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!

it was a big day for me… as today for the very first time i saw the light at the end of the tunnel…
or to to use the terminology of the hour..the first step towards project why’s disinvestement was taken..

yes disinvestment is what it should be called… as the dream I set out to fulfill more than 5 years ago was that of an empowered community taking care of all the needs of its less privileged children.. where the steering would be transferred to ‘investors’… investors in time, skills and one day if all is well, in funds too!

it has been a long journey, with many step backwards.. with its share of dejection and angst.. yet with every step taken I could see the transition gently set in: two new centres set up and manned independently, a secondary section that will soon be flying on its own wings, a cyber cafe taking shape.. then why was today different..

well simply because for the very first time a TV crew came and did a shoot as I watched in the wings.. I did not even have to speak on camera.. shamika and rani did the task.. with the children speaking of their projects and dreams..

I could see project why stand on its own.. I could not but go back to the day when every journo’s visit brought panic and nervousness.. today there was no diplomat daughter walking the slums, no personality cult.. today was about empowerment and water issues, about education and aspirations, about dreams yet to be fulfilled, about tomorrows yet to be conquered.. today was about India and its people…

pNagar.. as we call it.. could be Tnagar in chennai!

Sudhar Camp is waht it is known as.. a tiny slum tucked away behind the electricity department somewhere in Kalkaji, in the south of India’s capital city.. 500 families living in precarious box like hutments where rooms are piled over one another.. a little like the houses children make with their wooden or plastic blocks.. to get to to a higher floor there are wobbly ladders… each family has an average of four children, most under the age of 10…

on one side there are tiny tea shps where you find freshly fried smosas, on the other side the aroma of filter kaphi and sambar greets you.. there is the south indian temple and the north indian temple… families from Bihar and UP live next to families from Tamil Nadu.. there exsits an invisible divide..in almost everything

in a tiny room on a first floor is project why’s latest avatar where south meets north under the the guidance of a lady from the east– yes shipra comes from bengal.. and all laugh and learn in perfect harmony…

Look at the picture? can you guess which smile is north indian and which one from the south.. they are all children of India who will not only learn the proverbial 3Rs but also about each other and maybe next time you come by a little Sudha from Sivan in Bihar will greet you with a cheerful ‘Vannakam“!

n’s article is out. it was published today in the Asian Age .
It was great that it appeared on teacher’s day when all roles were reversed.

We sat down to read it with some of the kids and imagine Vicky’s pride when he heard the opening words “ Vicky Kumar, 12, is concerned about the water problem plaguing the capital“. and then the ones that sounded like music to my ears: “Vicky, who hails from Saharsa in Bihar, wants to become a scientist when he grows up. “I would like to go back to my village and set up a water plant there,” he says with a glint of optimism in his eyes.”

It was nice to see an article that went to the core of what we believe in and talked about the importance of making good citizens, and of revalorising going back to one’s home.

The children were thrilled and you could see pride in their eyes as they poured over the newspaper trying to read the sometimes difficult words and asking for explanations…

I watched them and wondered whether we had finally found the right road… to the future

There is something about India that never ceases to amaze me and that is her ability to contradict everything negative that you may think about her.

She does play games with you, wears you down, makes you angry or even sad, but then when you are just about to lose all hope and give up, she makes up for everything..

At pwhy we have never been media savvy, and most of what has been written about us has been either by friends or by accident. We have had our share of request for telephone intreviews politely rejected as we felt that someone in Delhi could make the effort to come and see us; we have seen copies of what was written by someone dear, lifted time and again sometimes without even a mention of the source; we have had journos come in a hurry for token visits and photographers that never had the time to go beyond our front door..

when a young journo from a leading newspaper called on a sunday afternoon wanting to write about us I must confess I had thought that it would be another journo in a hurry who would appear for a fleeting moment.. well that was not so.

N came on time and gave us the feeling that he had all the time in the world for us.. he interacted with the children and even saw them present a project, he chatted with the staff , shared lunch with us and came and saw our okhla project too..

for all of us it was special as we felt that someone was looking at our work and giving it due respect… and we were touched..

N is a journo with his heart in the right place, and I just wish it stays that way..

