This is Babli’s world..

It is rich in some things and terribly lacking in others. It is filled with smiles and love, courage and determination, dreams and hope, prayers and belief.. all things intangible yet precious. Bablis’ home is tiny, maybe as small as a bathroom or a storeroom in upmarket areas. It has one rickety charpoy, not enough bedding to keep this family of five warm on what is said to be the coldest night in years. A few pots and pans in a corner, a few empty containers making you wonder what dinner will be tonight.

But life goes on in this home, and traditions are respected, the freshly painted walls bear witness to this: Diwali just went by. It is probably in this space that Santosha, Babli’s mom whispered her desperate prayer, that Babli expressed her silent desire to be a ‘police’ – , in this very space that the little family gets together at night to share the happenings of the day gone by. At present the topic must be Babli’s imminent heart surgery as prayers have been heard and dreams have taken the first step towards realisation…

The smiles of the children’s face are proof of the strange and almost incomprehensible fact that this is a happy place. For Babli it is a home she is proud of and from where she draws strength.

Yes Babli’s operation will happen soon.. it is just a matter of settling a few hurdles.. another miracle is in the making.. but that is not why I write this post.

I write this post to dispel what many of my peers think about what they callously call ‘jhuggiwallahs“, and quickly qualify with a string of negative traits. No, all jhuggiwallahs are not thiefs or crooks. They are just like us and live with dignity and courage in conditions many of us cannot begin to fathom. Babli is the fourth heart surgery, and we have supported each of the families. An operation of this magnitude often entails a parent having to take leave and we have have helped them with food and basic amenities. Let me assure you that once the child is through, we have never been harassed for help. The only thing we have received is an embarassing amount of gratitude.

I was hurt, angry and ultimately very sad by the outburst of a visitor who was witnessing our planning for babli operation. She cried out: “do not give them food for more than two days, all jhuggiwallahs are crooks and they will harass you for more”.

No ma’am, they are not crooks, they are human beings just like us…

A mail dropped by this morning. It simply it said:

I too want to help the slum children in our Hyderabad city, and as a first step started with a nearby slum in the outskirts. I now understand the uphill task that it is, but I won’t give up.
The main problem is the motivation. How to do that? How to keep those children off the street , to the gambling( oh there are so many versions!) the fights etc..? How to convince the parents to send them to the free teaching classes?

It was from someone who had written four years back seeking information about our work. I first thought I would reply the mail in the customary manner, but as I sat down to I realised that the words conveyed had a far deeper meaning for us at project why..

First of all it meant that a milestone had been crossed as we had moved from those who began asking many ‘whys’ to one who could now answer the hows. And to me personally, it was a validation of my often misconstrued objective of making pwhy a model that can be replicated. And if our experience can help someone wanting to reach out to children, then I am entitled to my Eureka today.

What I would like to tell our friend is that the first step is the hardest one… often one wants to but the desire never gets translated into action..but once the first step taken, once you have locked eyes honestly with the first child, there is no going back.. you just have to remember one thing: you cannot solve all the problems that surround you, but even if one life is changed, it would have ben worth the effort.. we took the first step in November 2000, never looked back and have a fair track record as proof of our success.

Now to come to the specific hows mentioned, the answer is that there is no single rule. Remember that you are doing this work because children are on the streets, because they gamble, because parents do not understand..

Even five years down the line we still face the same problems and find solutions specific to the particular situation as we are in a land where individualism is celebrated and hence no one solution works. You can only find the right solution if you have assessed the situation correctly. Many a times we have been shocked by things once we took the time to find out. In some cases you may fail but that should not deter you. You just need to be patient, forget your ego and remember your objective. Sometimes you may even have to befriend the local goon, use humour with the kids telling them that if they want to be bad then they should aim to be an educated Don… You have to accept to enterhis world first, before you pull the child out of it..

You just have to wear down your detractor of the time by using very Gandhian methods. It is during my work in the slums that I understood the sagacity of Gandhi.
There are times when you may have to compromise; that is often the case when you deal with parents, so readjust your timings, accept to look after the younger sibling while the elder one studies.. And somethings you will have to accept quietly, hoping that the next generation will understand..

But never give up. The children have paid far too much for the mistakes of us adults, ranging from ignorance to callousness.. It is time we made it up to them.

Nanhe has a smile to die for… and yet does he have a reason to smile, one wonders…

The youngest of five children, he was not even given a name, simple called nanhe..the tiny one. Nanhe has multiple disabilities. When he landed on planet why he could barely hold his head. The innumerable scars on his head were sufficient proof of the number of falls that child had suffered. Incontinent because of impaired kidneys, Nanhe was also often the butt of ridicule and repugnance.

Nanhe came to project why a few months back and has become an important part of our special section. As he is carried out of Sitaram’s blue vehicle, we are treated to his special smile, a moment we look forward to every morning. Nanhe participates in all activities and is even starting to take a few halting steps in spite of his deformed feet. And yet his pain is far from over as he has been diagnored with kidney and bladder stones and needs emergency surgery next week to clear a blockage that is causing him severe pain.

