an iota of difference in their lives. Yet it was the richer ones who were the hardest to convince.

The authors of the article refer to what they call the wounds of wealth. These are burdens of expectations, isolation, unhealthy family dynamics and crisis of identity and all these make them more remote and less accessible. On the flip side according to the authors, when one has nothing one is not fearful of being taken advantage of and willing to share the little one has. This is evident in the way a poor man opens his home to you and shares the little he has. Compassion according to the authors comes from a feeling that we are not isolated: We can take off our armor and allow ourselves to be touched and to feel the undefended heart.

I would truly like to believe this to be true. Though till date we have seen the contrary: people backing out of their tiny commitments for fear of losing all. I wish we could in some way ignite compassion in them and have them reach out to those in need. And this not for purely selfish reasons but because the world looks better when you look at it with an open heart.

Going going gone are the proverbial words that mark the end of any auction. The latest auction on the block is that of medical seats. It happens for the time being in Bangalore but God only knows how long it will take to start happening elsewhere. So it does not matter how hard you study, how well you do in school, what you need is a lot of money in the bank if you want to one day be a doctor! Now if that is the case should surprised at the astronomical fees we are asked to pay for a minor throat ache!

I was appalled when my doctor told me that one of his peers asked for 500 rs in case you called him up on the phone to ask for some advise. I cannot begin to count the number of times I have called Dr P not just for myself or my family but for pwhy children and sought precious advise. But then if you need to pay huge amounts for a medical seat then I guess the man was justified. Well not quite so as he was of Dr P’s age, and in those days you paid a mere 125 Rs a month as tuition fee in a state run medical college where you got admission on merit. Dr P felt that at least his vintage should not stoop so low!

Where are we going. There I was just a week back jumping with joy at the wonderful results my kids had got me. What good is Vivek’s 97%. His family has barely enough to make ends meet. In our days a first division (a paltry 60% and plus) got you to a good college. The the equation changed and you need 90% and more to secure the coveted seat. Now it seems the equation has changed 90% and plus + a hefty back balance = a college of your choice.

Now you may ask what happens to those who are unable to meet these new requirements, those who still get old times marks. Well they can aspire to studying abroad, something that was not an option in our times. Many countries have opened their portals to the ever increasing number of Indian students who now often leave their homeland after school. True money is required but sometimes it is easier to get a seat in Australia then in India. Loans or simply liquidating assets allows many students to go and study in other lands. But all is not glitter and gold there as we have seen lately. In Australia lately students from India have been subjected to brutal racial attacks. In all probability, the matter will be resolved at least for now but it is something we cannot wish away.

My first encounter with racism was when I was around 12 or 13. It was in a newly independent Algeria. I had gone to the local grocery shop to buy some tomatoes. A young boy of my age was serving customers. He gave me a kilo of tomatoes but over half of them were rotten. When i brought this to his attention he looked at me with anger and said: If you are not happy, go back to your home! I have never forgotten this incident. At that time I was angry and humiliated, today I understand what the child meant. Anyone outsider was a potential danger that could take away what was rightfully his.

I do not want to end this post on a gloomy or fatalistic note. There are lessons to be learnt and the first one is that of looking at our education system with honesty and candor and seeing what ails it. One of the first comment of our new Minister of Education was to say that he wished to invite Ivy League colleges to India so that students could get the best at affordable prices. I wish he had also stated that he would look into state run schools and ensure that they become the best option available to all. We have to put an end to the caste system that exists in education and ensure that every child in India gets access to the best available. Yes I am again making a pitch for the common school. Is anyone listening or should I rather say who will bell the cat?

Got a mail from my dear friend Xiong. He was a volunteer with us two years back but then, slowly, became a dear friend, someone whose advise and ideas I respect and try to follow: a sounding board for a lot of what we do and often I find myself listening to him and implementing his suggestions. In his latest mail Xiong informed me that he was joining our sponsorship programme. I guess that he more than anyone else read in between the lines all that was left unsaid.

Now the sponsorship programme allows you to select a class and Xiong in his inimitable gentle style simply wrote: If I had to choose a class I would like to be updated on news about the secondary section because I seldom read about them much on your blog, and also because I’m somehow more emotionally attuned to teenagers.

Touche! He was right. I seldom write about the secondary kids, at most when they bring back laurels that add to our already heavy wreath. Are they not the ones who have year after a year for almost a decade passed every single examinations they sat for. It was time to make amends and also to do some soul searching. Why were they the ones one rarely wrote about?

The answer was simple. They were the good child in the project why family. The one you take for granted, the one who never steps out of line and always does what you expect it to. And hence the one you overlook as you wit in front of your screen to share your trials and tribulations. But today I will write about them as I should have long ago.

Our senior secondary section is a bunch of about 100 teenagers from class IX to XII. They are under the care of their Naresh Sir, the very young man who took on the challenge nine years ago of ensuring that those everyone called gutter snipe, would shine and excel. And for the last almost a decade he has been doing just that. The secondary section is located in an airy room on top of our computer class. Every time we go and visit the class, we find them sitting with their heads buried in their note books. They barely look up,as they wish you the time of the day and you just tiptoe away from fear of disturbing them.

Unlike other classes they have few demands: a book now and again, money to make photocopies and once a year just before the final examinations, a plea for an outing to the movies. Then when the results are out they drop by to thank you with the customary box of sweets and a proud smile on their happy faces!

Then they are ready to take on the big world with confidence and poise, and we watch them leave the nest with pride and clouded eyes.

The results of class XII and X are out. All the 36 project why children have passed with flying colours. Amit topped his school with 815 and Vivek got a whopping 97% in his class X. I am elated and terribly proud. Anyone would be I guess, but allow me to share where we come from.

In the winter of 2001, we only ran a few spoken English classes . One day, two class X boys came with welt on their arms. They had been severely beaten for no apparent reason. The hurt and humiliation they felt was unbearable and we decided to go and talk to the principal of their school. We had by that time got ourselves a copy of a High Court order that made corporal punishment prohibited by law.

We marched into the school and asked to see the Principal. We were met by a teacher who looked forbidding and who strutted about a stick in hand. We were taken to a huge room that looked straight out of a Dickens novel. Behind a large desk sat a small man. We were asked to take a seat. The man kept leering us in stony silence. I cleared my throat and began my diatribe. The man was thoroughly uninterested in what I was saying. After a while he called for the boys in question. They entered the room, almost cringing and stood in a corner their heads bowed. The man who was actually the principal of the school looked at them with utmost contempt and said to us: Are these the boys you are talking about. They are guttersnipe. They will never succeed in anything. Mark my words they will fail their exam. The boys looked totally devastated; their body language said it all.

