A comment on my latest post reads: A comprehensive solution that caters for reduced population growth, offers equal opportunities to all Indians, offers a fair and just judicial system, and a fair market where people can achieve their goals with no fear is what we need. Wow! Wish one knew how to conjure that, but sadly one does not have the magic wand required. The commentator feels that we cannot limit ourselves to education and perhaps he is right, but to me it seems to be the only logical starting point that may one day open many doors.

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to realise that in today’s day and age, the well educated have a head start in life and maybe the Education for All programme should be renamed as Good Education for All or Fair education for All!

While I was writing this post another comment dropped by. It said pardon me, but i fail to see the social evil of a prestigious educational institution raising its bar. the tougher the goal, the harder one works, the better the ones who qualify and the better the end result. Education is a right, but excellence is a prize one must earn. It is sad indeed that your students will now not be able to enter DU, but surely there are other places they can, and if they are not motivated/empowered to begin with, what magic is an admission in a university going to make? I am saying your students are to be blamed for bad performance, i have worked among high school dropouts and i know at least some of the difficulties and so i suggest you turn this in to an incentive for the rare motivated child, than turn it into an opportunity to complain.
I mean no ill will, this is not a rebuke, please do not take offense, i merely want you to think again.

I must admit that at first it raised my heckles. But with all due respect to the commentator who chose to remain anonymous I did think again as suggested and rather than go into a useless diatribe I chose to answer each point made.

There is certainly no social evil in any education raising its bar provided every bar down the line is also raised. I mean let us raise the pass percentage of school leaving examinations. When I was a student the highest marks veered around 65% with a low of 33. Today we see 99% at one end still 33 at the other. The tougher the goal the higher one strives is again an acceptable maxim but how does one reach that goal if one of the contestant has to run the race with his feet tied up. Let me explain in some government schools – and I have this from the horses’s mouth – the entire curriculum is not even taught as iIwas told by a school Principal: only 40% is needed to pass. And I am not even mentioning minor adavantages like educated parents, access to good books, computers etc.

No Sir, most my students will not access prestigious institutions but not because they do not have the ability to do so, but because they have run a lame race from the beginning. And true there is no magic in an admission to a university, but every child has a right to this access.

Of all that has been written in this comment, the one thing I cannot and will not accept is that my students are to blame for bad performance. How do you blame a kid who has never been taught properly in school. one that goes back to a violent and abusive home, one whose childhood has been hijacked by all. Every child has potential. It is our duty as a society to provide an enabling environment from him or her to grow to its full potential.

If schools did provide that enabling environment then there would be no reason to complain. Schools today simply reflect our society. They are schools for the rich that become richer and school for the poor that seem to become worse by the day. If one has air conditioned facilities the other does not even have toilets or drinking water. School has to be a level playing field, a learning experience, a place to discover that other realities exist, a space to rub shoulders with all and share knowledge. Only then will every child have the possibility to access higher portals and contribute to the change we all seek. And only then will I accept the accusation levelled against my kids.

Yes anonymous friend I have thought again, and it has made my resolve stronger. It is time we offered equal opportunities to all Indians.

The Delhi University cut off lists are out. A whole 1% higher than last year! You need 90% and more to secure a seat in a prestigious college, and at least 75% to find space in DU (Delhi University). Anything less than that leaves you with few choices: a correspondence course or if you family is endowed, a seat in the new kids on the block: the mushrooming private colleges and institutions that come at a hefty price.

Statistics show that over 100 000 kids passed their class XII Boards. However one wonders where most of them will go as the pass percentage marks remain frozen in time. 35% still gets you your exam and 60% still gives you the 1st division tag.

Something is not right. Or are we mute spectators to a system that pays lip service to education for all while ensuring that the spoils remain the prerogative of a few.

For almost a decade now we have been striving to ensure that children from underprivileged homes do not drop out of school and obtain the much coveted class XII Board. It has been a handicap ridden obstacle race. Practically no teaching in schools, illiterate homes, poor motivation of parents and more. And yet year after year we have ensured that all pwhy get the coveted pot of gold. I must admit that though we have had a handful of 1st divisions (above 60%) and a sprinkling of kids with 70% and above, the majority of pwhy children secure marks between 45 and 52%. This means that the doors of DU are closed to them. And as they all come form poor backgrounds, they cannot accede to private institutions. Somehow for them the journey ends there.

Boys may join some vocational course or the other and maybe a get a job; girls are condemned to stay home waiting to be married off and produce more children who will be destined to teh same fate.

The sad reality is that one cannot see the end of the tunnel. One may wonder where the solution lies or is it that we just accept that we are fighting a losing battle. We all seem to agree that education is the magic potion that would change India. But is it the kind of education that we see around us today?

How many of us do actually switch off lights when we leave a room, never leave our computers or TVs on stand by, segregate our house waste shut the tap off while we brush our teeth, carry a cloth bag during all our shopping sprees, or travel in a car pool. Not many I guess. But are we not also the many who lecture others on all of the above, nod our heads vigorously during any debate on saving the environment and are the first to sign any petition on the same.

Yesterday someone mentioned a recent article predicting that the North Pole would actually melt this summer. His words brought terrible images to mind, yet before this could truly sink in, the conversation that was threatening to become disturbing moved on, as is too often the case, to a lighter vein. Somehow we always tend to push away what has the potential to rock our boat.

Yet the writing is on the wall: global warming is no more a topic to be debated it lies at our doorstep as we have seen this summer in Delhi. True that there was practically no summer this year, no hot searing heat that sweetens the melons and kills the mosquitoes. True again that the rains came early and the temperature remained low. But this is no cause to rejoice as it is a portent of things to come. Nature has been disturbed and no one knows what lies ahead.

Awareness on environmental issues has been something that we at project why have tried to disseminate, and I say tried, as I must confess our attempts have not been successful or maybe not wholehearted enough. Most of our efforts failed as they clashed with mindsets – our children will never clean streets was the answer to our no plastic programme – or social attitudes.

And yet we know that something needs to be done. It is with this in mind that I approached a friend who walks the talk as far as environment issues go. What I sought was a scintillating project that would look good on the pwhy CV! What my friend suggested was quite the contrary. Have every one follow a zero carbon hour, was his quiet suggestion. I was a tad confused as it made no sense to me. He set out to explain his idea. What he meant was that each one of us, collectively or individually, should once a day or once a week spend one hour where we ensure that our carbon footprint is nil. Translated in other terms it means that for that one hour we use no cellphone, no computers, no iPod, no TV, no cars, no electricity, no fuel of any kind. And further translated in practical terms it means that for one hour you just take a walk or sit in a park or in a room weather permitting.

At first it seemed nothing short of preposterous and yet as I pondered over it, it was a overwhelming. A simple idea and yet one that had immense power as not only was it kind to the environment but also good for us individually. A forced meditation pause that would ensure we get off the spinning wheel and reconnect with ourselves. And there was no excuse as it cost nothing, needed no props or training and could be followed by all.

At this moment of time I do not know how this will be accepted by our team. I do foresee obstacles and hurdles but at the same time I know I am going to use all the power I have to see it happen: maybe not an hour to start with but 30 minutes; maybe not everyday to begin with but once a week but we at project why will adopt a zero carbon hour programme.

To be continued…

Why is God laughing is the title of Deepak Chopra’s latest book. I have not read it. Yet, just the title filled me with a deep sense of joy.

A review of the book states: it shows us without a doubt that there is always a reason to be grateful, that every possibility holds the promise of abundance, and that obstacles are simply opportunities in disguise. In the end, we really don’t need a reason to be happy.

Why is God Laughing. I guess simply because he sees the big picture and knows that ultimately all falls in place. And I guess wisdom lies in realising just that.

We, humble mortals, have perfected the art of holding on to the tiny bad moment forever, wallowing in it, and refusing not only to let it go but refusing to look beyond. And thus zillions of happy and almost perfect moments pass us by.

I must admit that there was a time when I too did just that. But pwhy changed it all. The past few years have shown me that every moment is worthy of celebration and that nothing is too daunting; one just has to have the ability to wait that little extra moment as even the darkest cloud has a silver lining.

You can think that there will never be a way out of the momentary darkness, and yet there is. And what is amazing is that the way out is often most unexpected. When Basant first came to me, I could not even begin to imagine how we would help this little family as dice seemed loaded against them. And yet God was quietly laughing as he knew the way out. And what is truly wondrous is that the solution would bring together unrelated things. The launch of dear popples, a precious personal dream, would also usher a new dawn for Basant’s family

And this is but one example, the latest in a series of plenty. I never imagined how manu, utpal. babli, neha and many others would come out of their darkness, and yet they did, each one of them in the most unexpected ways.

Yes God is laughing and I am busy being grateful!

This is project why’s class of 2008. They have all passed their Boards examinations and are ready to taken their first steps in the outside world with confidence and aplomb.

But yesterday was party time and this picture was taken just a few minutes before they set out for a movie and a treat. I watched them set off with a sense of pride laced with a dash of sadness. This was probably the last time I would see them all together. The morrows belonged to them.

One just hoped that the few years they spend with us would help them in their new ventures. Some are planning to go to college, others are looking for vocational training options. Some may soon be married and others may need to start working to help their families. Some may drop by and see us; others we may never see again. And yet they remain part of us.

farewell class of 2008!