Project why wishes him all the success possible

asiya and fatima, the two year old twins sleep reaching out to each other for comfort… while rabiya takes a much needed break.. like any mom would.. only rabiya is four, just two years older than the siblings she looks after with great care and maturity..

rabiya is not an exception.. she is almost the rule in urban India’s slums!

on my way to project why I often drive past what we sometimes refer to as ‘potty nager’. It is a rickety camp known as sudhar camp and is home to migrants from as far as Karnataka, or Tamil Nadu.. most of the women work as part time household help, and the men as security guards; the place is crwaling with toddlers who can be often seen easing themsleves on the road as the only bathrooms are a set of public conveniences where a rupee needs to be paid! As many of our children from the creche have moved to the primary section I thought it would be a good idea to get some of the kids from this camp.

Last Seema went to survey the place. the story she had to tell was chilling: in the day sudhar camp is almost like a neverland, as most of its inhabitants are children.. with a few elders hanging around quite unconcerned.. many of the children came to meet her, ready to listen to waht they had to say. Many were quite excited about going to ‘school’ but it did not take long for them to tell Seema that they could not as they had to look after their siblings. seema told me that it was then that she realised that something was not quite right: every child – and they were between 3 and 5 – was carrying a younger child in his arms.. and what was difficult to believe and heart rendering was that they did it with a sense of responsibility that could match that of any adult..

Seema came back crestfallen and perplexed as to what could be done in to answer the tiny voices who were all saying: I want to go to school but who would take care of my sibling…

i am still trying to answer that question…

last week I decided to take a class..

this decision was prompted by the constant complaints of some of the primary teachers who felt the kids were getting difficult to handle…some not doing their work and disturbing others..
as all the advise meted had not worked, I thought best to see things for myself..

I asked for the rowdiest class.. I was given the boys of class IV and V…

when the teachers asked me what I was planning to teach, I simply answered that I would let the children guide me…

we decided to sit outside on the floor, in a circle and as I looked around I saw lovely eager faces with big eyes staring at me..

I decided to ‘take it from the top’ and ask them simply why they were studying… they all looked bewildered, not knowing what to say…. the teachers were as amazed as the kids. I repeated my question gently addressing myself to one child, then the other, and then the next.. after some prompting I got my first answer: to change things in the world… to have a better future said the next.. to gain knowledge said the third…

stereotypes that no one really undesrtood. so we sat and talked about education and the different subjects studied and picked up social studies… for my little pals social studies meant learning from the book..

we sat and talked about why we should learn about our social system, about laws and rights and duties; how they could change our lives and help change the world or better our future..

at the end of the hour, the little ones were asking for more.. somehow in their minds boring subjects had acquired a new meaning: hindi or english would help word petitions, maths would help calculate losses, and civics would tell us how we could play a role in building our land.. redressing wrongs.. remaking te world..

actually what i was witnessing was the making of true citizen India!

Look at the picture.. what do you see?

three little girls playing, the way all children that age should, three children savouring what is know as the best part of one’s life: early childhood, when others take care of your creature comforts and everyday needs, when you do not have an ounce of worry or concern…

oops I forgot to tell you this scene is from an urban slum in India… so let me reinterpret it for you..

Rabia and her twin sisters Asiya and Fatima live in a fifth floor hovel in a slum in Delhi.. They have an elder sister and no brother. When they came into the world there was no joy or happiness but they were meant to feel a burden from the moment they saw the light of day. Their father drives an auto ricshaw, their mother takes on needle work for greedy exporters who pay her a pittance, the house is unkept and unclean..the girls uncared for..

The twins now two cannot walk or even stand, they do not talk or even smile. All the medical tests done were negative, the verdict brutal: lack of love; suffer from extreme neglect.

When little Fatima is upset it is not her moma she runs to for comfort, but elder sister Rabia, barely four, as you can see in the picture. And the little four year old surrogate mother does her best to wipe off the hurt…

Now look at the picture again, do you see what I see….

till we can get a picture of the young couple, this is what a bonboniere looks like

“Barbara and me will get married next September 24th and we decided to donate to you the money we were to spend to buy bonbonnieres”

I have never met Barbara or Massimo, they are friends of a friend’s daughter …

I first googled to find out what bonbonieres were: bonbonieres are pretty little souvenirs that are handed out to each person attending a wedding in Italy as a traditional wedding favour.

Now this wedding will not have the traditional bonbonieres that guests normally carry back as a souvenir.. but there is something that they will carry back, something many will remain unaware of, something intangible .. something they would have help create: bonds of love and friendship between two young people starting their life together and children who strive for a better one… and the world will have become that little bit smaller..