Nanhe has an infective joie de vivre, but as I watch him every morning I wonder what this child’s tomorrows are going to be.. and I feel totally helpless.. we will deal with one problem but another will appear and even if we heal the body, what hapens next, Nanhe can never lead a normal life..

Nanhe lost his father and his mother barely manages to feed her family, one in which three children have disabilities. A brave woman indeed but with all odds against her..

These are moments when one cannot call logic to the rescue. Some will say karma, but whose karma, the mother’s or the little child’s?

And yet everything in little Nanhe’s demeanour is impregnated with a desire to live.. so what we can do is make those days as happy as possible … and maybe, just maybe, nanhe is there to show us that life is worth living… provided you do things right

It was a very special afternoon on planet why..

At 1 pm the children of the special section were ready to receive their guests. There was a sense of palpable excitement as their classroom got ready for the show: a big screen, a LCD projector, a young indian astronomer and the senior primary and secondary girls. Over 50 people crowded in the little room where Pranjal was about to take them to a journey across the solar system…

A motley crowd it was where difference was the uniting factor. People no one would have put together to watch such a show. Yet they sat as the msyteries of the universe got unravelled by this young scientist who intuitively knew how to reach every single mind, with simple words and stunning pictures so that each one, could travel and dream for that one moment in time…

One again planet why had conjured its magic… as for that one hour all differences were left outside and only the joy of learning remained..

Mili died last night.. as quietly as she came in to our lives …

She found us when we were hurting, and adopted us. She put up with all our tantrums and ways whereby we humans decide the way our animal friends should live. She delighted us with innumerable antics and filled the empty space with joy.

But she was a child of the wild and could never forget that. She fought the tomcat, and attacked birds to our misplaced horror. She put up with us as we tried to domesticate her.. Then one day she was all grown up and needed to follow her instinct. A huge court of admirers she had and we were quite helpless.. Some felt she should be let free, but she always came back.. An uncaring adult even called her names.. was that the day she decided that this world was not for her..

But the harm had been done once again by adults who do not understand. She had got used to us, to the comforts she got and had forgotten some of her survival skills. Two days back she was hit by a vehicle and came back howling to what had a become home. We took her to the vet who said she was just shocked and would be allright… We tried to nurse her back to health but she had decided otherwise…

We found her inert body… her free spirit had flown away.

When the kids of sudhar camp aka potty nagar were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up the answer was: teachers, doctors, firemen, policemen…

Now the parents of these children left their homes to eek out a better living in the city and do menial jobs: rickshaw pullers, vegetable vendors, household servants, small shopkeepers then how and how can their kids dare dream otherwise..

This was the reaction of a visitor from another land.. with malice to none I would like to ask a simple question: does not one see children of workers become doctors in their homeland..

Come to think of it, maybe that is where the tragedy of our land lies: the labels we stick on people that stiffle their future. So the son of a domestic worker will remain that even if he becomes a CEO! That is probably the modern day avatar of the erstwhile caste system.

We at project why dare to dream and teach our children to do so.. if they cannot fulfill their dream, they can fulfill it for their children…and the road is one: education, the one possession no one can steal or take away from you..

India will change when quality education is imparted in each and every school, and that can only happen when our modern rulers accept to do it, when NFEs and parallel systems of learning are done away with…

And have you ever thought that in the dream the child expreses lies the hurt he has seen: and if a sudhar camp kid aspires to be a doctor it may simply because of all those who died around him because no doctor was there to help, or if he wants to be a policeman it is because of the helplesness he felt as a tiny tot when policemen humiliated his father in front of his eyes..

I do hope that out of this anger and hurt comes out the will to break invisible barriers and fulfill impossible dreams..

Children have a right to dream, so please do not take away that right from them…

religion was called the opium of the masses by marx..
a panacea for all ills it has become an easy answer to what requires serious consideration, a way of explaining what defies logic..

now have you ever wondered how children get drawn in the net..

a few weeks back as we walked passed a statue of some leader erected high on a pedestal, mr p tugged at my kurta and pointing towards the statue kept saying ‘boman’ boman’ and then folding his hands while he urged me to do the same.. slightly irritated I complied just to ensure that stubborn mr p would agree to move on..

it is much later that I unraveled the mystery of the word ‘boman‘.. well it was ‘bhagavan‘ or god! to this little fellow anything that was big, and made of inert material was a bhagavan and had to be shown respect…

one can wonder how mr p who is an extremely sensitive child perceives this entity: something big, something to be scared off, to be wondered at.. the first message that has been given to him is one of diffidence. Does his mother get angry if the little fellow does not fold his hands?

all will depend on how the lessons proceed… but that is how the first seeds are sown.. at present anything big is ‘boman‘.. with time it will acquire qualities and subtler definitions, and then differences of ‘boman’ will appear, your boman and their boman…

oh how is wish that boman remains boman or at best beauMan – how different the world would be…

project why has been a journey of discovery, not only of India, but of other lands.