The world is full of wonders and miracles but man takes his little hand and covers his eyes and sees nothing. The words of Israel Baal Shem came to my mind when I saw this picture after a long time. Actually I was putting together a presentation for the launch of dear popples and hence looking through old pictures.

Anyone looking at this child splashing away in a five star pool would never believe that he had once been practically written off by all! And yet today he lives, laughs, goes to a boarding school and is just another little happy boy. He is one of the many miracles that have come our way but that we tend to hide by covering our eyes with our little hand. Or is it that we at project why have simply become inured to the plethora of wonders and miracles that have come our way.

A young girl who tops her school, a handful of kids who are busy making up for lost time now that their hearts are fixed, a young mother fighting a debilitating disease, a disabled beggar who now has a warm bed, a home and a new family, a bunch of kids who would have dropped out of school but who now are assured of a sound education and a small family quietly waiting for a miracle.

I am glad that seeing this lovely snapshot brought Baal Shem’s words to my mind. Far too often in life we tend to glean over tiny problems and minor impediments and forget all the wonders around us. And lost in our limited vision we simply forget to be grateful for the abundance that surround us.

It is time we took away our little hand from our eyes and simply looked around with us with gratitude.

In a tiny room where barely a bed and a small cupboard fit sit Basant and Rekha. They have been living in this ‘free’ dharamshala (hospice) for almost a month now, but this has not been their first stay here. They are now old hands at living in hospitals across the land.

Their story beats any of the tear jerking celluloid tales so popular in the sixties, the only difference is that it is not a story but real life. The quiet acceptance and the sated dignity are not performances that will beget national awards. The love, tenderness and compassion chiseled on Basant’s face is not for the cameras, it is what he truly feels for his blind wife. He does not even remember how long it has been, or how many hospitals in how many cities he has visited to try and rekindle the light in the eyes of his wife. They have now been at AIIMS for the umpteenth month an were held the last blow a few days back: the cost of medicine that may restore some vision to Rekha’s eyes was so prohibitive that they did not even take the name of the pills that come at 45o rs a piece and of which 2 have to be consumed each day for at least 30 days.

There is no anger, no bitterness, no indignation; at best what one feels is a sense of dignified resignation. Many blows have come in the way of this couple but they have accepted each one of them and tried to move on. It was only a few weeks ago that Basant was told that he needed immediate heart surgery at the mind boggling cost of 100 000 rs. More figures that have far beyond the realm of reality for them. A date was fixed: 7 June 2008. It past as they were unable to pay the money.

For this man who once had a small business and enough money to live an honest life, living on charity must be belittling, yet he stand patiently in queue for the daily packet of milk or ration that is doled out. He knows he has no other option.In a few days they will be thrown out of the hospice as no one is allowed to stay for more than 30 days at a time. They have scant options: to go back to the village beaten, or try and find a way out.

I came to know about them a few weeks back and since have been trying to get the help they so need. But we need in a world where charity has taken strange avatars. It is easy to get help for a child, perhaps a woman but when you seek the same for a man, you are just shunned. Yet in the broken heart of this man lie the morrows of four souls: three little children deprived of the presence of their parents and their mom. It is no wonder that Basant’s heart needs mending. For too long it has carried the weight of a love no one understands in our world.

Away from their children they wait patiently for a miracle to come their way, for now only a miracle can save them. They have exhausted all other resources. Maybe it is time we start looking at ours. We cannot or will not give up. We will ask Basant and rekha to move to our women centre and keep on knocking at doors till we find the one that hides another heart as big as Basant’s.

Is the God of Lesser beings listening.

We had two special visitors last week. Little Deepak and Shubhum. For those who may not remember or know them they were both residents of our heartFix Hotel.

Deepak is now a big boy, over two years old and a far cry from the cerulean baby we all feared for. Today he is all set to join our creche and take his firs steps into the big world. A lovely spirited child for whom we know, there is no looking back

Our next visitor was young Shubhum who has come to Delhi from his native village in Bihar for his six monthly check up. An endearing child, Shubhum is keen to study and his dream is to become a doctor. His father a humble tea vendor is doing his utmost to give him a good education in the best school available. Shubhum is already in class V. With young Shubhum came his little brother Rohit.

I often wonder what the God of Lesser beings has in mind when he makes his road maps. Rohit who looks like any normal child suffers from microcephaly. A slow learner with delayed milestones, Rohit is also an aggressive child with poor social skills. Rohit will need specialised care, something not available in his native home.

We have decided to support Shubhum’s studies and are now looking for options for little Rohit.

To many pwhy is just an education support programme with some forays into community work, a clone of many such organisations that dot the land. I guess it is in some ways quite that, in spite of the many small and big moments we have lived in the past nine years. Yet there is another side of pwhy, one often concealed and veiled and yet one that is as precious.

A heartwarming mail dropped my way this morning. It came from a very special volunteer who had spent a month with us last year. It simply said: The past 2 weeks have been emotionally tolling for me, but somehow Divinity told me to drop by Pwhy blog. True enough, I felt much better after that. At times I ask myself why, till I came across this story yesterday in my friend’s essay:

A little monk liked to complain about everything he does, about life in general. One day, his teacher asked him to go buy some salt. When he returned, the teacher poured half packet of salt into a glass of water. “Drink it”, the teacher commanded. The little monk did, and whined, “Bitter!!” The teacher then brought the monk to a lake, and poured the remaining salt in. “Drink the lake water”, he said. The monk scooped a cup of the lake water, drank it and, with a big grin, exclaimed, “Refreshing!!” Morale of the story? The amount of pain we have in life is the same, just like the salt. Whether we taste it, depends on how large the container – our heart – is.

I guess this is why Project Why always makes a difference. It opens up my heart and lets me realize there is no point in fixing my eyes on the “small” persona.

I read the words many times. They brought a sense of fulfillment laced with a tinge of sadness. In the last nine years I have seen pwhy change not only the lives of the target beneficiaries, but surreptitiously transform the lives of many young people who come from the four corners of the world to spend some time with us. If each volunteer who has come by has left a little of his or her self, they have also taken with them a little of pwhy. Some keep in touch regularly, others time and again. But each in his or her way have shared the fact that the days spent as made a tangible change in their lives. The sadness I mentioned earlier is that most of the young souls have been from other lands or live there. I have not been able to stir the same feelings in those who live round the corner.

I however still believe in miracles, and hope that one day they too will learn to look with their hearts.

The spiralling and sky rocketing price of petrol in the past few weeks has finally, or so one hopes, brought to fore the need to pause and think about the necessity to change our ways. Till now the pleas of environmentalists fell on deaf years. At best we nodded agreement to all that was said/written/seen while we fans or ACs ran in empty rooms in our own homes.

Words life carbon footprint and emissions made good erudite conversation points, the news of glaciers melting brought the right expression of concern, but nothing got translated into action. It was always felt that others were responsible for all the horrors that befell our planet, our contribution to its slow destruction being oh so negligible: what difference could we make.

Even we at pwhy stand guilty of this as we let our awareness and environment programmes wither away. Somehow it found no takers, or perhaps were we not committed enough. Our only true contribution I guess is our use of green fuelled vehicles , a decision taken I must confess not for environmental reasons but practical and humane ones: the three wheelers have better access in slum areas and are owned by parents. I guess one has also time and again made the politically correct noise but how far have the words been translated into action. Not far at all I must admit. True we have solar energy at our women centre but here again it was a gift from a friend.

Our forays into saving the environment have been too far and few. It is so easy to slip back into comfort zones.

The recent petrol hike has shaken everyone out of ts torpor as it now hits where it hurts most: our pockets. Even the powers that be are talking about reducing carbon footprint: cancelling foreign jaunts and looking at alternative means of transport is the latest mantra being chanted in political circles. Recently a foreign visitor wondered whether the metro when it is completed would change things; his question was simple: would people like you and me adopt it as an alternative means of transport leaving our cars behind. Sadly the answer is in the negative. While we are willing to take metros and tubes on our foreign holidays, I wonder how many of us will take the metro to work or to visit a relative on a weekend. One can here again quote Don Ritter “Trying to save ecosystems has more to do with changing egosystems.” It is all a matter of egosystems and unless we change those nothing will really change.

People are finally seeing their dreams come true: the new Bentley or gleaming bike have just come their way so how can you ask them to park them and take a walk and a metro ride. It would be anathema. Will the new petrol price make a difference? I wonder.

Every price hike is finally taken in one’s stride. Smokers still smoke, and Bentleys and Mercedes still drive around. So one wonders what will truly shake us out of our inertia ad compel us to change? I again wonder.

The recent rains are once again a proof of our blinkered view of life. We urban animals and city dwellers are celebrating the cool clime totally oblivious to the fact that this freak weather may delay the monsoons and hence affect the crops.

Are the times really changing….

Once upon a time, not so long ago, an afternoon at the cinema was a treat almost anyone could afford. For less than a hundred rupees two persons could see an afternoon flick and even eat a greasy burger or share a fizzy drink. Cinema was for the masses. Halls were huge and catered to large numbers. The number of movies produced were in accordance with the need of such large audiences. Box office was defined by the number of viewers as well as the number of times one saw the same film. Catching a first day first show was almost a ritual. Cinema was for everyone. It was one of the platform where the two Indias met on almost level field.