We were speechless. This was not at all going like we wanted it to. On the spur of the moment I looked at the boys with a beaming smile and said: Ok boys, do we take a challenge and prove your principal wrong. I know you will pass your examination. The immediate change in the body language of the boys was mind blowing and heart warming. They nodded their heads and smiled. The principal was taken aback but said nothing. Emboldened I added: we will all pass this examination Sir!

That is how our secondary programme began, on a roadside, in the early hours of winter mornings. But we did win our challenge and all our boys passed their class X. Today most of them are gainfully employed and doing well. And since that day each and every year our students have cleared their Board examinations without fail!

When I see Vivek or Amit’s marks my heart swells with joy. I am again taken back to a day many years ago when I marched into another school to ask why were the students only taught part of the curriculum, I was simply told that as they needed 40% to pass, there was no need to teach them the entire curriculum! Thank heaven things have changed since, but when I see my kids pass their exams each year I remember our beginnings and feel we have really come a long way. At times like these I do give myself a pat in the back !

On the way to the doctor’s Utpal and Meher came visiting. They are both extraordinary kids with incredible spirits. Meher is undergoing plastic surgery and looks like an adorable ET and Utpal is as always a true hero.

Looking at them my mind went back to the day Utpal had first landed in my life. He was a bonny almost one year old that his mom use to bathe in the open in front of the door of my old office at exactly the time I use to walk in. I had taken to pat his wet head and ask the same question every morning: when are you sending him to our creche? I never knew then that his journey to our creche located just a door away would have to go through a baptism by fire. And yet had not that happened Utpal may just have been a rowdy little boy in a government school who perhaps came to a pwhy centre in the mornings. But that was not to be. A terrible accident ensured his life would change forever and Popples as I call him is today in class II in a nice boarding school.

Little Meher has her tryst with fire in a remote Bihar village almost three years ago. She was badly maimed and would have carried on like that were it not for a on the spot decision of her father to join his brother in Delhi. The brother’s rented hovel happened to be nest to our women centre and it was there that I met her one fine morning. The rest his history. She touched many lives and they decided to sponsor her reconstructive surgery. Today she looks like an ET because of the expanders in her scalp which will ensure that most of her scars disappear and her hand has already been repaired. She too will one day join Utpal in boarding school.Today they are both living at the women centre and though they sometimes fight, they are true soul mates.

I wonder what would have happened to both these children had they not sustained third degree burns. Strange are His ways, but then can we complain?

Little Radha is quietly completing her work. Looking at her you would think that all is well in her little world, or at least as well as can be. Yet Radha spent the night on the footpath. The reason: her little home was raised to the ground by the local authorities. The reason again: it was an illegal construction though her family had to pay 400 rs a month and more. And yet it was the only shelter her family had. It was the only protection from the sun or the rains that they had and the place where Radha can keep her brittle bones safe

True that by any standards the so called house was not fit for any consumption but in a city that has forsaken its poor it was the home the little family had carefully crafted. Radha and her family are one of the millions of voiceless, faceless families that come to the big city looking for a better life. The tragic loss of the father made this little family even more vulnerable. The family had spent the last two nights on the footpath. The mother spends the days desperately looking for a room to rent within her tiny budget.

I am not one to defend illegal structures. But I would like someone to help me understand how legality or the lack of it is defined. Most of the so called illegal dwellings of Delhi have postal addresses and their inmates have voter identity cards and ration cards. The most blatant example is that of the Lohars or iron smith gypsies that have been living on the pavement for three generations now! Their homes are destroyed time and again but then rebuild the next day after paying the right bribe. Over the years illegal structures have acquired a covert legality. Then one fine day, because of some upcoming fancy sports extravaganza or some court judgement that took forever to be pronounced the structures become illegal notwithstanding civic documents or empty promises. It is time to raise them all and the authorities do that with impunity.

Not far from where we are there were some more structures raised to the ground. Two of them were small food carts. I guess this was done in accordance to a supreme court order banning food vendors. This is the beginning of the end of a lifeline, one that will spell disaster in a city that is already witnessing a rising crime graph.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it wrote the Sufi poet Rumi. These words were sent to me in answer of the sponsorship appeal I recently put out on the world wide web!

I sat a long time wondering what the hidden message could be as normally one would have expected people to convey their support and in due course become sponsors. And then slowly it dawned on me. What my friend meant was basically not to give up but to try and find all the obstructions I had within myself that were stopping me from doing what I needed to.

No economic crisis or loss of funders should ever be allowed to come in the way of the future of my 800 kids. I just had find all the obstacles and remove them. What I had in custody was the smiles, hope and morrows of almost a thousand voiceless kids. I did not have the right or luxury to give up. And if I looked hard what I sought was not impossible: a hundred sponsors who would hold my hand and help me achieve what I had set out to do!

As I sat this morning wondering what today’s post would be in the light of what one is going through, my mind wandered back to an old post I knew I had written some years back when I was desperately trying to pitch and defend my erstwhile and forgotten one-rupee-a-day programme. Today I find myself coming full circle as I try to make a case for our new sponsorship programme. I fished it out of the wood work! It was simply entitled:

One rupee a day and planet India revisited

one-rupee-a-day was an intuitive thought that had come to my mind way back in 1998 when project why was a tiny embryo… it seemed to be such a perfect solution.. was not India rich in mumbers.. and a rupee was something easily spared..

like all intuitive thoughts it got pushed back in the face of raised eyebrows, puzzled looks and amused smiles.. copious advise about the ways of goodBiz was proffered: donations, funding organisations, fund raising extravaganza, charity sales and much else.. and the greenhorn that iI was had no option than to take the well trodden path.. somewhat ill at ease I must admit.. to my mind this did not gel with what I had stood for and certainly not with India..

the one-rupee-day kept coming back with obsessive regularity… but I paid all the dues to the goodBiz world, and did the rounds of all that was suggested, and to be honest many options worked and pushed project why into a comfort zone bringing success, kudos, praise and even recognition..

but the goodBiz had its own hidden rules, one of them being its fleeting nature.. come on ms.B no one does this forever, you must change with times and adapt to the flavour of the day.. now that was not acceptable.. education is life long and not transitory and one does not leave people midway, one empowers them to carry on… and the solutions offered did not work..

reality hit us as we were pushed out of our comfort zone, more than once and each time the one rupee leit motiv sprung back to life. It seemed to have all the answers to problems. If education was perennial then the funding option we sought had to be one that any Indian could participate in and any Indian could steer..