Japan had been till late an unknown land that one viewed with awe, admired its wizardry, and got acquainted with its cuisine.. but somehow it remained faraway and unatainable.. till nauko walked in one fine day with a big smile and tons of warmth…

for the past two years the japanese ladies of delhi have become part and parcel of project why as they come regularly and teach many things to the children. their subdued presence, their meticulous and unobtrusive ways have made them loved by all be it the children or the teachers.

we celebrated the bamboo festival and learnt a japanese song and recently we were part of the japanese ladies bazaar where a lovely poster in japanese introduced our activities..

this lovely link between a tiny slum in India and a group of japanese ladies is one more proof of the indubitable reality that when one learns to see with one’s heart, differences vanish and the world becomes one.

どうもありがとう。 Dōmo arigatō Nauko

The serenity prayer has been used in many situations and today as I tried to explain the realities of India to some friends from other lands, it came back to my mind:

Grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

How true these words ring as one tries each day to get a little further in the goals one has set and the dreams one has conjured

One can understand how defeated one who does not understand India in its complexities can feel when faced with what seems simple activities. It is true that one would like to change everything in a hurry but can one forget that we are dealing with thousands of years of traditions, customs, mores, hurts, inconsitencies, unfairness.. much of which is so deep seated that it will take time to unravel and redress.. and yet things have to change.

The only way to succeed is to accept those that will take time to alter and change the ones we can without disturbing fragile equations.

One just has to look at the number of social laws that gather dust, as the causes they seek to redress continue to flourish bet it corporal punishment or child marriage..

India will change one day, but one has to have the patience and the serenity to accept that she will change slowly and in her own time..

project why may not have much in terms of what success is measured by in our day and age: buildings, fancy resources or comfortable bank accounts. but there is one thing it has had in abundance and that is the goodwill and love from every corner of our planet.

we pride ourselves in the great team of volunteers that have passed by. each one has left a little of himself and taken a little part of us.. each one becoming better, more complete, more understanding or at least more humane…

and if each meeting is filled with expectation, each parting is always a moment of sadness..

Taylor, a young student from the US left us yesterday after many weeks spent with the little children of the creche.. I instantly liked this young man.. his eyes twinkled and his face reflected a beautiful soul…

They say children do not fake feelings, and our little twins who had never smiled gave Taylor their first smile ever the moment they met him..

Taylor left me a beautiful letter in which he tried to convey what his stay with us meant to him. I do not know whether we deserve all the kind words he wrote, but I would like to share the following as I feel it somehow reflects what project why stands for: ” If through the course of my lofe, I am able to create a small fraction of the hope and joy you have created, I will consider myself a success as a person’.

Yes, project why is all about hope and joy..

and I am sure Taylor will succeed in life… and we will remember him each time little Fatima, or Asiya or Manoj smile…

My father left me 13 years ago, today…

Pwhy would not have existed it it were not for him..

Among the many things he taught me, was the meaning of unconditional love.. the one you give without any expectation…

It took me a long time to understand that his legacy was the abundance of love that I was almost choking with, and that had to be let out and shared: pwhy was the obvious answer..

pwhy is an ode to love, a love that makes you richer as the more you give the more you have to give..

everyday i am overwhelmed by the abundance of love that pwhy has brought into my life.. and I feel blessed

” because i am saving trees..”

was my often exasperated answer.. but I manage to pull it off and stand by my convictions without succumbing to ‘peer’ pressure.

My daughter’s wedding was a vindication of all I stand for and I can say with some pride that I managed to conjure a show where two worlds met in a city where you are judged by appareance, glitter and pomp..

Yet we had everything, a page 3 party with page 3 people but where the lights, flowers, chairs and decoration came from a tentwallah that normally specialises in slum jagrans. The rites were in the purest vedic tradition but the groom rode a motorbike and the barat came in three wheelers driven by pwhy parents to the beats of dholaks played by two of our staff. We had a touch of Bollywood as the salis and sahelis (an eclectic mix of girls from diverse lands and social background) danced to the sound of Bunty and Babli’s Kajra Re , the show ended in the gurdwara hall of gNagar with a bash with pwhy kids and the DJ they wanted.

Was it easy, I must confess it was not as at every step I had to fight my way and hold tight to what I knew was right and find answers to the inane questions I was asked.

But we pulled it off..and it was a lovely celebration where people had time to get to know each other, to share laughter and joy, a wedding where the human touch was not lost and where the sanctity of the occasion was not lost.

Weddings have lost their true essence and meaning, they have become impersonal bashes that are remembered for all the wrong reasons: don’t we always hear things like – the food was cold, or the whisky duff, or it was too cold or to warm – !

Imagine you received a letter from a parent marrying his child, informing you that he or she had decided to use the money set aside for the party planned to sponsor heart surgeries for kids and that all would be informed of the progress. Would that person not rise in your esteem?

The money is that of of just one of the numerous parties plan, when food and guest lists are much of the same…

Think about it..

see pictures of the wedding here

The Art of Living, is something terribly à la mode in present times and everyone is attending classes or discourses to master it..

For the past five years I too have been attending such classes but in a different school altogether and with masters who are just two feet tall and have not even walked this earth for a thousand days.