Was it too good to be true or did the Gods get jealous? Or was it once again the lure of what lay beyond seven seas or just market forces at play? Who knows. But came the day when the playing ground was redefined and the first multiplex appeared. A new invisible wall was surreptitiously erected. Suddenly what was once open to all, became inaccessible to some. A simple movie ticket was out of reach.

I have never been a movie goer and was quite unaware of the change. Slowly many of the cinema halls that dotted our area started closing for renovation, a renovation that rung the death knell of an era. Yesterday I decided to give a treat to Utpal, Kiran, Chanda and Radhey. The idea was to send them all to the movies, or rather should I say to the multiplex. Two adults and two children. I did not quite know how much money to give them. I handed them 1000 Rs thinking that they would also be able to buy themselves some lunch. I was horrified to learn that almost 800 rs were spent on the tickets alone and the remaining 200 barely got one cold drink and a bag of pop corn. You see in today’s new environment only branded eateries can operate in the swank halls. Gone are the days when you could grab your greasy burger or patty. And of course UtpalKiran being above 5 were treated as adults! And multiplexes have only one rate, even if you are placed in the front row. A great leveller but sadly in the wrong side of the spectrum.

Movies, at least in big cities, are no more for the poor. What was once entertainment for the masses and provided a few hours of much needed escape to many, was now the preserve of a few. You could not more plan a Sunday afternoon family outing. It would cost you a month’s wages. This is today’s reality. The times are indeed changing…

The picture you see may, at first glance, seem innocuous and anodyne. A bunch of smiling young ones chaperoned by an also smiling older one. True that they seem to come from different lands but in today’s shrinking world this is no big deal!

This is what it looks like and no offence to anyone thinking just that. However this snapshot tells an incredible tale. It begins with the meeting of four young persons belonging to different worlds. Janaki is a pwhy alumni, and one we are terribly proud of. She came to us some years back, a spirited bright girl with an insatiable desire to learn. Not only was she a keen student but also one that never shied of anything that came her way. Meeting new people from unknown worlds, participating in any activity proposed, spending more time than necessary at pwhy in the hope of acquiring that little bit more. She completed her class XII last year by obtaining a 11th position in the whole of Delhi. Today she is in college doing not one but two courses.

Willy, Gordon and Lilly are but a few year older than Janaki. They come from the land that conjures success in measures larger than life. When Willy was just about Janaki’s age, an age when kids have glitzy dreams and boundless aspirations, he came to India to volunteer in a school and took a first step in a world that would change lives forever. Deeply moved by the plight of children of a Lesser God, he with some freinds decided to do something. And boy they did. At an age when you are barely considered an adult, they set up a foundation to help organisations engaged in developmental work. And in the span of a few summers thousands of children from the four corners of the world were touched by the magic of these incredible kids.

We at pwhy were privileged to receive an email from them last summer and from that day onwards there was no turning back. They simply walked into our hearts. For almost a year we exchanged mails and were overwhelmed by the unstinted trust and support we got. It was a rare privilege.

A few days back they flew into Delhi and we finally met. But somehow we felt we had known each other for an eternity. Though we knew they were one of a kind, we were overwhelmed by their warmth and kindness. And as we discovered each other, we realised that they were exceptional human beings. It was a meeting of spirits where neither age, nor culture, nor social origin, nor any of the things that normally qualify and often divide human beings mattered. We all spoke the same language.

It is a times like these that I allow myself a few stolen moments to pat myself in the back. As I have often said, pwhy is my swan song and also my magnum opus. I know that it is my last chance to do something I can be proud of. And though I live by stringent canons, moments like the one frozen in this tame picture make my heart swell with pride, till I quickly move on to simply being grateful.

There is little one can say in praise of the education imparted by the majority of state run schools. The least said the better. At best it amounts to getting a low pass percentage in your end exams. More often than not it leads to the child dropping out of school at some point with a rudimentary knowledge of the 3 Rs.

Every child, or let us say a huge majority are born with equal potential. This potential is waiting to be realised and that is what education is meant to do. Education is not just mastering lessons contained in text books. It is above all honing the ability of each and every mind to imbibe and interpret these very lessons and then to apply them in day-to-day activities. Interpreting anything requires many skills and above all our ability to be creative.

Creativity, imagination, innovation, vision are what make individuals winners. These abilities exist in every child’s mind. The best proof is the vast repertoire of pretend play that most children display. The ability to turn the most innocuous object into a wondrous one, the skill to engage in monologues or invent an invisible friend are all things that any child does with ease. The confidence to paint an elephant pink and a sky green is also present in every child till the day an adult exclaims in horror: an elephant is never pink, and the sky never green!

These are the first death knells of a budding creative mind. And as time goes on elephants are never pink again and the sky aways blue. Most kids unfortunately cannot retort by saying: my elephant is pink…And as time passes, every burst of creativity is often met with a I guess well meant never, till all skies turn blue even on a grey day.

many years back, when pwhy was still in its infancy, we held a drawing competition. There were children of all ages. We were stunned to see that all school going kids had produced the same painting: mountains, a rising/setting sun, a river, a house, trees. True there were variations on the theme: bolder colours, more confident strokes or an added flower or fish. But the basic scenery was the same. It was the one taught in all schools during what went by the name of an art class.

Yesterday we held another painting workshop on the theme: mother and child. The artists were in all in their teens. We fell of our chairs when we saw the results: we had many mountains/sun/river and only one child drew what could have passed for a mother and child, though the mom looked like something out of a fashion magazine or Bollywood pot boiler. Perhaps the child wanted her mom to look like that. At first everyone was rightly appalled as these drawings were needed for a show, but the initial displeasure was soon replaced by immense sadness as it was not fault of these kids: their creativity had been sacrificed the alter of what goes for education.

It was almost a reflex reaction worthy of Pavlov: drawing = mountain/sun/river. Even coaxing did not get us anywhere. Many kids simply stated their inability to draw from imagination. At best they said they could copy someone else’s drawing. A deal was struck. They would bring pictures of their moms and try again.

Our education system does stamp out creativity. I remember an incident when my own child was in class I and was to write an essay titled: My mother. Being a bright kid who had been taught to think for herself, she wrote about her mom: short hair, working woman et al. To her and my dismay she got an F. The reason being that all children had been given a set essay. Now the set essay talked of a woman with long hair, draped in a sari and cooking while the father went to work. That was not what my child’s mom looked like. I must confess that my furious barging into the Principal’s office was not well taken. And i must further confess that I was unable to get the school to accept my view. I had to deal with my kid and tell her that she had to comply with what teacher said. She was perplexed. Wonder what must have gone through her mind.

She gave it back to me a wile later in her own way. When she was learning the colour of the rainbow she diligently learnt the spelling of violet as v-o-i-l-e-t. When i tried to correct her, she said that was what teacher had written on the board.

Excuse this diversion. The point that one is trying to make is that education as it is imparted to a large number of children across India is one where imagination, creativity and other expressions of individuality are stifled. And whereas in ‘educated’ homes such skills and abilities are kept alive in some form or the other, in children of illiterate parents they simply die. One may argue that these talents are not needed to lead a successful life. I beg to differ. It is these very qualities that allow us to deal with life’s most demanding moments. It is these that help us solves crises, handle tricky situations and lead healthy lives. Lack or absence of imagination or vision deprives us of humour and the ability to laugh at situations and thus deflate them. It enables us to find appropriate solutions and deflect possible trouble. They are an integral part of any self respecting learning system. And they are kept alive in pink elephants and green skies.

One day Popples you will meet mrOcean. Many of your friends live close to it and many have promised that they will take you there one day…

These words were written almost 2 years ago and are now there for all to read as in dear popples. I must confess a little sheepishly that I had then hoped that I would be the one to make the introductions. But that was not part of the larger picture. Mr P met mrOcean last week when he was in Mumbai spending a few days with his new. friends: Abhigyan, Mrinal and Vedika. I wonder what went into his little mind when he saw so much water. I guess we will never know. All I know is that they will be tucked away in his little mind to be recalled at the right moment, when he is in need of reassuring himself.

Utpal has had an ace holiday in Mumbai. One replete with memories of things he never knew existed: a flat on the 22md floor, a shower cubicle, swimming in a pool with goggles, the feel of a real family with a father, mother and grandparents, a train ride over. And to crown a trip in a plane, like the ones he sees flying over his school every day. And of course the huge helicopter balloon he had to give up to enter the plane and that the misses terribly.

I know he was a handful to his impeccable and kind hosts but what a holiday it was. The kind he could not have ever conjured even in his wildest dreams. Here are some stolen moments:

The class XII results are out and once again all the pwhy kids have cleared the dreaded Boards! This is now the nth time in a row! There was a time when I remember spending a sleepless night before result day and pacing up and down till I was given the news. In those days results were not on line and one had to wait for the teacher to come back from the school where they were posted.

This year Naresh our secondary teacher just came to the office with his list of roll numbers and a few taps on the keyboard and we knew that all the kids had once again passed. No sleepless night, no angst. Just a feel of deja vu!