So if we stand by what we set out to do: establish a model that can reach every child and be steered by its own, then all resources have to come from within. Five years of goodBizMessing had finally taught us that we needed to go all out and make the one-rupee-option a success, beating all odds..

But nothing would have prepared us for what was to ensue: a new discovery of India which no one could have imagined.

We launched a multi-pronged appeal to a wide audience: netizens, people from all walks of life through brochures, personal meetings, telephone calls.. and with the replies and reactions a new map of India came alive.

Indians living away from their mother land, be it students or professionals, reacted with overwhelming spontaneity and unadulterated love for their motherland. Individual responses and collective efforts saw the light and bore fruit at breathtaking speed.. needless to say most of them had never seen project why… There was profuse support from unknwon people across India, more so from the southern and western states… the community and weaker sections of society did come forward with suggestions and contributions..

We started feeling elated… come on India numbered one billion hearts, now finding 4000 should be easy..

But it was not so as we were to realise once again.. the cynics appeared with their unbelievable tales.. India’s capital once again took the lead of this tragic Act of the play.. what amazed us the most was the fact that people who had seen project why did not find it in them to write a cheque for 360 rs.. let alone get us contributions from friends.. everything possible was said to deter us, the trophy going to an upmarket restaurant owner who felt that adding one rupee to a bill may lead him to a litigation ten years hence..

Does one give up… the answer is No.. the cynicism is so deep that it has to be set right… if the goodBiz is in such a mess then why should a child in need of help pay the price… it is for us to reinvent ourselves and wipe out misconceptions..

As I look at this new map of India, where the common denominator is its heart and ability to feel compassion for the other, I see boundaries extending way beyond its geographical entity… and if the little hearts are few within its own land then somewhere someone has gone wrong..

The one-rupee-a-day has to work… to set matters right and the last shred of doubt I had was wiped away this morning as I flipped through a magazine which had an article on the children dying of malnutrition in Maharashtra with a photograph of a baby whose ribs you could count but whose eyes still help hope..

No you do not give up on planet India..

Yes we have come full circle today as we seek 100 sponsors from the world over.

I should be jumping with joy. All our class XII students have passed their examinations and this for the 8th year running. But before I could get down and savour the good news a mail dropped in my inbox informing me that one of our main donors would not be able to meet their monthly commitment for they next 4 months.

It was a huge blow and I am completely shattered. How would we manage as without that particular donation there was no way we could survive.

If I were running a business I could have locked the door and lost the key while I licked my wounds in some remote corner. But when you run a show like project why you do not have the luxury to do that. Which door do I lock and who do I send home. The little ones who come every day and spend a few hours reclaiming a lost childhood; the special ones whose only few hours of dignity are those they spend with us. Do I send my primary kids back and live with the guilt of knowing that some of them would drop out of school and become child labour; and what about the secondary kids who have just done me proud! And the foster care kids whose home is project why!

No, I cannot send anyone home or shut any door. Were I to do so, I would never be bale to look at myself in the eye. I will have to snap out of my gloom and muster all the courage I can to reinvent myself . I will need to get out of the comfort zone I had sunk in and retrieve my dusty begging bowl and beg till it hurts.

I had always been weary of big donors. They tend to make you complacent and make you forget the true essence of the work you sought to do. Running an organisation like pwhy is fist and foremost a lesson in humility. And to remain humble you need to remember that your work depends on the compassion and empathy of others. It is a one to one equation. If you forget that you risk losing everything. I wish my one rupee a day programme had worked, or rather that I had given that programme my all.

But it is never too late. We have launched a sponsorship programme that we hoe many will join. It has to be a success; 800 little smiles depend on it! So help me God!

As I climbed up the stairs to my office I peeped into the creche. I was taken aback at the number of kids present. It seemed far more crowded than usual. I waved everyone a cheery hello and moved on. I was a little angry as I had time and again told the staff not to admit too many kids in a class.

Upon reaching my office I called my programme in charge and asked her why there were so many kids in the creche. She simply told me that this was only for the summer months. Apparently the parents of many of our regular creche children had pleaded with us to accept some siblings for the duration of the holidays. The reason: their homes were very hot and the older siblings had nowhere to go. All my anger fizzled out. I knew hat they were talking about: tiny windowless rooms with tin roofs that turned into ovens under the scorching sun. I had nothing left to say, anything was better than that.

The pwhy classroom is not five star. But it is large, has fans and even an inverter that ensures that fans runs even during outages. Their is coll drinking water and often if the kids are dirty or too hot, the staff gives them a cool bath. Many of the homes do not have water in summer.

When the heat is on, life is not easy for anyone but in slums it turns into a nightmare. At least at pwhy, the children can beat the summer, albeit for a few hours!

Our little foster care kids are home for their summer break. I went to fetch them at the boarding school and before we could leave I was given the grand tour!

This is my classroom said one, while the other tugged at my shirt with a come to my classroom. We went to each classroom and collected every one’s summer home work. Then I was taken to the hostel and everyone showed their little bed. The bigger boys who share a room even showed us how they slept! The excitement was palpable, the smiles larger than life and you could see that all the kids loved their school. The ride back home was replete with stories. What was high on the agenda was the picnic at the amusement park and the water rides and the yummy ice cream.

I listened to my little slumpups and took in every word they said. It was intoxicating as it vindicated everything one had faced and fought for. Looking at them and listening to their happy babble made me realise that we were truly on track.

The three children in this picture are siblings. They have just joined our crèche. They all hail from Nepal and have recently come to Delhi. When I fist saw them I asked why the elder ones had been admitted to the early education programme. They seemed far too old for it and should have been enrolled in a proper school.

The answer was simple and poignant. The children did not speak or understand Hindi. They only spoke Nepali. There was no way they could attend any school. What my staff proposed was to slowly teach them Hindi and then perhaps a year or two down the lone get them admitted to a proper school in class II. They felt that in the crèche, even though they were bigger than the rest of the kids, they would be able to slowly grasp and learn a new language. I simply agreed.

The plight of children who migrate from other parts of India or as is the case here from another country altogether, is often tragic. The parents often flee their homes for economic reasons – a flood, a dry spell, a natural disaster – and come to a strange city. The father does manage to get a job and the rest of the family has to learn to cope in new surroundings. Older children are the ones who suffer the most as they cannot integrate any school and are often left to their own devices. They are rarely accepted by other children and often become the butt of ridicule. They thus grow up lonely and rejected. No one really cares about their future.