Is it the magic of project why at work once again..?

Jonathan Blake Wade
1950 – 2005

If ever there was a man who epitomized all that project why stands for it would be Jon..
A human being par excellence..
A man who was first a man, before being white, or brown, british, or indian..
He transcended the usual tags and definitions, and refused to be locked in the little boxes of religion, country, race, colour and all that divides…
Born british he chose to be an Indian and imbibed in every pore the essence of India at its best..
Son of a pastor he chose to follow a universal religion that encompassed nothing short of the greatest..

If ever there was a friend that gave friendship its true meaning it was Jon…
Always present when needed, he knew the art of tiptoeing away when the task was done..
Generous to a fault with his time, his patience and his love, Jon found a special place in the hearts of everyone who met him, albeit for an instant..

If ever there was a man who embodied all that project why stands for and strives to impart, it was Jon..
A man who stood by his convictions and his beliefs and never gave in to the flavour of the moment..
A man who had the guts to walk the right path, even if it was the more difficult one..
A man who displayed courage and fortitude in the face of any obtsacle and always found the right solution…
A man who was simply ‘ a man’ !

The children and staff of project why mourn the loss of Jonathan Blake Wade who for the past five years was on its Board of Directors

New Delhi August 20th, 2005

the door bell rang and for once it was not the impatient courier man, but Ram Lakhan, our good old postman!

Strange it had been a long time since one had seen him. I had almost forgotten the days when one waited for the postman at given times, .. how he had been part of so many memories, happy ones and sad ones.. but then with the advent of emailing and courier services, Ram Lakhan had faded away like so many good things..

But today there he was, looking older and greyer, but still smiling as he shouted: ‘money order didi’!

I walked towards the gate as he fished the money order out of his wizened bag, and looked bewildered at the one hundred rupee note he held out. On the form, was a hand written message form an unknown person hailing from Pune that simply said: a small contribution for the work you are doing…

I was moved beyond words as, with a shaky hand and clouded eyes, I signed the receipt. To me in this slightly crumpled note lay the heart of India. Who was this unknown indian who had read about our work and thought it valuable enough to deserve his trust and this note.

I held on to it for a long time… feeling humbled and elated .. feeling I had finally found the way home…

In many parts of our country and in many lands across our planet, shoes are left outside the homes.. a custom that makes a lot of sense which ever way you look at it

if one were to take the image a little further, one could also think of it as a way to leave problems and tensions that are part of our ‘outside’ world, before we enter the haven of our homes..

On the tiny planet we have conjured and called why a lot of shoes have to be left at the treshold.. and they are those that we have been made to wear because of our own ignorance, our inability to look with our hearts, our short sightedness..

They are the shoes that divide us and marginalise some of us, the ones that we often wear without realising or comprehending: they have names yes, names we often see on news headlines whenever ugly incidents occur: caste, religion, gender, colour, race….

At project why, these are left outside with the hope that one day we will forget to wear them, the day we will be truly ‘educated’… and hence trule independant.

Happy Independence Day!

August 15th 2005

let me tell you a tale.

once upon not so long ago there lay an unused palace in south delhi district.. it had been a labour court, but then as it lost occupants and soul, it lay empty sometimes utilised for noisy and messy marriage functions that left their plastic scars..

occupants of a strange planet called why did try to get it to live again and wrote numerous petitions suggesting it become a place for children and elders and find its soul again..

one day there was flurry and activity and buckets of paints, and grass and flowers: time for a great makeover and the once cast aside lady became almost a beauty…

cars rolled by and many queens and kings came to the second coming of age ball.. then big hoardings appeared bearing the little red ribbon that names today’s dreaded scare and tiny letters spelt out the wonderland that was to enfold..

even planet why was happy, something was in the offing..

but great locks and iron gates were set up, no one knew what happened there..

then one fine morning, actually it was today, a kind hearted lady who lives near there stopped us and with great angst told us that all was not well behind the iron bars, that old deranged women and hurting people were beaten with sticks and blows.. that something needed to be done.. it was not a land of love and care..

the words on the board did mention the old and the ailing and many souls of lesser gods..
what was happening..

was that the plight of the ones that even families hoped to wish away, those like our darling Preeti who ate flies and insects to fgeed a starving body till one day someone in her own family would lock her in the place where they fed you blows!