Naresh sat with paper and pencil computing the marks to get the percentages, a number essential to chart out the future. Gone were the days that a simple pass was enough for jubilation. Now it all depended on that extra half percent that could make all the difference. As I watched his serious face bent upon his sheet of paper I realised that all this could not have been possible without him. It is Naresh who has almost single handed, year after year, with rare dedication bordering on obsession ensured that pwhy kids have cleared their Boards!

The words of the title song from the movie To Sir with Love came to my mind: But how do you thank someone, who has taken you from crayons to perfume?It isn’t easy, but I’ll try. Every year we congratulate the kids, eat the sweets proffered and organise an outing. But this year kudos need to go where they are due: to sir, with love!

In the winter of 2001, when a deriding remark from a school Principal about the impossibility of a bunch of class X students to clear their Boards had led me to throw the gauntlet and accept the challenge of ensuring their success. That year we simply had a small spoken English class and helped a few primary kids with their studies on an ad-hoc basis. The bunch of boys were students of the spoken English class and the reason for my trip to the school was to find out why one of them had been beaten without apparent reason.

The next day the boys came, huge smiles on their faces and hope in their eyes. We had no classroom, no teacher, no funds. But what we had was the determination to win the challenge. At that time Naresh had just finished his college and was looking for work. I had hear that he use to give tuition to school kids. I asked him if he would help us and he accepted. Classes were held the pavement in front of our single class room, in the biting cold at 7.30 am with many cups of tea! That was how our senior secondary section began.

Naresh is a born teacher and teaches with compassion and unseen commitment. For him it is matter of pride to see his students do well even if that means extra classes early morning or late evenings and even on Sundays. He handles his section almost single handed as no teacher ever meets his expectations. And his students are infused with the same passion, as they often come well before time and wait for him with eagerness. Naresh has turned many failures into toppers and is always there for his students as a teacher, mentor and above all a friend. That is what teachers should be.

So today it is to Naresh that I say: hats off or chapeau bas!

This blog is not meat to be a personal one, nor is it meant to be one for reminiscing the past or delving in nostalgia. Yet today I beg your indulgence as I take a brief pause to remember Ram and Kamala on this day that would have celebrated 59 years of their union.

This blog is meant to share the project why story, but would there have been a pwhy, if Ram and Kamala had not walked this planet. I wonder.

The loss of a parent is always difficult to come to terms with. It digs a deep bottomless pit in your heart and soul, one that is impossible to fill, even with time. A word heard out of context, the whiff of an aroma, the chirping of a particular bird, the sight of an innocuous image are sufficient to trigger a Proustian reaction that is ample to bring back every single memory you had laid to rest.

Yet today it is not with sadness that I remember them, but with a sense of peace and fulfillment. The huge void they had left was not only filled but is now almost overflowing. It has been filled with the smiles of every child at pwhy, with the hearts repaired, with the report cards held out with pride every year, the big and small achievements of children of a lesser God: the first drawing made by one who could not hold a pencil, the first word babbled by one that could not speak, the first step taken by one who was never meant to walk. And they live on in each and every moment of pwhy’s life.

Ram and Kamala gave me the most beautiful gift: that of life itself, and then went on to colour it with muted lessons of hope and courage. I just hope I have been worthy of what they taught me subtly and without fuss.

Pwhy could not have been without them as it is in many ways a reflection of who they were: a spartan erudite humanist and a woman of well beyond her times who wanted to change things and led by example; a reflection reinterpreted by the one who loved them unconditionally.

Today I simply remember them!

We work hard to raise money so that we have the opportunity to help people but the more children we educate the more are being born that… so we are tempted to say that education will help our people to overcome poverty but if the resources remain the same and the population continues to grow… it’s a losing battle.

These very frightening words were sent by a dear friend who is a volunteer with an organisation that is deeply involved in education projects all over India. This friend also is a young highly educated Indian the very people on whose shoulders the destiny of India lies. I understand her concern ans perhaps would have shared it had I not been part of project why!

The education scenario in India is abysmal. But it is not only the state of education for the poor or underprivileged but also that of the so called rich and extremely privileged. A strange caste systems now prevails in school and one wonders what schools have become.

The simple definition for the word school in any dictionary is: a place for educating children. The crux of the matter lies in the definition of the word education and the one we at pwhy adopt is the one based on Delors 4 pillars of education: learning to know, to do, to be and to live with others. He says: these four pillars of knowledge cannot be anchored solely in one phase in a person’s life or in a single place. There is a need to re-think when in people’s lives education should be provided, and the fields that such education should cover. The periods and fields should complement each other and be interrelated in such a way that all people can get the most out of their own specific educational environment all through their lives.

To me the most important pillar remains: learning to live with others as therein lies the true success of education and this is sadly what is disappearing from the society we live in. Schools should be a level play field but is now turning into a mirror image of the social strata you belong to and the habitat you live in. Hence the richer you are the fancier looking your school is, and the poorer you are the more pathetic it will be. So any exchange, peer learning, learning to live with others is doomed to fail as you remain within the tiny part of society you belong to.

But I have digressed as the concern voiced here was that of population growth, or have I really? That is the moot point. Education we all agree is a spring board that can enable one to change one’s destiny but is the education we are today giving the children of India the right one to do that? The question raised has within it another element that we may tend to overlook: static resources or we can even say dwindling resources. And I speak with a certain authority as I was spent almost a decade raising these very resources.

Education alone can change the destiny of India and even help arrest population growth and maybe one day reverse it. Sadly it is perhaps not the kind of polarised education we see around us but one that would merge different strata of societies into schools that look like schools and not of seven stars resorts or slum backyards! That in itself would alter the content, change mindsets and bring a transformation that we cannot begin to imagine. All election oriented and fund draining dramatic programmes will lose their relevance as a symbiotic learning will emerge on its own.

Today we have idiosyncrasies like a pass percentage of 33% and a college entry point of 90+%! reservations in higher places of learning when we know the slum kid will never reach. These could slowly vanish on their own without laws and programmes.

But there is also another change that such an approach can bring. It may also address the resource issue as the better off kids may in such a situation become aware of their won responsibility and add to the resource pool. Pay it forward a simple fiction made into a movie launched a movement and a foundation. A child helps another and in return asks him or help to help three others and so on.

When we took on the challenge to give four kids the best education possible we were derided by many, particularly by those belonging to the rich side of the spectrum. And yet everyday these kids shows us that we cannot be wrong. In a pay it forward situation a rich kid could sponsor a poor one who in return would commit to help three or any number when her or she was in a position to do so.

Daydreaming? Perhaps or perhaps not. Change requires bold and seemingly preposterous action. Only one thing remains unchanged education is, cannot and should not be a losing battle!

We have to find the resources both financial and moral to go on!

A mail about little Radha’s plight dropped by this morning. It asked some stark questions:when you run in to such cases have you been able to get any insight in how the parents intended to support so many children? what were they thinking when they had 4 children in one room? is there some way you have found to communicate that there is no difference between a girl and a boy?

I wish I had answer to these questions. But this is one of whys for which we have sadly not found answers till date and yet it is one of the most deafening ones as therein lies the solution to many of the problems that plague our society. Yet it is almost one of the most inaudible ones too!

Parents like Radha’s produce many children often in the hope of the one or more son that seems to be the touchstone to gage the credibility of women in our land. And this definitely transcends all classes of society and all creeds. As they produce one child after the other they are not aware or thinking about the future of these children or about they would support them. That is often left to God! The paradox of this quest for the elusive son is that they are all aware of the reality that each girl that comes along the way is a burden as she will have to be one day married but that does not stop them.

The flip side is darker as is proved by the terrifying figures of the sex ratio in cities like Delhi where the rich can find ways to abort their unwanted girl child and the poor just abandonned them in garbage dumps or door steps. According to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen there are 38 millions missing women in India. So in a way Radha’s family should be lauded as at least they did not get rid of the unwanted daughters.

To the question about how they intended to support these kids in a tiny room the answers are again baffling and multiple. Having many children stems out from an atavistic past where many children died in infancy, children were extra hands on the land, where life was self contained and did not need stepping out from the habitat of origin, where families lived in clans and support systems were many. Sons were prized as they ensured continuity and protection of the land. The feudal system ensured protection of farm hands and those who did not own land as their being was a matter of honour.

When society changed and land got divided and could not feed the families it belonged to and as cities grew and were in need of labour, rural exodus started and simple illiterate families came in search of work and a better future. But the urban dream turned into a nightmare and with the total absence of any regulation and above all any housing policy, slums mushroomed helter- skelter and families found themselves living in dark hovels. Radha’s family is still small, sometimes over 10 people live in such places. I remember one case where the father was so tall that he either had to sleep at an angle or keep the door opened for his feet to stick out.

Life is a matter of survival in urban slums. In many cases people are daily wagers and the meal depends on what is brought home each day! It comes to a stage when people stop thinking beyond the day and live life one day at a time. But traditions, mores and atavistic instincts remain. Maybe they become a sort of lifeline in a world too strange to fathom. The yearning for boys is kept alive in spite of the fact that it has lost its meaning, the obsessive need to keep every ritual remains. I was horrified at the money spent for all the death rituals of an old woman who past away recently. The family, simple scooter drivers, fed almost 1000 people for 3 days. On the other hand the poor lady who died was never looked after. I shudder to think at the amount of money that is now owed to the loan shark.