The three kids in the picture may be able to break free and integrate a school, make new friends and build their tomorrows, but what about the thousands and more who will never get a proper chance and will have to learn to survive on their own. Some will join the ranks of child labour and be seen washing dishes at a tea shop or cleaning other people’s homes. Others may fall prey to predators. Such is the plight of children who migrate with their families to big cities.

I have been watching with amused horror tinged with extreme sadness the poll games being played with alacrity over the past few days. These are being reported by all media channels for all to see. It is an almost foregone conclusion that no one party will emerge as a winner in election 2009. It is also a sure thing that the government will be a coalition of many parties.

The poll games I refer to are the permutations and combinations that are being worked out even before the first vote is out of the ballot box. For the past few days we have been witnessing umpteen debates and discussions by the top brains of the media and political pundits about the probable possibilities. The games go like this: if XYZ gets so many votes then it could ally with ABC and so on. What is alarming is that there seems to be no importance attached to values of any kind. Left can ally with right, secular with communal, friend with foe. It does not matter. What matters is who will sit on the coveted chair. The games get subtler as everyone wants his or her pound of flesh. If XYZ helps me bring the state government down, then I will support them, or they can have my support if they give me a coveted post.

Ideologies do not matter. There is no room for loyalty. Anyone can become friend or foe in the span of a second. Manifestos are forgotten and so are promises. No one cares about the fact that millions are without water, or schools, or health care or food. All is forgotten when playing poll games. The cat will be out of the bag in a few hours and we can expect furious rounds of poll games till the dust settles and rather till the moment the coveted chair is finally conquered.

Julie is the girl in the yellow dress that sits in the background of the picture. Ever since we have known her, Julie has always been in the background.

We first met her some years back when she was around 4. The elder of three little girls, she was already a little adult and a mom’s little helper in the true sense of the word. Julie had some delayed milestones and a big growth on her neck, but no one really cared, there was too much to do. We had at that time tried to seek some medical counsel but to no real avail. The family was not interested and we were too new in our job. Then the family moved away and we lost sight of them.

Some months back, the family came back and Julie’s dad who drives an auto rickshaw came to us looking for work. At that time we needed an extra vehicle and so we too him on. Slowly the story of his life enfolded. He owed a huge amount of money to the financier he had bought his vehicle from and was unable to pay his installments in time. A month back the financier’s goons stopped him on the road and took his vehicle away. Julie’s dad was shattered. he came to us for help and we then realised that the poor had paid more than what he had borrowed and still owed a lot more. Apparently each time he had been unable to pay installments, the financier renegotiated the loan to his advantage. The ordeal seemed endless with no real escape for one who earned a pittance. We helped him get his vehicle back. he even had to pay the parking charges for the days his vehicle had been impounded by the vile financier.

Julie’s dad’s plight is not an exception. It is almost the rule for many migrants who come from their villages in search of new morrows. Financiers lurk like predators and smooth talk simple folk promising them the earth and never telling them of the small print. The poor unsuspecting folk get easily lured and caught in an infernal spiral. The game is on and everyone knows who the winner will be.

One may ask why Julie’s dad did not manage to pay his monthly installments time and again. the answer is simple: a medical bill, school fees or a bereavement in the family, any unexpected expense is sufficient to throw the family’s finance out of gear. One must also not forget the fact that often the financier is willing to loan the extra money needed. He will simply work out the loan again to his advantage of course.

We will help Julie’s dad get out of the quagmire but imagine how many people like him live with a Damocles sword on their heads and no hope of help.

Note: Julie still needs medical help. Her milestones are still delayed. We will do what we can to help her.

The children of the special section spent a day remembering their dear friend Saheeda. They decided to make her a beautiful painting where each one of them tried in her of his own special way to express their pain and love. Huge whites sheets of paper were bought and paint set out in little cups. Little fingers then set to work to create the perfect homage to a dear departed friend. After the painting was finished, all the children stood and observed a minute of silence.

See the children at work here:

This morning Saheeda’s classmates learnt about her death. It was not easy to make them understand what had happened but somehow they all knew it was something terrible. A stunned silence before the first wail: that of Rinky her best friend. Then as the news sunk in, sound of weeping could be heard across the room. My little special class was grieving.

Anjali could not stop sobbing as she asked God why did he take away good souls she loved, first her mommy and then her friend. Little Radha who had recently lost her father wondered why death was again knocking a her door. Champa who is unable to comprehend the simplest of things wept unabashedly knowing she had lost a dear one. Shalini, Geetu, Ruchi, Preeti cried their hearts out. And even Priti, the unloved one, stood silently tears streaming down her face.

The boys too were stunned. And even if they did not cry – boys don’t – their faces were pictures of misery and sorrow. Umesh who never stands still, sat quietly in a corner. Ankur tried to reach out to his friends making incomprehensible sounds. And Anurag looked totally lost.

I watched them silently. These were all children no one wanted. Some could not speak or hear, some could not walk and others were locked in a world of their own that many of us could not comprehend and yet they together and in their own special way mourned the loss of a dear friend

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were wrote Dwight Eisenhower.

How true he was.

Things will never get back to the way they were at pwhy! I will never be greeted again by Saheeda’s beaming smile as I alight from my scooter in the morning and enter the pwhy building. I will never be asked to scold her when she acts stubborn and refuses to go to her sewing class. I will never watch her dance with gay abandon with her hearing impaired friend Rinky. I will never watch her try and painfully learn new sounds with her speech therapist.

I will never do any of these things because Saheeda is no more. She left our world yesterday. We are all stunned and shocked. I remember the last time I saw her just under a month ago. She was all set to go to her village for a wedding and was all excited. It seems she got very sick at the village and was hospitalised there. As she was not getting better her family brought her back and admitted to Safdarjung hospital last Saturday. She breathed her last the next morning.

Saheeda was one of our first students. She came to us when she was still a child and we have watched her grow and bloom in spite of her impairment. We had hopes and dreams for her and were trying to fulfill them. For the past year or so, she had been attending a beauty course at a parlour and would have graduated in a few months and then got a job just like her best friend Rinky.

I do not know how, in a few hours from now, I am going to face my little special class and tell them the terrible news. They will be devastated. Saheeda was their special didi, one loved by all. I do not how I will explain to the little motley crew of God’s special children that God himself decided to take one of their own away. I myself cannot even begin to understand why such a tragedy happened.

I just know that things will never get back to the way they were.

May Saheeda’s beautiful silent soul rest in peace.