I often have kids from gNagar come home to spend some time and I am amazed at their behaviour and at the ease and grace with which they adapt themselves. A far cry from what my peers and friends tend to think.. I have never had anything broken, never a wall scribbled on, never a grain of rice dropped on the carpet..

K and Mr P came to the all the celebrations we had recently and I was amazed at their behavior. They did not sit in a corner but were part of the festivities, enjoyed themelves, wished people and answered questions. They danced and laughed and Mr p regaled everyone with his antics.. and then when he realised he was tired, even though the night was still young, he found me and simply said “Mummy pass jana hai” – I want to go to mummy-!

Mummy for mr P is a dark dingy room where the air is stale and damp, but it is home and that is where every sensible person returns at the end of the day, that is where one belongs…

One of the greatest lessons in the art of living I have been taught is the way these kids handle two worlds, with no resentment or jealousy, enjoying each for what it is.. but never forgetting what their reality is..

Can one find a better example of the art of living..

It was a celebration… but one with a difference.. and one that celebrated ‘difference’!

p and j got married.. in a city where weddings have become barometers of one’s success.. where people wreck their brains to find ways of outdoing others.. where flowers are flown from across the world and strange cuisines discovered… where guests drip jewellerey and stand in bored silence..

p and j got married.. in a ceremony that did out do many.. the groom came on a motorcycle and the wedding party followed in three wheelers to the beat of frenzied dholaks played by pwhy parents , the ceremony was held in the tiny lawn of the bride’s house and not in any farm house or starred hotel, the caterer was up market and the tentwallah from a slum, the guest lists was eclectic coming from diferent lands and all walks of life.. and everyone came together to wish the couple a happy life..

It was a wedding that brought together many worlds , one that proved that diferences needed to be celebrated…

Last week, a prominent magazine published a supplement on our city. The issue was about some of the social causes spearheaded by some individuals: a plethora of causes ranging from children to women, from rag pickers to legal rights, from environment and to animal welfare. project why also featured in it…

Out of all the causes, the one that made the cover was the sole animal welfare organisation…

People often wonder why I spend time surfing TV channels, particularly those viewed by the genral public.. infradig say my peers, but to me it is a way of gaging the reality around me, of comprehending what influences the people I work with and what ails society at that time..

An upmarket magazine will select as its cover picture one that moves its readers and so for a Delhi issue it chose a picture where the poor animal would bring the now very popular – cho chweet – that one hears in page 3 gatherings..

It is not the malnutritioned child that one would wish away if one could, or the garbage pile that will choke the environment, but the stray animal being bottle fed by a fellow citizen that will stir sympathy.

Wonder why? Maybe because the other images are too close to us or is it because they makes us aware of our responsibilities in a disturbing way…

A sad reflection of the reality we live in..

There is something about India…

It all began as a grim day, fuelled by the ability we human have of conjuring the worst when the door bell rang and f a tiny voice said ” maam kahan hai” – where is maam -. For an instant I wondered whetherI had lost it and was hearing voices!

Then in came mr popples holding his father’s hand. Nikhil – the dad- had some work to do at my home and mrp had come along. mr p’s dad , or rather the one who has given a name to this child conceived during a drunken brawl, is a carpenter, just like the father of a very special being we all know..

His constant babble, as he settled to share breakfast in the kitchen, suddently dispelled the gloom around and brought us all back to normalcy. So after a hearty breakfast drowned in dollops of tomato ketchup, or chutney as mr p calls it, I decided to go out and shop.

I must say one was apprehensive of finding empty markets, but this is India and people had decided not to give in to fear. Somehow they understood that this was the only way to defeat the purpose of terrorist attacks . Normalcy had to return and even in the affected parts, shops opened after the authorities cleaned up the debris in record time.

The citizens of Delhi took charge of their destiny and set aside the feeble sugestion of keeping markets closed. It was heartwarming to see that everyone held the same discourse: we have to carry on as if nothing had happened.. yes we do mourn those who lost their lives, but this is the only befitting way to tell them that their lives did not go waste..

Delhi today sprung back to normal, with determination and a spirit that needs to be saluted.. and maybe mr p. decided to come and show me the way!

ominous title I agree but do we all not have to face a day of reckoning, a day when all questions will have to be answered with utmost and painful honetsty

As I browsed through the thousands of photographs of life on our planet looking for one that could ‘illustrate’ this post, I realised that there is not a single sad snapshot, every picture is one of hope and happy thoughts…

So I decided to take a picture of our one and only mr popples and remove the colour..

If project why was simply a journey of self realisation then I could simply retire satsified with a job well done: five years of school success for tens of scores of kids, heart surgeries, lives saved.. more than enough brownie points for a life time..

But was this why it all began… is this how debts are paid back.. is this how children are treated: mere commodities for personal agendas..

The reason for all this soul searching is my stubborn refusal for a large sum of money which bears a tag: to be used to purchase a piece of property… it is of course given in good faith as a means to ‘save’ money but everything in me is pushing me away from this option..

It is hard to explain why.. but somehow it spells doom and the end of what project why stands for..