So coming back to the questions asked by my friend and particularly the last one: is there some way you have found to communicate that there is no difference between a girl and a boy? The answer is sadly no, in spite of screaming one’s self hoarse and standing on our heads. There are more than 50 posts on this blog about the girl child and her plight some chilling beyond words. Every day the government announces new programmes for the girl child but rarely do they reach deserving beneficiaries because of complex paperwork, and often do not address the real problem as they are often looked at as simple monetary sops.

If we truly want to find viable solutions in my opinion one needs to be addressed are core issues. One of the main reasons girls are unwanted are that they need to be married and that marriage is a huge money drainer. Boys on the other hand bring money, cars, scooters, fridge, houses etc. Politicians, religious leaders and we the so called educated class should be the ones to set the right example. But sadly the now (ill)famed big fat Indian wedding is turning obese! And what is even more tragic is that in today’s India brides are being killed or forced to commit suicide because they have not brought enough dowry. This happened less than a month ago to young Astha whose parents had given a Mercedes car as part of her dowry. Till weddings mean money girls will not be wanted and boys welcomed.

This of course explains the different ways in which boys and girls are treated in families: education, food, pampering et al!

The other factor that I feel is never talked about let alone highlighted and is the cause of much pain in the lives of women is the fact that the woman is not responsible for the sex of the child. The X Y chromosome story is one that is never told. One cannot begin to imagine the number of women even rich ones who are derided and scorned for not producing that prodigal son. This is even true in rich and educated families. A simple campaign highlighting this could make a world of difference. We are all aware of the hue and cry raised by the so called conservationists and upholders of moral values when sex education was introduced in India. Not only is this essential is a country where AIDS figures are becoming alarming, but could be a way of also explaining how a child sex is determined and who is responsible for it.

There are solutions, but where is the political and social will to seek them, let alone implement them.

A deafening why no one is willing to hear!

“Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.” wrote Ivern ball. The recent dastardly blasts in Jaipur sadly confirms this saying. While bodies still lay unclaimed, while families are yet to come to terms with the horror that has hit them, while reality is yet to sink in, the now jaded reaction drama is in full swing. Speeches are made about the spirit and resilience of the people of the land; blame game have begun targeting other political parties, and other nations. Sops are promised out to grieving families, wonder how many will actually reach the right hands, and wonder how money can heal loss.

The innumerable intelligence agencies are pointing fingers at each other. VIP’s are planning visits to the maimed city and thus ensuring front page coverage hence displacing all the disturbing and embarrassing issues making us almost wonder about how well timed the blasts seem to be. And international sympathy is surging.

The writing is on the wall but we all look away. Every day in our own city there are rapes of children and vulnerable women, carjacking have become the order of the day, murders for a few pennies abound, neighbours kill neighbours for a handful of coins, road rage is rampant.

The writing is on the wall as walls visible and invisible are built to widen the gap between caste, creed, or social status ; new malls and stores multiply with quantum leaps while tiny businesses are sealed and road vendors banned in the name of aesthetics.

The writing is on the wall but we just assume it is written for someone else as we carry on unabashedly, stopping maybe just for that small instant to mumble a few appropriate but empty words.

And yet everything points at the indubitable and unavoidable reality that all is not well in the world we live in. That sooner than later all of this may just happen to us, that we are not protected by impregnable walls. It is time to read the writing on the wall and accept that it is for each one of us.

Little Radha is 7. She suffers from ostoegenesis or brittle bone disease has terribly deformed legs and is unable to stand. The slightest fall or hit causes a fracture as her bones have become terribly porous. She has already had more than a dozen in her tiny life.
She came to our office in the arms of her mother clad in a fleece outfit. The ambient temperature of the moment must have been 40 degrees Celsius. When we asked her mother why she was wearing such an outfit, the answer was simple and direct. She had no other decent clothes.

Radha lives in a sunken hovel, the roof of which is lower than a person standing and where not a shred of light enters. Her father lost his job as the factory in which he worked closed. He now sells tea but can barely make both ends meet as they have 4 children. Radha seemed a healthy child till the age of two when she first fell and broke her leg. It was then that she was diagnosed with osteogenesis.

1 in 60 000 children get osteogenesis and little Radha is one of them. Also known as brittle bone disease the ailment has no known cure. Management of the disease includes focusing on preventing or minimizing deformities and maximizing the child’s functional ability at home and in the community. Sound doable but in a home like hers it is close to impossible. Support groups exist but not for someone like our little Radha. The prognosis is scary as it not only affects bones but can result in brittle teeth, loss of hearing and easy bruising. The main cause is little or poor type of collagen.

Wheelchairs or braces are recommended and exercise like swimming is extremely beneficial. But where does a child like Radha go to swim or how does she use a wheelchair in the hole in which she lives. A child with OI needs good nutrition, rich in calcium, leafy vegetables, cereals, milk products all not within reach of a family that barely survives. The doctors had suggested this but for a family that can barely feed 6 mouth this was quasi impossible. And little by little her legs contorted as she suffered one fracture after the other.

New research suggests the use of bisphosphonates that seem to have has excellent results but that still seems at a trial stage. We will of course look into it!

Radha was denied any form of childhood and could not accompany her siblings to school or play. She just lived in her dark hole and dragged herself from one corner to the other. Two of her siblings come to our creche and that is how we came to know about her. Thank heavens her spine of head did not suffer any fracture!

Radha is an intelligent child who could learn like any other seven year old but her ailment closed all doors to her. We hope to be able to help her as best we can. As you know we at project why believe in miracles!

”We want to preserve their childhood days so that tomorrow if they ever want to see how they were, where they were, they could easily get to see those precious moments. We gift a CD to the parents of the adopted child,” says Madhuri Abhyankar, Director, Sofosh Orphanage.

This is a new initiative launched by an orphanage is an extremely sensitive and a step in the right direction. Adopted children often have the desire to know where they came from, what happened to them, why their natural parents abandoned them and so on.

Childhood needs to be preserved as nothing is worse than not knowing, even the if the truth is harsh. I wonder though how a child would feel of he or she finds out that it was left at a doorstep, in a garbage dump, at a railway station or simply to die. This is the case in India today.

A touching comment on a recent post says: Our 6 year old daughter was a 7 day old foundling left abandoned with a note in the train station at Kattack. Our 12 year old daughter was abandoned after birth at St. Ann’s Hospital in Kumbakonam. I often wonder if their birth mothers ever think of them, wonder about them, worry for them, if they realize what they gave up. I pray that these were the last desperate acts of desperate women hoping that their child might possibly have a better lot in life and not just the disposing of an unwanted commodity.

In a country where life is cheap and the life of a baby girl even more so, where babies are sold for a few farthings for nefarious ends, one wonders how many children do reach orphanages and how many are condemned to lives with no hope of escape? And yet no matter how sordid one’s past, there is a journey everyone has to make at some time of his or her life.

These memories frozen on some digital media will undoubtedly one day heal many hearts

Rakhee was one of our brightest little sparks. She had first come to us almost 4 years back when she was about 2 year old. Her story is one of total hopelessness and despair. When you hear it you may feel that is a one in a kind but sadly it is the story of many little girls in this land. It is also one that shows that in spite of our best efforts, there are times when we stand helpless.

Rakhee’s father is a construction labourer, one of the millions who flock into India’s capital in search of work. We first met her when her father got work on a site close to our project. They had pitched a small shack on the road and though we passed that way every morning we never saw her.

One day one of our teachers walked into the office quite agitated and told us about a pregnant woman who seemed to have a broken arm and yet carried heavy loads all the time. The woman was Asha; she was not more than 16. She was 8 months pregnant and her arm had been broken by her drunk husband and never attended to. It had just set on its own.

We did take her to the hospital but were told that nothing could be done.We looked after her and fed her emaciated body as best we could. Rakhee joiner our creche. A few weeks later Preeti was born. Asha told us her story: orphaned at a young age she was brought up in an uncle and aunt who married her off to the first man they found. He drank, gambled and beat her with obsessive regularity. He made her work too but there was never enough money to eat.

For some time we helped the family as best we could and even gave Asha a job but nothing truly changed. Preeti grew up in our creche and we got attached to her. But things remained the same in her home and no matter what we tried nothing changed.

One day the little girl stopped coming. We heard that they had shifted to another site. A few months later Asha came back carrying her two kids and told us hat her husband was in jail as he had been caught selling hooch. Once again we helped her and the little girls came back to project why. Rakhee was ready for class I and we were hoping to admit her to regular school. The husband was released and we even gave him some work hoping that it would bring some respite to the family. We were aghast when we heard that Asha was pregnant again but then did we not live in a land where everyone wanted a son. Blissfully the next child was a boy.

But the story did not end there. Once again the family disappeared. Another job on another site. Rakhee was never put in school. She joined the ranks of the thousands of kids that sit on road side while their parents work on the innumerable construction sites that have sprung in our city to make it world class!

Some time back we got news of the family via a surreptitious phone call made by Asha to one of the teachers. She was pregnant again and had been brutally beaten by the police and even kicked in her stomach, as she was caught selling hooch. Her husband made her do that forcibly while he gambled and drank.