Share some glimpses of her short life

Yesterday Kiran came to me with three pages of written text: it was her holiday home work. I was taken aback. The homework covered every subject and seemed humongous: read two books and find 3o new words, write five sentences about your daily activities and if you want to get an A in handwriting write a page of cursive writing a day. That was English. There was more of the same for each and every subject: maths, moral science, science and Hindi. And that is not all she also had to make a terrarium, draw a globe on a ball, make an abacus and a bird feeder, take a ride in a mtero and write about it and paste pictures of the places ahe visited during her holidays. Wow! And the holidays are for 6 short weeks. And by the way Kiran is just in class III.

Now the purpose of this post is not to debate about the wisdom of holiday home work. What one is trying to highlight is something quite different. As some of you know Kiran belongs to what we would call a slum and her family took a very conscious and deliberated decision: that of putting Kiran in an English medium school and give her the best possible. Her admission was not an easy affair and her school years have seen many hurdles. Now Kiran has a support system – aka project why- which helps her overcome such hurdles. But what about other children whose family have after great sacrifice get them admission in English medium schools and bravely try to cross to the other side of the invisible fence? How would such families be able to help their children with holiday homework. Even I do not quite know how to make a terrarium!

Lats week we had a visitor who told us about an organisation that was engaged in getting slum children admitted to good public schools. He thought we would appreciate the effort and maybe want to learn to replicate it. He must have been very surprised at our lukewarm reaction. My decision to send Utpal and my foster care kids to boarding school has also raised many eyebrows. Why not just send them to a local public school. The answer is simple: a boarding school gives an inbuilt support system that no slum family can give and without which no child can succeed. I remember an acquaintance telling me how her driver’s son was ostracized in the public school she had got him admitted to. Even if he had good marks he never got invited to a birthday party. A tale of two Indias!

But in a lighter vein how do you expect a mom who has been to a government school and probably dropped out to help her child with her holiday homework. And yet no class III kid could on her own figure out the homework as stated in those three pages. Even though children from the other side have been accepted in upmarket schools, be it because parents pay the fees or because of some illogical government rule, schools are not slum child friendly… maybe it was time we addressed this issue.

I watched Radha solve her first puzzle and Conrad Veidt’s quote came to mind: So now it is time to disassemble the parts of the jigsaw puzzle or to piece another one together, for I find that, having come to the end of my story, my life is just beginning. But there is a catch: Radha’s life is slowly and irrevocably ending.

Her life has been a series of unsolved or poorly solved puzzles. When she came to us she had a family, or rather we should say a father. Then one dark evening he passed away. We were certain that we could save the family and have them all come and live at the women centre – was that not what the centre was for – but that to was not to be. Predators and supposed well wishers emerged from the woodwork and put an end to that. The mother was convinced no to come to us, or maybe she herself wanted to remain free of the constraints of a residential programme. One will never know. The end result was that Radha, whose dream is to be able to walk one day, continues to live in what I call a kennel, but what to her is home. And in that home she continues to break her little brittle bones with regularity.

In the best of cases the life expectancy of children with OI is short. There is no known cure to the disease just some therapies that can help reduce pain and complications. Most of these are out of the reach of a slum child.

Radha’s desire to learn is mind blowing. She just wants to catch life with both hands and get whatever she can out of it. She had never been to school before she came to us. Since she has been at pwhy she has learnt many things. She now has a little table which ensures that her legs are safe from hurt. When other children dance or indulge in some physical activity, Radha devours books. Though she cannot read well yet, she flicks through the pages, an intent look on her face and a burning desire in her eyes. She wants to learn with quantum leaps and we try and follow…

When I watch Radha I am filled with sadness and a sense of helplessness. There is so much I would want to do and cannot. Were planet why up and running we would have kept her with us and taken care of her. But planet why is still a dream and little Radha’s life an enigma. One can just hope and pray for miracles. And while we wait and pray, little Radha is busy solving new puzzles.

There is a vegetable vendor in our colony. You can find him at the street corner from the wee hours of the morning to late at night be it the hottest day of the year or the coldest night. Several times during the day he walks the streets of the colony and you can hear his cry as he passes in front of your home hoping against hope that someone will call for him. After each round he goes back to his assigned place at the street corner.

No matter how hot or cold it is, no matter if it is raining or scorching our vegetable vendor does not miss his rounds. His cry is like the comfortable chime of an old clock. When you hear him you somehow know that all is well. Yet each time I hear his cry I feel oddly disturbed. Many of us do not know that to be present on time at his street corner, the vendor has to leave his home in some slum or the other in the dead of night and reach the whole sale market to purchase his ware. He then has to carefully display all the vegetables on his cart and make his way to the place where we find him everyday.

Many of the parents of pwhy children are such vegetable vendors. Most of them left their home because of a flood or a drought that made it impossible for them to feed their families in the village they belong to. Many of them have large families to care for and often have to send money back home to ageing parents that they had to leave behind. Many have huge debts to pay, debts they contracted long ago to marry a kin or fulfill some family commitment. Many have to save for the forthcoming marriage of a daughter. And one must not forget that the family often waits for his return to buy the evening meal.

We often haggle with the vegetable vendor as often his prices are outrageous. It is true that in the recent past we have taken to shop in the air conditioned comfort of the newly built local supermarket or even taken to visit the very wholesale market our vendor buys his vegetables from. But just take a moment and think of all the baggage the vendor carries: a big family to care for and many responsibilities to fulfill then perhaps the price he asks for does not seem that shocking.

There was a time not so long ago that our vegetable vendor did not need to make umpteen rounds of the colony. He was the only option we had. Today he has many unfair competitors and he needs to survive. I guess that is what disturbs me each time I hear him cry: it is a cry for survival.

Last week at a staff meeting many teachers asked us for mayur jugs (large flasks) so that the children could have clean and cool drinking water this summer. In many cases the teachers requested us to send the flasks filled with clean water as there was no clean water in the slum where they taught. In some cases the sewer and drinking water lines had fused due to endless digging; in other cases there simply was no water and people has to make do with a tanker that came erratically.

Elections are around the corner and many candidates are promising water to their voters. In a slum in Delhi voters stated quite candidly that they would give their vote to the one that would solve their water woes. There is a shortage of water, we all know that. The water table is diminishing, wells and ponds are drying and water is getting scarce by the day. Yet we continue building on flood plains and digging tube wells. No one is willing to listen to environmentalists or green warriors. We may nod our head in agreement at every speech given but how many of us walk the talk. Do we shut the tap while brushing our teeth? Have me given up our jacuzzi, tub bath, shower and reverted back to the bucket and mug bath? Do we make sure that our cars are not hosed when washed? Do we harvest rain water? The list is endless.