I have been at sixes and sevens trying to explain this to all concerned but my conviction is deep seated: in todays India we need options that can not only be multiplied, but that can stand alone irrespective of extraneous factors.. we need to make the journey from recipient to donor, from PL 480 to Katrina, in every field.. and that is only possible if all the parts of the whole respect that spirit..

If project why wants to be model that any community of socially and economically under-privilegd parents can truly emulate, then every every aspect has to be so crafted as not to need outside support.. and that is why a simple option as the 0ne-rupee-a-day has to be made a reality.. I agree that it may take time and several mutations (be it raffles or such things), but once it has been proved and tested then the final transition has to be made, when each community looks after its own..

The model we craft has to reflect the reality of the community it caters to and answer its hope and aspirations.. but above all it has to instill in each one the feeling that (s)he can be in charge

Yes there has to be an end some day: the optimist one would be when a community is fully empowered; the other extreme would be when we accept closure after having been truly convinced that we tried everything..

But let us not forget that even as I write these words, there is a whole bunch of people, the ones that steer project why today, who are sufficiently empowered to carry on their way!

“Life” says Oriana fallaci “is such an effort. It is a war renewed each day’ and she goes on to say :”To fight is much better than to win, to travel much better than to arrive; once you have won or arrived you feel great emptiness… and have to set out again, create new goals..”
Lettera a un bambino mai nato, Rizzoli, 1975, translation by Shepley published as Letter to a Child Never Born, Simon & Schuster (New York City), 1976.

Often when I am confused, perplexed or unable to explain certain things to myself. i have found grat solace and moorings in the writings of Fallaci and once again I find myself looking for answers..

Five years ago I decided to create project why.. 20 kids some english classes and a journey I could not begin to imagine.. five years down the line .. 600 kids, 100% results, 40 new jobs for people thought unemployable, social barriers overcome, dignity restored for special children, women empowered, three heart surgeries and one on the anvil, a child saved from third degree burns, women empowered.. not a bad track record

And all this at minimum cost, no frills, no unecessary expenses.. so where is the hitch

Simply to get the 130 000 x 12 x 5 Rs that were needed to reach there.. the innumerable refusals, the promises unkept, the empty words of admiration never followed by a simple gesture..

One has lost count of the number of mails sent, lost count of the number of times one had to explain why one did not take the usual road, lost count of the time spent explaining what seemed so obvious if anyone were to take the time to realise that education had to be perennial and endure, and be free of the moods, flavours and trend of the day and thus all resources had to follow suite..

Some did understand and a wonderful network of people from the world over have supported us and infused into project why, a magic that has allowed it to live on .. but these are small islands of hope, little bouts of oxygen and not the lungs needed..

More mails are written, more ideas mooted and then just when you think you have got it, the refusal, the impersonal decision makers who do not want to take a risk… or prefer the conventional options..

Why does project why not want to take the conventional and accepted funding ways.. many reasons but let me just say the following:

Which funding head allows one to educate, care for special kids, repair a heart, reach out when needed..

Were we to accept the conventional ways then all the ‘teachers’ would lose their jobs as they would not meet the stipulations and yet they are the ones who have got consistent 100% results from class I to XII for five long years..

Were we to accept the conventional way we would have to increase our administrative costs to fulfill the complex paperwork..

Were we to accept the conventional way, project why woud lose its soul and its spirit..

So one has to fight on… and maybe one day… but then if we are to believe Oriana Fallaci, a great emptiness would be waiting..

But we would create new goals…

Santosha she was named.. after the goddess who grants wishes

She is babli ‘s mom..

Somewhere the script went wrong as she lost both her parents and was left to to the mercy of (un)caring realtives for whom she was a burden..

Later she was married off to a man 35 years her senior, an asthma patient unable to work.. she is his third wife…

Santosha accepted her fate and bore three children to this ageing and ailing man, took on a poorly paid back breaking job in a factory and kept her family going..

It was not easy as they never found a permanent home, leading to the children not being able to go to school. Babli was the eldest child and she new intuitively that there was something wrong with her, she could see the little child struggling to breathe, her heart pounding so hard that she use to feel it would jump out of the frail chest.. The doctors told her babli would need surgery but she quietly filed that suggestion into the deep recess of her mind as she knew there was no way she could manage this..

She perhaps did send a silent prayer asking for a miracle, but with the burden of life weighing on her already tired shoulders, she soon forgot that prayer.. she had to just focus getting a meal for her family and medicine for her husband..

When she came into our office, we were suprised to see this tall dignified and smiling woman who quietly sat down. She told us about her life without any bitterness. She told us her husband was a good man, somehow it seemed as she was speaking of her ‘fourth’ child, one who needed as much care as the others.

Her demeanour was remarkable for one who had experienced so much sorrow and pain in her short life. She had come to thank us for babli..

There is a god for the lesser ones, a god that has strange ways but is not unkind.. Santosha had to wait nine years to see her barely worded prayer answered..

Babli has to live; a mother’s prayer has to be fulfilled..

It is a matter of the credibility of the god of the lesser ones..

Is he listening?

Saturday 8th October, 2005, is another day which will be remembered as one when Nature decides to remind us of our station on planet Earth..

The earth shook and thousands died.. scores of thousands lost everything they had taken a life time to build… and nature took less than a minute to anihilate..