We tried to call her to find out where she was but the wily husband had changed his phone number.

Little Rakhee and her siblings are somewhere in this city in state despair and misery and we have no way to reach out to them.

At timea like these I feel totally utterly powerless.

A glittering report was aired yesterday about the new home of one of India’s richest man. Quite a home: 27 floors, 400 000 square feet of space, bathrooms as big as flats, private cinema theatre, gyms and juice bars, 4 floors for parking and all for one family! At a whopping two billion dollars it is the world’s most expensive home!

In another part of the same country Jyoti lives with her family and neighbours in a slum. Her home has 80 square feet and no bathroom or kitchen but is her home and she has made the best of what she has: a little shelf displaying some steel crockery- remains of her dowry-, few plastic decoration pieces bought at the local china bazaar, a little TV that brings the world into her home and lots of smiles and giggles as she proudly shows her dog eared photo album.

A few years back when we still were running a centre at the Lohar basti – the gypsy camp – little Ritu a spunky 3 year old whose house was one of the last ones of the camp was often given the task of showing her home to visitors. She lived in a shack covered by a tarpaulin where one corner was filled with rags as her father a ironmonger by trade often picked rags to supplement his income. The dwelling has one large bed piled with clothes, a small rickety cupboard and not much else. It was dark, dingy and humid. I remember a day when I asked her to show her ‘home’ to a friend who had come by. Ritu the ever confident kid, bearing the age old pride of her clan firmly took my friends hand in hers and holding on to her slipping pant with the other marched off. We followed her. As she reached the entrance of her home she said with the confidence of a queen in a loud and clear voice and a regal gesture: Yeh Hai! – This is it-, as if her home was a palace!

And what was heart warming and wrenching at the same time is that it was she felt. This was her home, a place she loved and where she had spent happy moments. The visit was not over. She invited us in, cleared the bed, made us sit and set out to give us a tour of the place. She opened the cupboard and showed off her clothes and those of her parents and then looking for her mom simply said: chai banao – make some tea!

Needless to say we were all moved to tears as millions of questions begging for answers ran through our mind begging for answers. Why were people still living like this in a country that boasted it was shining!

Strange that this incident should come back to my mind today after seeing images of the most expensive home in the world. I simply wonder whether the richest family can ever feel the same pride that the little gypsy girl.

Had Popples not come into my life, Dear Popples would never have seen the light of day. The young man you see in the picture look nothing like the bundle swathed in bandages, his huge eyes filled in pain who walked into my heart on a March morning in 2002. This one looks more like the pasha – read hero – he wants to be.

Yet Popples changed my life in more ways than one. He taught me hope, love in its purest form, survival no matter how dark the hole you are in is, but above all he became the mirror that showed me who I was, what I had become, and how I could change with time.

Popples makes dreams come true, even very old ones, those you have forgotten or even relegated to some dark recess of your mind as they seem ludicrous and even absurd.

I must have been 15 or or so when I first read Bonjour Tristesse, by Francoise Sagan and as luck would have it I read it sitting on the terrace of a Latin Quarter in Paris. The book not only had the kind of story that would make any young girl swoon, but was written when the author was 17 and has failed her end of school exam. That was the time I think I first dreamt of writing a book!

But books need stories, the kind that wrench your heart and soul, the kind that ring true, the kind that touch others and my life seemed dull and almost jaded. And whatever creativity a young mind could have had, was quickly silenced by the monotony of life.

But dreams do not die. They just wait patiently for the right moment to resurface, even if the right moment is light years ahead. Popples was the catalyst that brought the discarded dream back to life.

My publishers have categorized it as fiction: inspirational and I am deeply grateful for dreams belong to that realm, or do they? I think Abhigyan and Mrinal have put in words as only they can, what I have always felf but never been able to say:

To accept the real is not to accept that it is perfect. Reality is like clay. It is the starting point and not the end of things. At the beginning of the race all runners are at zero. Reality. One goes on to win. He changes reality. Shapes reality. Those who fail – accept that reality and start again on a fresh race. Everyone is back on the starting block. Reality waits to be shaped again. The race is long. And it is continuous. Every moment reality awaits our turn to shape it. To deny it is to escape into wishful inaction. To simply accept it is to stay at the starting block forever. Only way forward is to run.

When our stories become ordinary and the ordinary becomes a virtue; then virtue itself becomes ordinary and the only extraordinary thing left is murder and mayhem. For it is easy to ignore daily goodness like helping someone cross the street but crushing someone on the same street under speeding wheels is bound to generate more interest. At least in these cynical times. Which is why it is the job of stories to exemplify and exaggerate goodness.
Goodness is not sticky when it is mundane. Murder is.

If we want a society of goodness, kindness, compassion, courage and excellence we must tell stories of extraordinary goodness, compassion and excellence. And the extraordinarily good, kind, compassionate and courageous is called a hero.

We are all ordinary but it is the stories of our heroes that inspire us to rise above the ordinary when the moment demands. Without heroes, with the ordinary grey protagonist, all we find are echoes of our own fallible, flawed selves and when the moment calls – the hero within us fails to stir because all he has experienced in life as well as imagination are defeat, despair, fallibility and flaws. When the forces of murder and mayhem confront us in their dark, blacker than Black colour, we are choked in our throats with grey balls of fear and apprehension while the white light of courage and conviction ebbs away from our heart like the blood from our veins.

There are no heroes in life when there are no heroes in our stories.

For life is a story. The story!

Anouradha & Popples’ is an extraordinary story. More so because they have lived it.

Abhigyan and Mrinal Jha

I must have been quite young when I first heard about dream catchers. As a kid it was comforting to believe that there was something that ensured that only good dreams came your way while bad ones slipped out. Someone had given me a dream catcher and I felt comforted having it hanging above my bed.

I soon grew up and the delicate dream catcher got lost as we moved from continent to continent and I forgot about it. It was only yesterday when I heard that Dear Popples was published that I suddenly remembered the dream catcher of my childhood.

The lore of the dream catcher is beautiful.

Long ago when the word was sound, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and searcher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider
took the elder’s willow hoop which had feathers, horse hairs, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web. He spoke of the cycles of life….how we begin as infants and move on to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age where we must be taken care of once again as infants, thereby completing the life cycle.

Iktomi said, “In each time of life there are many forces and choices made that can affect the harmony of nature, and interfere with the Great Spirit and all of his wonderful teachings.” Iktomi gave the web to the Lakota elder and said, “See, the web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will catch your good dreams and ideas – – and the bad ones will go through the hole.

When I look back at the past few years I am sure that an invisible dream catcher hung over my life helping me make the right choices or how else would all that has come my way happen? But dream catchers are not just about choices and ideas; they are also about dreams. And though I hardly have dreams about myself, one seems to have got caught in some remote corner of the web: that of dear popples being published!

The Great Spirit thought otherwise and set his own wheel in motion and knowing that I would never find the time, the way, the force, the motivation to keep this dream alive, entrusted my dream to someone else. That was Abhigyan a true dream maker!

You do not thank Great Spirits and dream makers. You simply feel blessed that they came your way.

If two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 18:19

Thus quotes the Bible and these words were sent to me by the one who made my dream come true. Dear Popples’s genesis began much before Popples himself came into this world. It actually began as a dream of a teenager growing in the sixties a time when everything seemed possible. It began in the head of a girl fed and overfed on books that were the sole form of escape of a lonely child growing up in different lands amidst too many adults. It began in the absurd dreams of a young girl sitting at cafe terraces in Paris imagining herself to be a writer.

Then life took over and decades went by but the dream did not. It sprung back on a summer day when the girl now an ageing woman came across a little child who was to redefine her life and stumble upon who she really was. The dream that had laid in waiting sprung up again and took the shape of a sheaf of haphazard paper where she poured out her heart and soul. But dreams as the Bible says need two people to make it come true as does creation. Where was the other half of the dream.

For many months the sheaf of papers lay in the recess of a drawer; it was sometimes taken out and shared with someone or the other but it quietly slid back into what seemed to have become its resting place. Then one day something impelled her to take it out, clean it up and begin the daunting task of finding the other half.

The rest is history. True that there were the needed string of rejections but those just made her more obstinate till the day someone miles away responded positively; the other half had been unearthed. Dear Popples had emerged from its dark abode into the light and the dream had come true.

I have never met Abhigyan Jha, my publisher, in person but somehow I feel I have known him for a stretch of time that transcends all spatial-temporal laws and defies logic and what I feel is not just gratitude but again something that cannot be expressed in words. I know he understands

Soon dear Popples will be for all to read and I must confess I am terrified.

I was recently sent a link by a friend about a new library fad: borrow not a book but a person and an interesting link to a comment on this new fad!

A lot of food for thought.

I sent this link to many friends and one of them said the following: we will soon begin to barter ideas and expertise on a peer to peer / person to person basis as that would be the only validation for being human and worthwhile.

you will not need a gardener to do the garden or mow the lawn – you will need him for his insight and creativity – the manual labor ill shift to robots and automatons.

which is all the more reason to educate our children about the conceptual reality if life. that we are nothing if we don’t create products of the mind. it can be values. it can be ideas, processes, products, advice, conscience, friendship, talk, coaching, teaching, storytelling, experience sharing – whatever but it has to come from the mind.

he goes on to add: we are human because we use our mind. period. the sooner we stop talking about the dignity of labor and start making it clear to everyone that there is no option to using our mind to create value which others might want to partake of – the better for everyone. otherwise we are going to see the kind of income inequality that we have never seen before.