The fact that there was no proper drinking water in most of the slums were we teach was a true wake up call. It is time each one of us started doing something to conserve water and treat it like a precious resource and not something we can take for granted.

I sometimes purchase magazines. A sort of virtual retail therapy! I often do so quite absentmindedly. It could be a weekly political magazine or a monthly women’s one. Now if you have bought such magazines you would have realised that since some years they come protected in pristine plastic covers that need to be ripped apart to get to them. Now are we not a city that has banned plastic bags!

I recently read a very touching piece entitled : the orphaned plastic bag. It ends with these words: You humans talk about “Ban of Plastic Bags “If I could speak, I would scream out loud – Please do not create another Plastic bag. It will end up like me on the street, orphaned forever … and ever…

The question that arises is quite valid: why create more plastic bags when the same are banned. I sat pondering on this for a long time and realised how many useless plastic bags are created every day. For instance does one need a plastic covering for a magazine. For years we had been purchasing our magazines without such protection. What is more disturbing is that these bags are made by the very people who talk about and print articles on the ban of such bags.

Perhaps, if we truly want to ban plastic bags, the first step would be to stop creating new ones. Then maybe we could see what to do with those that already exist.

A young girl died on Monday. She died in her school. She suffered an asthma attack and the school was unable to give her the required care. What is shocking is that this was one of the most reputed school of the capital. This is the second death of a child in school in a week. Little Shanno lost her life after being brutalised by her school teacher.

In both cases it is the friends and family of the two girls who have taken up the cudgels for them. In both cases pathetic and deplorable cover up operations are being carried out by those in power. But that is where the similarities stop as Shanno and Aakriti belong to two different Indias.

In little Shanno’s case the witnesses are little slum kids whose voice cannot carry far. In Aakriti’s case the witnesses are young articulate English speaking kids of rich India whose voice is loud and purposeful. Whereas Shanno’s family and friends did protest they were not invited to talk shows and TV programmes, their voices soon died out and no much happened. Instead of seeing the arrest of the teacher, one saw her boldly and brazenly denying facts and clamouring her innocence. Aakriti’s friends were heard and the principal of the school has to resign. Ministers promised prompt action as they made the right noises.

Both cases highlight different issues. In one case it is abysmal and inhumane practice of corporal punishment that prevails in schools in India and in the other it seems to be gross and unacceptable negligence. I would like to share with view what a volunteer who had come to pwhy some time back wrote after hearing of Shanno’s death:

It is sad to read about Shanno’s departure first thing in the morning. This thing about corporal punishment is something that bothered me a lot when I was with Pwhy in 2007, and till today I am still intrigued. I am no sociologist or anthropologist, but my belief has always been that common social practices are often present at more than one site.

The way I see it, corporal punishment in school is highly relevant to parenting beliefs, which in turn affects how children view themselves in situations of physical abuse. My own observations of pwhy children are that they do use physical force on one another – they seldom fight, but they give each other a strong hit on the back to express satisfaction.. and even when just playing they push each other around. The same goes even for some Pwhy teachers – “pats” on the back is common, and in my opinion, both children and teacher alike think nothing of their behaviour or perhaps they are not even aware of what they are doing.

Extend this to the community and I believe this is how children interact with one another (they even showed this in “Slumdog millionaire”), and I think it is also how parents educate their own children. Schools are viewed as an extension of home education, so it isn’t surprising to see teachers behaving in the same way or to walk around with a long thick cane yelling at the latecomers. Singapore was once like this as well in the early years of Independence. My parents grew up being punished physically, so they used the same tactics on me when I was young. Mishaps are viewed as “accidents”, the only difference is that parents will feel remorse at their own actions while teachers may not. Thus, my own opinion is that such practices, what is termed as a disciplinarian “hidden curriculum”, cannot be mandated because the jurisdiction of school leaders and teachers have a lot more weight than regulations on paper.

To change how things are, I would think start with convincing the parents (maybe at parents’ meeting). I believe there will be a lot of skepticism and doubt as to whether such change in ways of children education will raise effective kids. If this resistance can be overcome, then kids need to be educated too. They need to stop believing that adults have the right to punish them physically, and that no matter what happens they need to tolerate. Shanno may have survived if she had known that it isn’t right for her to stand under the sun for 2 hrs and learnt to protect herself. I’m not participating in the blaming game, but I think the solution should be bottom-up instead of top-down. We need to try starting with the community, because if parents make principals and teachers accountable for all actions of corporal punishment, that is when such behaviour will begin to diminish. As for students I think it is important to alert them to the need for “defense” – not to fight back in defiance, but to know how to protect themselves if they were treated unreasonably.

I will leave you to react on the above but I feel that it makes a lot of sense. Corporal punishment cannot be abolished by laws and orders alone. It is endemic to our society and a bottom up solution needs to be found. At pwhy we do try to raise awareness about the dangers of corporal punishment but the road is a log one as lifting your hand of a child seems to be ingrained in almost indelible ways.

Aakriti’s case is different. It is a case of gross negligence that even reeks of arrogance. The school in question is one of the best up market schools, where getting admission is almost viewed as a privilege only given to the few. That the child was not given proper attention is unforgivable. We are a very tiny organisation with meagre resources but even we have a drill that is t be followed in case of any child being sick or hurt. We have a contract with a local nursing home which attends to any problem that may occur. Teachers are told to rush the child there in case of any mishap. No one needs to await any instruction. It is an absurdly simple model that works.

I do not know whether enquiries and probes will solve corporal punishment or negligence. The issues are far greater and very complex. They require well though of solutions and answers. In my humble opinion it is the entire school system that is at fault and the two deaths we have witnessed are very representative of this: little Shanno’s death reflects the sad state of the state run schools which are going from bad to worse, and young Aakriti’s death reveals the almost hubristic attitude adopted by so called good schools that seem to have become impervious to any form of censure. What is worse is that there seems to be no end to this situation. Once again I will make my plea for a common school but know that too many vested interest will ensure that I am never heard.

It was treat time for our prep class! The whole class had been invited to Mc Donald’s for burgers, fries, and lots of fun. Little notes had been sent to all parents to ensure that the kids came to pwhy in their Sunday best. And they did, each in a set of sparkling clothes.

Most of our prep class kids come from very deprived homes and for them it would be first time in a car, first time in an air conditioned environment and probably a very first acquaintance with a burger and pack of fries. The host for the day, a group of volunteers from iVolunteer, landed at the exact time. There was a palpable excitement in the air as the children, twenty of them, wore their badges and slipped on their shoes. A short ride in two three wheelers took them to the waiting cars were everyone piled in.