And as usual the world’s collective conscience also shook and the act of giving was suddenly revived and put into gear.. everywhere, everyone, everything was spelling ‘donate’…

Since we began project why we have been through two earthquakes, one flood, one tsunami and survived… though it has in no way been easy..

Project why was even strong enough to donate one fishing boat to a fishermen’s village in Tamil Nadu …

Over the past six years getting funds for project why has been more than a herculean task as it has put to test every fibre of one’s being.

But let us stop for a while and ask a simple question: what do we seek money for…

• a child’s heart surgery
• another’s one education
• a better future for those cast aside by society
• a dignified job for one who would have been condemned to clean another one’s dirt
• a better deal for an invisible little girl
• a chance to deal with age old social evils
• smiles, hope, a better tomorrow

When calamity strikes and people find their conscience and sometimes a way of getting rid of the overpowering clutter of their homes – that is why micro mini skirts find their way to traditional south indian villages – they do so prompted by an overkind media which for a few days does not let them forget the pain and agony people are going thorugh..

We deal with invisible, intagible pain, we deal with long term solutions one that cannot be caught on camera even by the best lensperson.. one you discover everyday when you walk the very lanes that many find an eyesore…

Both forms of giving are essential and necessary, in today’s term if one is a down payment, the other is a long time investment.. but we have forgotten this though it is just another manifestation of the dual view of life -the micro and the macro – one that is part of our atavist making..

When I pitched the one-rupee-a-day option, it was in keeping with this reality of life, hoping that if people found the large number for calamities, they would still spare the one unit for the future..

Was I wrong?

My intuition tells me I am not, it is just a mater of time..

So the waiting continues

babli is 9.. she looks 5..

a bright child, she loves studying and being with her class mates.. at first she looks normal till you realise that she is often stands aside while others play.. if you look closely you realise that she breathes with great difficulty..

Babli comes from a very poor family, her father is an aged man who must be twenty year solder than her mom.. he does not work and it is babli’s mother who eeks out a living doing odd jobs..
when we enquired about babli’s health they told us that the doctors had told them at her birth that she had a hole in her heart and would require surgery to live…

babli’s parents were too poor to think of such an option so they took the other one.. that of accepting that she would die…

I have always been amazed at the way project why weaves its magic.. babli was brought to project why by Sitaram, the why-on-wheels man, who had to wait a long time tilll he found the road way to project why and managed to get Raju his son’s open heart surgery done.. and is it again a simple coicidence that Nutan did not need surgery and thus money lies unused at the AIIMS…

So is there an option…other than life for babli..

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ” M.K Gandhi

Today is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday… the father of our Nation and the nation will render hommage to him… articles will be published and read, some may go to his samadhi and pray, TV cameras will ensure that everyone is informed..

Personally, I never truly understood Gandhi till very recnetly.. though he was present through out my life in the stories lovingly told by a mother who knew him.. yet as I grew up locked in the selfish state that childhood is, such stories seemed far away..

Years went by and Gandhi remained this elusive romantic notion that had brought us freedom.. but to my rebellious mind it remained confined to the past, having no relevance to my reality..

Yet as I look back, I am convinced that the seed of what I was to ultimately do with my life must have been sown while listening to these very accounts …

It is only very recently, when India came alive for me, as I discovered its true meaning in the eyes of the children of project why that Gandhi’s relevance hit me… As I battled each day with new realities, and failed many a times, a friend showed me the Gandhian way, the one where you looked for alternatives rather than bang against doors that would not open. From that day on, things began to change.

There was ho hard and fast rule, with every challenge had to come a new solution provided you were clear in your mind about the goal you wanted to reach, and sadly, wearing a different garb, the goal reamined the same: free India from the shackles of the new masters that bound her.. intolerance, caste , creed, greed, ignorance…

Every day is a battle renewed, a battle against a new invisble enemy and the wisdom lies in your capacity to find the right weapon… therein lies the wisdom of Gandhi for me..

I will end this by recounting the latest and still nascent foe that is slowly conquering the simple minds of theGiri nagar slum dweller …

For the past few weeks there has been a buzz in the lanes of Giri Nagar.. a new way of making quick money. All you have to do is part with 7200 rupees – yes seven thousand two hundred rupees or two months salary for a project why teacher – and then get some more people to do the same, and lo and behold you will become rich.. everyone is talking about this… some hesitantly, others with bravado.. look at R.. he even has a barnd new yellow motorcycle..

At first I did not pay any heed to this, but when one of my staff members asked me for advise, I decided to find ot more. I fell of my chair as I learnt that the 7200 rs were for purchasing a e- learning programme…

Now I have great respect for e-learning and net based activities but what I ask you is how do you expect Soni a semi-literate slum woman, Radhey Shyam my autorickshaw driver or Ram Prashad, the juice vendor to benefit from the CD rom and access code he gets in return for his precious rupees and moreover how do you imagine him being able to sell the same to more of his peers..

The sad thing is that the desire for quick money aptly fuelled by the excellent marketing ploys, has led to many people falling into the trap, some even borrowing the 7200 rs @ of 10% a month from the local moneylender..