Even in the parts of India where there is no food on the table – there is a mobile phone. and it’s almost free to use. Lifetime Free. and what do people do on the mobile phone – they talk. and why would the poorest need a mobile phone. because even for them talking, sharing, communicating is more important than just eating. the hunger of the mind is a bigger necessity than the hunger of the stomach.

His approach seem a little bewildering at first but of you stop a and think, what he says is true and what is alarming is that for once the two Indias’s hearts seem to be beating in unison. They are both spinning unconsciously towards a dystopic view of the world where the power of the mind is losing its importance.

When I was a young girl growing up in the mad sixties I saw Fahrenheit 451, a mind blowing movie by Francois Truffaut: a story about a society where books are banned and have to be burnt! A bunch of old men decide to memorise them so that they are not lost forever. The film end on a bitter sweet optimistic note: the said society is destroyed and a new one is about to be created: their first task is to build mirror factories, a literary allusion, to show people who they are, what they have become, and how they can change with time and knowledge.

Borrowing a person in a library seems akin to the Bradbury’s soft science fiction novella. And are we today slowly but surely moving towards the self destruction of our dystopic society.

On a more optimistic note I would love to borrow the idea and create a library where one could borrow people who still have in the recesses of their memories stories about the past, the traditions, the mores , the of forgotten and never documented anecdotes that threaten to be lost forever. A few years back DV Sridharan the creator of GoodnewsIndia began a series titled memory speaks. I remember having written a few pieces that had been told to me by my mother when I was still a child. Some were amusing others thought provoking and all in need to be preserved before memory failed. The series sadly stopped. Today’s new fad brought it back to me. I guess I too was a person that was once borrowed!

If we Indians could take off our minds, eyes and ears from silly slaps by overpaid cricketing heroes and ensuing debates about the quantum of retribution; or stop debating about the appropriateness of the dresses imported and highly paid cheer leaders should or or should not wear – wonder who would pay for the new ones – ; or the inconvenience created by a new transport system, we would be compelled to see the horror that has been and is enfolding around us in the past few days.

Two baby girls are found abandoned in our own city, one barely a few hours old. A 12 year old is raped by a cop, a 5 year old by a so called uncle, a 36 months old by a relative and his friends, a 7 year old by another neighbour. 5 rapes of children and no one bats an eye lid.

Yesterday the prime Minister of India addressed a meeting on “save the girl child”. Time someone did: the latest figures are alarming, the sex ratio is declining: 927 to 1000 is the all India figure, 782 to 1000 is South Delhi’s figure. According to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, there 100 million missing girls!

The PM made one valid comment: But it is not government alone that can address this problem. Though Government must be active in mobilizing public opinion in this regard. We need active civil society involvement in the national campaign to save the girl child.

This should make us stop and think. The startling figures of South Delhi are ample proof of the fact that we cannot any more brush the problem under the carpet and say that this only affects rural areas or the ‘poor’ as we like calling a large part of our own land. Rest assured we many not be guilty of throwing our new born baby in a dump or leaving her on a doorstep. We have the resources to beat he law and kill her before she is born.

I have often written about the plight of he girl child based on what I have seen around me. I remember a letter written to a child that died in the womb of her mother, or the post written on one of the days when India worships little girls. One must not forget that we are the greatest worshipers of the female form and energy and yet we kill, rape and abuse little girls with impunity. Is it not time to look at ourselves in a mirror with honesty. We all pay lip service to the save the girl child appeals, even make it our cocktail banter of the day and yet we are the ones that surreptitiously ask the name of the local doctor willing to perform a sex determination test for our pregnant daughter in law, whatever the cost!

The poor have another recipe: they keep producing daughters till the male child arrives or the mother stops being able to bear children. I have known of families where there are 11 girls and one boy! I am not going to go into the plight of the girl child, I think we all are aware of it. This post is meant to try and address the problem that is now alarming.

What is it that makes us abandon baby girls? This trend is of course more prevalent with the poor. The question is simple: a girl means marriage that means money in vast quantities. Boys are an investment they can bring all the coveted things; girls a drain because you are the one to pay for the coveted things. All laws banning dowry have failed. The demands are getting larger by the day. Even in slums people talk of cars. One of our teachers who is not very pretty and a bit plum and now 26 remains unmarried as her family cannot afford the Honda Accord that was asked! In states like Bihar it is hard cash. Our rickshaw driver married his daughter to a much older man because the dowry was only 100 000 rupees plus the cost of the wedding where there were 500 guests! The girl is just 18. So the simplistic solution would be rather than give the girls child cash incentives for her marriage as many of the proposed government schemes do, give cash incentives to those who spend little and give no dowry!

But things run much deeper: we are dealing with customs and mores and age long religious diktats and decrees that no politician would want to touch. And let us not forget the law applies to all so who wants to be deprived the right of a lavish wedding for his or her own child. Some of the latest trends are galling: helicopters for the bridegroom, international starts to perform and food imported from the world over and then thrown away as the display itself gives visual indigestion. So I ask are we really serious about saving the girl child.

As for child rape it is something beyond my comprehension in spite of the fact that child abuse is rampant even in he best of homes. Does it come from our so called prudish attitudes a legacy as was aptly said by someone of Victorian England as are we not the land of the Kama Sutra. And the only thing that could protect children – though maybe not 2 years old – would be a healthy sex education programme, but that is rabidly opposed by our politicians! Child abuse, far too often perpetrated within homes is protected by the code of silence and honour, something that has to stop.

Maybe it is time we looked at ourselves with honesty and bluntness and answered some disturbing questions even if it makes each one of us look pathetic and ask ourselves what we can do to save the girl child that leaves every moment of her life amidst unknown yet terrifying fears.

I will end this post with the words of Alan Beck:

There is a mural being painted on the walls of project why. It is truly one of a kind as it is a collaboration between two worlds in more ways than one.

Joe is from Arizona. He is a well established artist with a huge heart and a bigger smile. He has his own website and his string of clients. Rinky is a young 18 year old hearing impaired girl from a Delhi slum, an artist at heart but also a true survivor and one whose thirst for knowledge is unquenchable. A trained beautician and hairdresser who can give you a mean haircut in the most unlikely location. Just a few days back she got a brand new hearing aid and is now in a frenzy to make up for lost time and join the big new world of those who can hear and speak!

When Joe came to project why it did not take time for the two artists to connect in a warm bond that did not need words. Joe somehow became the mentor Rinky was looking for.

The stairwell of project why has been looking forlorn fro some time in spite of our best attempts and we decided that we needed a mural there. The two artists have set to task however there is one proviso: mural work only on Tuesdays which are Rinky ‘s off days from her beauty parlour where she works in the afternoon.

The theme has been decided: animals walking up the stairs and I must say the artists have done a lot of work in just a day. Now the tiger, the elephant and the giraffe are patiently waiting for next Tuesday to dawn.

As we were travelling last week across Delhi to show our the planet why land to some friends our vehicle often stopped courtesy the mind boggling traffic jam that Delhi is experiencing these days with the construction frenzy that seems to have taken over our city.

At many of these stops the children of constructions workers waived at us with broad smiles and innocent faces. These kids live in the tiny tents pitched around the sites. They are often brought from far away states by exploitative contractors who find these new migrants easier to manipulate than the local ones. They live under abysmal conditions and barely get enough to eat. Their children never go to school. The average of children in these families is 4 and soon they join the ranks of child labour so rampant in our shining capital city.

Each of these kids will be left without education and will follow the pattern of their parents: early marriage and multiple children who will in turn remain illiterate and so on. It is not difficult to imagine the multiplier effect on the population of India.

According to the HRD Ministry’s own figures, almost 90 per cent of India’s children drop out of school and never even make it to higher education. In the light of this the situation starts looking apocalyptic and India will remain the country with the largest numbers of illiterate in the world.

All education policies have failed and the state of government run schools is deplorable. While political honchos are busy redefining creamy layers of so called backward communities, children are simply dropping out. One of the so called solutions often proffered is to privatise education. This is absurd in a land where the Constitution guarantees free education and compulsory education to all children between the age of 6 and 14. (86th amendment).

The plight of India’s children is lamentable. Here are some facts from the 7th All India Education Survey, 2002

• Less than half of India’s children between the age 6 and 14 go to school.

• A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one reach grade eight.

• At least 35 million children aged 6 – 14 years do not attend school.

1. 53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate.

• In India, only 53% of habitation has a primary school.

• In India, only 20% of habitation has a secondary school.

• On an average an upper primary school is 3 km away in 22% of areas under habitations.

• In nearly 60% of schools, there are less than two teachers to teach Classes I to V.

• On an average, there are less than three teachers per primary school. They have to manage classes from I to V every day.

• High cost of private education and need to work to support their families and little interest in studies are the reasons given by 3 in every four drop-outs as the reason they leave.