I did not go with them. I just saw the pictures and got a debrief from the two teachers who had accompanied the children. The smiles on the faces said it all. Never mind if the burger was too large and the ice cream cone somewhat messy. Everyone had a ball. If some enjoyed licking the sauce from the packet, others preferred dissecting the burger before eating it. But what the heck. It was a very satisfied lot that returned to pwhy. I would have given anything to know what went on in their little minds filled with new sensations and images.

You can share some moments of this every special outing here

A big thank you to iVolunteer!

I am livid. The whole of yesterday was spent watching a news item that was splashed on all channels: a sting operation that revealed that the little girl who acted in Slumdog Millionaire was up for sale by her father! The sting operation had been undertaken by a British tabloid.

The article makes sordid reading. Is this not the worse kind of child abuse! Starry kids enjoying the delights of a five star hotel – be it the mattress you can jump on or the ice cream and cold drinks you can gorge on – while adults are discussing the price they would be sold at.

I had always been weary of the plight that awaited these star kids. I has watched in silent horror as the children were paraded by a fashion designer and used by a political party for electioneering. I have watched with sadness the innumerable articles about these children each highlighting the innumerable goodies offered to them: be it money, homes or trust funds. I have watched with dismay these children slowly losing the anonymity and safety of childhood and feared for them. Everyone was in the race for its pound of flesh and no one was bothered about the children and their future.

I will reiterate what I have said earlier. If anyone had the interest of these children at heart, they should have been quietly sent to a good boarding school without any ado. There was no need to herald and trumpet what was being done for them. The reality is that whatever has been done for them till now has been done to fulfill selfish agendas. No one is concerned about the children themselves. They are just be used like circus animals.

The truth is that no one is truly interested in the plight of slum children. I can talk with authority as I have spend a fifth of my life trying to muster help to do just that. The little children in the picture are all in a boarding school and are doing well. I wish I could do more but I have no glamour to barter. I simply have the hopes, dreams and morrows of children to give in exchange.

A little girl died yesterday. She was 11 year old. She died because she was not able to recite her alphabet. She died because her teacher hit her head against the table and then made her stand in the sun for two hours. She died because her frail body could not withstand the brutal punishment.

My heart goes out to little Shanno yet another innocent victim of the beast called corporal punishment. The question I ask is how many more such deaths will it take for us to wake up and do something? This is not the first case and sadly this will not be the last. Corporal punishment is too deeply ingrained in our system. Once again the same drama will enfold: outrage and anger, some cosmetic dismissals and suspensions, some platitudes mouthed by people in power and then as always little Shanno will be laid to rest in more ways than one.

We too at project why had tried long ago to take on the hydra headed monster called corporal punishment. I remember the case of a child who had been mercilessly beaten by his school teacher and how we had taken up the cudgels on his behalf. I recall the innumerable visits to the education department, the endless petitions to one and all. The end result had simply been a cosmetic transfer of the teacher to another school. But that was not all. From that day onwards pwhy children were singled out in the school and beaten for no apparent reason.

Wonder what punishment will be meted out to the teacher whose cruel action resulted in little Shanno’s death. The whitewashing act has already begun. The blame game has started. As always in all cases of child abuse the victim is made the offender. The teacher has given her defense and the system will undoubtedly protect her.

But there are deeper questions that arise from the present situation. This is not an isolated incident. Children are beaten every day in schools in India. One wonders why? What is it that turns an apparent sane human being into a monster? What gives the right to a teacher to physically abuse a child? And why does it happen over and over in spite of laws and court directives. Questions that need answers.

Little Shanno may have been a child with a learning disability. Maybe she just was not able to cope with her studies. But the existing system has no place for children like her. And in all probability teachers are not sensitized towards such children. The disturbing yet inevitable reality is that even if the teacher is brought to book there will be many other Shannos unless the whole education system is reviewed and altered. But who will bell the cat?

Recession, recovery, turnaround are notions I have always found hard to understand. Perhaps it is because I decided a long time ago to invest in smiles, hopes and tomorrows! But one cannot remain impervious to the happenings around us. One realises that one is in the midst of a deep crisis and that every one’s morrows are uncertain.

Yesterday I was sent a link to a note on the popular social site Facebook. The note was simply entitled The Last Turnaround and talked about a Golden Era that would come after some terrible apocalyptic times. The author urged us to prepare for such times just as you would for an impeding calamity. A true doomsday scenario that one would like not to believe, and yet…

I am no economist or specialist of any kind, but in my humble and limited opinion what we are facing is a moral crisis more than an economic one. If we do not mend our ways we are heading straight to the times our friend predicts. In a former post I had tried to unravel the mess we are in and had submitted my views. I still feel that we are living in a void that we are trying desperately to fill with the wrong things. We live self centred lives with scant regard for the other. We break laws and rules with impunity and revel in doing so. The way we treat our planet is a perfect example of what I am trying to say. In our city in spite of laws banning plastic bags or disallowing tube wells, everyone is carrying such bags and tube wells are being dug everywhere drying up the much depleted water table. And the list is endless and depressing. More cars, more ACs, more lights, more of everything as long as it meets my needs.

We are not interested in the other, whether it is one who lives on the other side of the fence or the one yet to be born. I was deeply moved by my elder daughter when she walked into the kitchen holding her child and urged us to stop wasting water for his sake. It was a true wake up call.

But let us get back to the morrows that await us. If we are going to be taken by the lure of the ephemeral turnaround that is around the corner and continue doing what we do so well: borrow senselessly and spend carelessly then we are paving the way to the kind of crash predicted by our friend. Sadly it seems we may just go that way unless we realise that we need to look within and accept to change.

Once again I will quote the little prince and his friend the fox: if we want a tomorrow then we need to look at everything around us with our hearts.

I do not write about TV programmes and reality shows. And yet today I write about one such show that is the buzz on the Internet and the talk of many a town. The reason is a rather cryptic message that accompanied the link and simply said: this video reminded me of pwhy!

The clip in question for those who do not wish to waste precious time for the download, is about a middle aged, frumpy, unemployed woman taking part in a singing contest. Everyone laughs and jeers at her when she says that her dream is to be a singer. When she starts singing everyone is stunned. When she finishes every one is blown over. Even her choice of song seems perfect as she ends her song with the words: Now life has killed the dream I dreamed. (I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables).