True that the urban poor is a huge market for anyone as is substantiated by the pouches that hang in every tea stall – shampoos, sauces, shaving foams.. and much else – but computer learning for those who can barely pay their children school fees is something beyond comprehension..

We all know that many of the unsupecting buyers will never get any return of this huge investment…just the burden of an unpaid debt
I can understand the need for new and emerging markets, but at this price..

I wonder what Mohandad Karamchand Gandhi would have to say…

I know we have a new battle to win….

for many months I passed by potty nagar.. a name coined by shamikaa for a cluster of ramshackle jhuggis all five hundred of them, where almost 100 families live in rooms piled on each other with rickery ladders in lieu of staircases..

I have already witten about potty nagar in vankakam or namaste and ladder of hope .

yes I had passed this way many times and yet it is only last month that we decided to start an extension class there..

Two weeks ago, when Shipra took the first class there were a handful of kids, a few days later the little room became too small and another larger one was found.. In two days even this tiny room is full to the brim with scores of little hands handing over their note books, and intense and eager eyes pleading for more..

A palapable desire to learn fills the room.. never mind the heat, never mind the fact that one has barely enough place to sit, the class spills out through the open door and more eyes peer at you from down the road..

The experience is unique and overwhelming as you watch these little kids from many parts of India bonding on this little bit of planet why..where differences are forgotten and set aside..
what an incredible clas this is, a vision of a country rearing to go, impatient to meet its destiny..

What did it take to set this up, one teacher, one room and a bunch of true children of India…

makes you want for more…

Can I have more….

note: there is a flip side to potty nagar! Serious accidents take place on these unsafe ladders. A child of 5 died last year, and the mother of one of our class IX student fell last month on a rainy night and succombed to her wounds.

look at them… they are something these three.. dark glasses and all.. our very own genX..

this morning I decided to take a class.. and as we sat I realised that all was not quite as it should be.. most of the bacchas slumped and it took me some time to get everyone to sit up, as I barked instructions the way my pilates instructor does…

After some time and oodles of effort everyone did sit up, though most of them looked terribly ill at ease.. then it was question time and again I was faced with lymphatic kids and barely audible voices..

I decided that we would liven up the class and asked everyone to stand up and tell me what they had done this morning.. from the time they woke up to the time they reached project why..

Himraj started telling his tale and I was horrified to hear that all he had eaten in the morning was a cup of tea.. he revealed that he had had roti and potatoes at dinner, was carrying no lunch and would eat the small amount of free lunch that the municipal corporation doled out at 1pm!

As the class progressed I realised that barring a few kids who had eaten a resonable meal before coming, most of the students, all growing class IV and V boys had had a cup of tea with a rusk or a ‘fan‘, a sliver of bad quality puff pastry…needless to say that those who had eaten well had stay-at-home moms!

In urban slums, when both parents work to earn the elusive rupees, this si what happens to children.. in the village food is plenty even if you are poor: some vegetables do grow in the yard, and mom makes healthy rotis with the cereal of the region, the goat gives a little milk and some local fruit does grow, the water is clean and you run in the open breathing fresh air… and above all there are no rusks or ‘fans‘ as often there are no shops close by…

I am appaled at the poor posture of children in urban India.. where babies cannot crawl as there is no space, where fresh air is non-existent in the little holes you call home..

Is this the eldorado people seek? Maybe time has come for a reverse migration.. teach the children that the future lies in carrying back their newly acquired skills to the village where they come from..

An incident occured today that set me on a strain of thoughts about matters that one often brushes away with great words…

It began with a call from an acquaintance who runs an upmarket nursery school with her mother a lucrative entreprise where fees rose from 300 rupees a couple of years ago to a mind boggling 1200 at present..

She wanted some help so I decided to drop by.. we chatted for a while.. and she told me how the numbers of students had dwindled with all big public schools having opened their own nursery section.. after the customary cup of sweet and weak coffee she asked me if I would do her a favour.. could I take the grandson of Saroj, the almost instututional ayah of the school, in project why… he is two and a half..

I said I would and got up to take leave… a worried Saroj walked with me to my waiting three wheeler and told me that the child had been in a creche till date, but had walked out of it and got lost.. she wanted a safe place… I told her to bring the child..

As I drove away , it suddenly struck me that the child could have easily been taken into the little school was it not for what I call the invisible but impregnable walls (IIV) that surround us, though many are blissfully unaware of their existence..

How could little Monu or Vijay or Abdul rub shoulders with the upmarket bacchas.. it would have cost the mother-daughter duo to have Saroj bring the little one.. knowing them, he would have sat quietly and imbibed everything around him.. but that would have meant crossing the IIV a line that could beat any LOCs…

Never mind if Monu or Abdul or Priya were born in free India and enjoy the same rights that their peers from across the border… never mind if their mummies would work extra hours making ‘pieces’ for the local exporter and pay the 1200 rs. Some do pay upto 600 to the english medium school aptly called Mother Kesari or Budding Flowers where no one speaks english..