• Dropout rates increase alarmingly in class III to V, its 50% for boys, 58% for girls.

• 1 in 40, primary school in India is conducted in open spaces or tents.

• More than 50 per cent of girls fail to enroll in school; those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12. 50% of Indian children aged 6-18 do not go to school.

Think about it.

Tommy can you hear me sang the Who in their famous rock opera way back in 1970! Soon we at project why will be singing Rinky, Saheda, Pooja can your hear us! These were the words of an earlier blog written about four months back.

Today we are singing with pride and emotion: Rinky, Saheeda, Pooja can hear us! Yesterday they were fitted with their brand new digital hearing aids and could hear for the first time in their lives! There have been many blessed moments in the project why story but this one was one of a kind.

Rinky, Saheeda and Pooja are fantastic girls. With help from no one they learnt to get over their impairment and not simply survive but live life to its fullest. Rinky today works part time in a beauty parlour and has her very own clients! Saheeda is multi talented and will soon be starting training as a beautician. Little Pooja is endearing, bright and full of potential. They have all evolved their own sign language and can communicate with any and everyone and are all mean dancers who can fool anyone as nobody would believe that their perfect steps are done to music they cannot hear.

When they were fitted with their hearing aids they were first perplexed but then all smiles as they heard their very first sound. We are all moved to tears. However we know that this is just the very first step and there is a long way to go. They will need to learn to make sense of what for quite some time will just be incomprehensible noise disrupting their once silent world.

It maybe easier for little Pooja as she is still young, but for the older ones the journey will be an arduous one, with frustrating moments and we will have to be with them all the way. But somehow I know that these three exceptional girls will overcome all obstacles and come out as winners.

Today they spent a long time with two wonderful souls Jo and Dagmar who started on the thrilling journey of teaching them basic sound. It was moving to see them try and voice the sound that come so easily to us but that often became simple shrieks or groans. Yet they kept smiling and trying as if they were driven by a frenzy to make up for so many lost years.

This painting is one of a set sold by Iride, an Italian artist, to help sustain project why. I have never met Iride and she has never visited project why. She came to know about it through a volunteer who spent a few weeks with us.

Of all the paintings that she sent, this one entitled Donna touched me the most. Somehow it depicted the sum and substance of project why: an eternal quest for answers to all disturbing questions that come our way. The painting in its evocative strokes spells hope and belief. The faceless donna represents to my mind all those still waiting for a better morrow.

Iride is also one of those wonderful souls that have reached to help project why without finding it imperative to check antecedents, balance sheets etc. She was just touched by what she heard and maybe saw through pictures and followed her heart.

Donna also symbolises all the hearts the world over who have reached out and helped us all along. I am often asked, usually by the media, where our funds come from. The answer all expect is some well defined and established entity: an organisation or institution. But that is not the case with project why and I am often at a loss to find the words to explain the source of my funds as they come from the heart something that seems to have become terribly unfamiliar in the world we live in. They ask for numbers but how can I make them understand that a tiny amount or a huge one has the same value when it comes from the heart.

Iride’s painting touched my heart!

You can see some of her other paintings here

In 2006 I had written a post about the total ignorance of most OBC parents about reservations in education. Sometime later I had highlighted he quasi impossibility for genuine cases to get the prized OBC or SC certificate and the absurdity of government forms.

Last week the Supreme Court confirmed reservations for OBCs excluding the creamy layer. Something that seemed acceptable to many but even before copies of the said judgement left the precinct of the Court a hot debate had begun about redefining the creamy layer in order onec again to protect vote banks et al!

The indubitable truth is that without a ‘proper’ definition of the creamy layer few OBCs will reach the portals of higher learning. And the debate will continue endlessly and aimlessly. No one is interested in improving government schools, containing drop out rates to ensure that deserving candidates have a chance to reach the gates of IITs and IIMs, while youngsters like Shiv will find their place in the sun.

A recent article highlights this in no uncertain terms. 90% of India’s children drop out of schools! These are figures of the HRD Ministry. And what becomes clear form this is that the first aim should be to ensure that children cross the boundaries of school. Sadly instead of cleaning up the mess existing in primary education our politicians are now busy redefining the creamy layer as the SC judgement defined the creamy layer or elite as defined in 1993 where the slab was put at annual incomes not exceeding 250 000 Rs.

The exclusion of the creamy layer did satisfy many anti reservationists but does not ensure political benefits and hence the debate will continue and the plight of children 60 years after independence will remain the same.

Saturday in the dead of night a 12 year mentally challenged girl was raped by a neighbour. A day before hat a 6 year old was raped by an acquaintance, and on he same day a 3 year old was raped by a neighbour!

Child abuse is the worst kind of crime that exists. And yet more often than not the accused get away with minor sentences while the child is left with scars that never heal. I have often asked myself what makes a man rape a child. What frustration, sick need, pervert desire makes a man commit this heinous act. It does not seem to be simply a disease as many think as the numbers are too high. There seems to be a rape an hour of not more and statistics show that over 60% are rape of minors and often many such cases go unreported. Even in this case the police registered the FIR hours later. By that time the rapist had fled.

My mind goes back to our Ghaziabad girls, many of whom were mentally challenged and had been sexually abused for years while in the care of a so called ashram. In spite of our best efforts we could not get much done. The abuser is on bail and the girls in some institution or the other where one annot even meet them.

How do we put an end to this? Are we going to allow children to be raped and abused ad infinitum. I guess this is not a vote bank and hence political parties will remain uninterested. But are we as a society doing? And how many times are we going to get away by saying: I hand my head in shame!

When is it going to stop!

What we all forget is that as Herbert Ward said child abuse casts a shadow the length of a life time.

Little Lali is just little over a month old. She was born with a rare medical condition that gave her two eyes, two mouth, one chin and one pair of ears. When you look at her picture she just looks like any child, sleeping without a care in the world.

As soon as news of her birth was heard ritual India woke up once again and heralded the reincarnation of Goddess Durga. And as the news spread religious frenzy was out at its best. And little innocent Lali became the centre of a media blitz and even war. The family started minting money! News channel fought for exclusivity, people offered money, there were even those who wanted a temple built in her name! The world wide web was buzzing about her and all kind of questions were being fired: is she one or two individuals? does she have one or two souls? Only one thing seemed to be clear. Though she seemed to be all right, having two skulls fused together makes surgical intervention impossible.

For those who want more information on Lali a search on Google is ample. This post is not intended to throw light or sensationalize Lali’s story. There is enough of that. I simply want to highlight some issues which seem to have taken a back seat amidst all this frenzy.

In India we have just ended the 9 days of worship to Durga, the Prime Goddess. This happens twice a year. People fast, go to temples, and make offerings and on the last day worship little girls. Almost three years back I had written about this very ritual in a post entitle: Why am I being worshiped today?

To be born a girl in India is not bed of roses. What awaits you is a akin to a game of Russian roulette. The number of girls killed before they are born is chilling and the policies that the Government comes up with are zany and amidst all this our little girl child simply survives.

But let us get back to Lali. One God knows how long this little endearing little soul will survive. Her plight reminds me of that of circus freaks of the XIXth century or the Elephant Man so beautifully portrayed in a sensitive David Lynch film. As a friend said maybe little Lali with two brains has exceptional qualities and intelligence. But would these ever be honed and allowed to bloom. The way things stand in India she will never attend a school, or be allowed to live the normal life of a child. Her odd appearance will always stand in the way of every step she takes. How long with the family so willing to accept her now, will continue to do so? How long with the press so eager to get their exclusivity continue to consider her TRP worthy? How long will the people flock to her home to worship her a throw few coins her way? How soon will she be forgotten? How soon will she become another medical case to experiment on? How soon will someone decide that she is not a Goddess but a demon? I have already heard such whispers.

My heart goes out to little Lali who looks so innocent and unaware of what is going on around her and wonder what plan God has for her. My heart goes out to Lali as I sit wondering what one can do to make her life simply normal.

Sadly I cannot at this moment see any solution.

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the reservation of 27% for OBC’s in higher institutions of learning with certain conditions. For once all political parties hailed the verdict. Not surprising as elections are around the corner and OBC’s form a large chunk of the electorate. And not surprising that debates have begun about the stipulated conditions: the creamy layer that has been excluded is now up for revision to protect vested interests!

I have often written about the reservation issue and to my mind the situation sadly remains unchanged on the ground. I am not for or against reservation I just want every child to get his or her place in the sun.

The reservation issue will never die unless we take steps to end it and find ways that will help deprived children step into a better world. The plight of children in today’s India is a lamentable an no one seems to be interested in doing anything for the very children who are supposed to reach the portals of high learning one day thanks to the very judgement pronounced yesterday. They are actually being shut behind shameful walls as they seem to disturb those sitting on the other side of the till recently an invisible wall. What we are witnessing is a further way of dividing an already fractured society. The real issues seem to be forgotten as each one is striving to save his own place in the sun.

In the light of all this the last shred of doubt about the validity and rationale of our new programme ,that still has not found a name to define its essence, vanishes once for all. It is not complex and unrealisable laws that will allow children from deprived homes to break the circle of hopelessness in which they are locked but simple and brave attempts like these. It is we renewed hope and determination that we take the first step towards changing four tiny lives.