Like millions who have watched the clip I too felt moved. Yet I wondered for a long time why my friend had been reminded of us as she watched Susan Boyle sing. Then it struck me. She was an underdog just like all the children of project why, a little guy with huge dreams. One that people will always jeer or scoff at. The one no one believes in. The little child in his tattered clothes who dreams of being a star, the boy who sits in front of his hovel and dreams of being a pilot, the little girl who watches her sick mommy and dreams of becoming a doctor. The message was clear: if the little lady from a remote Scottish village can make it big, so can each our children. You just have to dream big and hold on to your dream. That is what we do at project why!

A recent mail from an activist friend brought to light the plight of senior secondary government school girls who were told not to come to school if they did not purchase all the school books needed for their class. Most of these students were from extremely poor families and could not afford to buy the said books. Many of the girls had actually stopped going to school for fear of the reprimand they would be subjected to. It seemed that the latest reason for dropping out off school could just be the inability to purchase school books.

That girls from poor and deprived homes reach senior classes is nothing short of a miracle. Very often parents who are more than willing to provide tuition classes for their sons, find doing the same for their daughters a waste of money. Girls are often left to their own devices. Moreover their study time is often truncated as they are given innumerable house tasks: from looking after their siblings to cooking and cleaning. Parents would rather see them drop out of school than purchase books for them. And if the schools sing the same tune, the girls are doomed.

Every election manifesto has heralded the need to look at the girl child and better her plight. Yet while such lofty ideas are being trumpeted, girls in India’s capital city are at the risk of dropping out of school because they cannot afford to buy school books. There has to be a way out. Schools could keep a pool of books and lend them to needy students. This would be eminently doable if curriculum did not change every year, as the books could be passed on to the next batch. A fine could be charged if the books were spoiled.

It is unacceptable to have children drop out of school in senior classes because they cannot buy books. Something needs to be done… now!

A grandchild fills a space in your heart that you never knew was empty. Had anyone said those words to me a few weeks back I would have pooh poohed them away with a dismissive laugh. How could that be. And yet today as I roam my empty house I feel a huge hole in my heart, in that very place I never knew was empty.

Agastya Noor left for his home after spending five whole weeks with us, five weeks: almost half of his tiny life! While he was with us time flew and one did not have the time to sit and ponder about matters. Yet was I not the one who had stated that becoming a grand parent promotes you to another stage in life, one that entails contemplation and reflection. While he was here there was no time to think let alone reflect. Time just slipped past in a flurry of nappies and bottles. True that we were treated to his first smiles and gurgles but one hardly had time to stop and savour them. Then one day it was time to pack nappies and bottles and fly away leaving behind that huge gaping hole one never knew existed. It was time to reflect and puts things in perspective.

Why was it that from the time he left all that once seemed not only enough but plentiful seemed suddenly inadequate and wanting? Difficult to say. Logically one should be elated and content then why this feeling of despondency. Maybe it is because you realise that time is short and that you may not be able to do all that you would want to. The famous space in your heart that you never knew existed is the one that now needs to be filled and you do not quite know how!

Utpal and Meher had a terrible tryst with fire when they were juts babe in arms. That terrible moment changed their lives forever. Perhaps this is the way the God of small persons operates.

Were it not for their scars these two spirited kids would have had very different lives. Utpal the child of a dysfunctional alcoholic family would have still been moving from home to home (as his parents were often shooed away by their landlords) and Meher would have had to bear the jibes and barbs of her peers who laughed at her maimed hands and scalded face. Neither Meher nor Utpal would have been in school.

But the God of small persons had decided otherwise. Both these children had been singled out and destiny had other plans for them but to accede to these plans the little souls had to undergo a baptism by fire. Today Utpal is in his third year in boarding school and had just been promoted to Class II and Meher has had her first surgery to repair her hands and face. Next year she too will join Utpal in school.

Strange are His ways… all we can say is Chapeau Bas!

We were rummaging through old home photographs and memorabilia when my eyes fell on a small leather bound book. It was a copy of the new testament and belonged to Ram, my father. A couple of pages had been earmarked. I opened the first such page:

At that time the disciples approached Jesus and said, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18)

I had never heard Ram quote from the Bible or any other religious text and thus this came as a surprise. What was even more astounding was the content of the page marked. It was almost uncanny and surreal. Had I not been sitting and ruminating about how I would make both ends meet as we were/are again in the midst of a sever financial crunch. And had I not even considered, albeit for a tiny instant, packing everything up and moving on. True this was just a fleeting moment of weakness only I was witness to. But nevertheless it did happen.

Was this a message from Ram showing me the way and giving me the strength needed to carry on? I guess so. My thoughts went back to the day when I had stumbled upon a diary written by my mom and found in it many answers I sought. Once again in spite of being in another realm, my incredible parents had reached out to their hurting child. I knew what I had to do and above all knew that I would succeed.

The little boys are lost in their game. At this very moment it is all that matters. The only aim is to try and win. They are not bothered about tomorrow or times to come.

On Monday these three boys and their pal Utpal and didi Babli will pile up in a big car with their bags and baggage and drive to their new school the place which if all goes well, will be their home for many years to come and will change their lives forever. As they cast their dice and move their pawn across the board, they are totally unaware of all the drama that preceded this moment and how close we were to see it all blow away. Yet the miracle happened like so many that came quietly, unobtrusively each time one prayed for them.

Yes we have had our share of miracles that even the most cynic or hardened soul has to acknowledge: a little girl whose scars will soon vanish, a host of little and big children who have passed into their new class, a child of God who once again has proved to us that spirit is stronger than any bodily ailment. True that each miracle came with its share of angst and worry, but all was soon forgotten.

Does one get a little nonchalant and even blasé in such circumstances and start believing that all is well and nothing can halt the winning spree? Not quite as past experience has proved beyond doubt. There is always something that calls us back to order and makes us realise that nothing comes easy. As I was basking in the glory of all that had been achieved came the startling yet expected news: there were no funds to see us through the month! I must admit that it was quite a shock. It is so easy for us humans to think that all is well and that nothing can come and cloud our sunshine. But everything comes at a price and perhaps the price of all the wonderful miracles that have come our way is our ability to remain humble and remember that one has to toil to achieve what we seek.

It has been a long time since I have held out my virtual begging bowl. Apologies to those who have expressed their disapproval at my use of the word begging. I will try and explain why I still insist on using it. Perhaps it is simply because it reflects in the best manner possible the attitude of humility that needs to be respected at all times. The price that needs to be paid lest we sink into hubristic realms. The past years have been replete with lessons some truly uplifting, others quite deflating. Yet what has transpired is that you ultimately win if you are willing to play the game by the rules.

So after a long time I am once again going to write innumerable mails to solicit help with the hope that once again people will look with their hearts and help us.