And if a Monu or Abdul or Priya’s mummy did gather the courage of crossing the II wall clutching her purse with the fee amount, dressed in her party best: she would be shunted away by a clone of our erstwhile Saroj..

It is all a matter of invisible and impregnable walls…

I know for one that Saroj will henceforth not do it…

How do we get the mother daughter duo to change…

You guess right.. i have something in my mind…

Class is over.. the climb down the rickety ladder will take them back to their day-to-day existence .. but today has been different.. the children have stars in their eyes..
no metaphor here..

Today’s class was about the earth, and the plantets, and the milky away all brought alive by Sophie who ascended these very steps globe and laptop in hand to open a new world to these little kids.

Time stood still in this tiny, airless room where it is almost difficult to breathe, as twenty pairs of eager eyes crowded around the screen. The excitement was palpable.. the mood serious.. just as it should be in any place of learning…

So what if it is a tiny room up a rickety ladder.. a little effort makes it a ladder of hope

a mail dropped by in mailbox this morning. it was from someone i did not know..

It began woth the words: “I’ve heard a lot about you from A. I’m skeptical, as always, about all good things. And yet, I wish I could meet you and be involved in what you are doing.”

Many questions came to my mind, but what disturbed me the most was the way in which mistrust had permeated our lives with consequences that one is even aware of…

Nutan had a debilitating cardiac problem. She needed medical care and in all likelihood complex surgery. The family was told to arrange for 110 000 rupees before investigation would start. Now Nutan hails from Bihar and is one of the poorest of the poor, but there was no other way: It seemed that earlier many patients had left without paying bills so no one was to be trusted! Today we were told that Nutan may not need surgery and will soon be reunited with her children… Just imagine what would have happened had the money not been found…

One of the main obstacles that lie in our efforts to garner funds for project why, is the mistrust people feel towards charitable organisations, and their unwillingness bordering refusal, to give us the now almost elusive one rupee and thus the chance to prove our worthiness. Now imagine if we had not shown trust when Nutan, or Arun or Raju or all those who came to us and turned them away..

It seems that a world in a hurry to accede to material things draws comfort from applying labels to everything, not finding time to view each case seperately, and making up its own mind.

I would like to share a simple secret with them, the one given to a mythical little prince by a simple fox: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The Little Prince, Antoine de St Exupery.

Maybe we should learn all over again to look with our hearts..

Jeetu is not yet 5.. but he has experienced in his short life more than many would imagine.. He came to us two years ago.. a frail child with huge sad eyes who clung to a man that we thought was his grandfather..

We learnt that it was actually Jeetu’s dad and that his mom had died of TB a few months back.. We took Jeetu on, and helped his father set up a small vegetable cart.. all seemed well.. or so we thought..

Jeetu was a quiet, withdrawn child in desperate need of love and care. Slowly we saw the first smile, and the first friend and we felt relieved.. then slowly there were changes: a belligerent behavior, a new found hostility, then bruises and to our horror we discovered that the father had hit the bottle.. and was hitting the child!

We tried to intervene… threats, pleading.. nothing worked..everynight the man came back drunk and took out all his frustration on the poor motherless child..

A few days back we were told that the old man had got remarried.. our reaction went from dismay to alarm to relief as we thought that the presence of a woman would maybe help the situation.. we just hoped for the best.. maybe the old man’s violence towards his child was an unexpressed sexual need… we kept our fingers crossed…

But there was more to come…

Yesterday Jeetu did not come to the centre. The previous evening his father had been taken to the police station as it appeared that the woman had been bought for five thousand rupees and had made a complaint following a fight…

We hope that the matter is solved amicably, as otherwise Jeetu’s father may find himself in prison and Jeetu in a state run institution..

Another why… but where is the answer…

Some of you know her, some of you have read about her.. she is real and she is Preeti.. the one whose granny wants us to give her rat poison, the childwoman the family wants to wish away.. she is also the one that eats insects because she is micro-nutrient deficient!

Her dream: to be a mother..

Like all special and blessed children, she has a lot of love to give, only no one to give it to…if you come by do not be syrprised if she hugs you tight…

Preeti was born in a land where a girl is rarely truly desired, and a disabled one finds her way at the end of the line.. be it food or medecines.. she never gets her share… yet children like her bear no malice at all…

As I sat wondering how project why would survive, and whether all this endless struggle was worth it , Shamikaa stomped in.. holding what looked like a crumbled piece of newspaper: almost incoherent in her speech she opened it and therein lay a few grains of rice held together by some brown gooey stuff… it took me some time to understand that this was what Preeti’s family had sent as her lunch…

I was speechless as one emotion after the other took hold of me… anger, sadness, shock .. hurt. And in that moment I realised that I had to continue to fight for project why’s survival if it was only to ensure that for a few hours a day Preeti was surrounded by love and care and was treated like a human being… with dignity and respect..

And if that was not enough, my heart missed a beat when I heard that Preeti had been very uspet when she was told to give the packet away.. remember it was the lunch her mother had given…

On more why had to be answered…

Note: project why gives lunch to the special children, but we feel that parents need to assume their reponsibilities and hence ask them to pack a meal.. neddless to say it is often far from ideal!