insects and blows are lesser children’s woes.

all is not well in the state of….

he who plants a tree, plants a hope
said Lucy Larcom (1824 – 1893)..never were words written as true as in the case of Preeti and our new aloe vera project…
Stop a moment to look at Preeti’s smile before your read on…

Preeti is 19 though she looks 12.. she suffers from a mental retardation that no one ever bothered to assess and by the time she came to us it was far too late to do anything concrete..
Preeti is not a pretty child and in her home no one loves her. Her grandmother has even told us to ‘give her a rat poison’ on more than one occasions and not as a joke. If her family could wish her away, they would…

Pretty has never been fed and has a severe micro nutrient deficiency which translates in her eating flies and insects.. which makes her the butt of nasty and snide remarks..

But Preeti is an endearing child if you are willing to stop and look at her with love. In spite of her very limited abilities she loves to help in any chore she can and one of her favourite activity is gardening.

When our friend DV suggested that we start an aloe vera project we had no hesitation is giving it to our special section under the stewartship of their educator Virinder.

The children are now busy planting aloe vera saplings into tiny pots, preparing charts and other material explaining the vertues of aloe vera and the advantage of having a plant in every home. They have collected empty containers of aloe vera based products and highlighted the exhorbitant cost of each of them and are now preparing a little presentation for our annual day that will be held on August 13th. They will on that day launch the sale of their saplings at rs 10/- a pot and who knows our littel aloevera fairies may turn into business ladies!

And maybe, just maybe, Preeti would gain a little place in the heart of her family when she comes back with first earnings…

so as Lucy larcom said

it was a special day at project why…

we had a special guest, one that has been a friend even before he saw our world or met any one of us.

rabin came all the way from chennai and spent the whole day with us.

his smile won eveyone over and the magic of project why worked once again as rabin became part of everything that was happening as if he were one of us.
he watched the reherseals for the forthcoming annual day, met all those he had touched with his cyberLove, neha and little aditya, met the angry and misguided young teenagers of okhla, and the odd couple who are parents to little yash.

the day went by, a normal one for project why but i guess a special one for rabin as he got a live show of what till then had been a reality perceived through words and snapshots, and a far cry from the cool air conditioned and organised world of a state-of-the-art bank!

a very special moment was when rabin met nutan. i cannot even begin to imagine the multitude of feelings and emotions that filled that instant..

if one had looked with one’s heart, what filled that tiny room was hope..

will the world look the same to you rabin!

As Nutan’s story unfolds, India comes to light, with its hard realities and softer truths. Nutan is 30 and is suffering from a severe heart malfunction.

Years of ignorance laced with neglect, years of living the life of a woman in a society where women are lesser beings, of bearing four children with little or no help, of malnutrition and hard work have taken their toll on a frail body, where a heart was made to work twice as much because of a probable congenital defect.

When the body could not carry on, when the lungs hungry for oxygen started giving up Nutan was taken to the district headquarters of Purnea, in Bihar. There a doctor who braved the odds and dangers of life in this dificult state to bring a healing touch to those in need, diagnosed Nutan’s ailment and gave her the best possible advise: take a train to Delhi, to the AIIMS for immediate heart surgery.

The year was 2003.

Nutan then fell prey to the half baked knowledge of probale well wishers who scared her so much that she refused the treatment needed and pushed her all ready tired body to the very last.

Then two years later, when even living became difficult, she finally took the train. The verdict was simple: immediate surgery; the cost was staggering for a family who had already sold or mortgaged everything it possessed.

Ayan, a doctor friend from John Hopkins saw Nutan and confirmed what we all knew. I asked her what would have happened if Nutan had been born to a rich family. The answer was staggering: the pediatrician would have detected the heart murmur at birth and the corrective surgery would have taken place by the time she was 3. And anyway, had Nutan had proper medical check up during her pergnancy, the murmur would have been heard. And then the inevitable question, what if nothing was done, the answer was a quiet: 2 years at the most.

What conclusion to draw in this tale of missed murmurs?

The one missed at birth, the one missed four times and then the unexpected one from a kind doctor in a state everyone has given up on..

Nutan a mother of four was diagnosed having a severe cardiac malfunction in a district hospital in Bihar and advised immediate corrective surgery. Doctors were optimist.

That was two years ago…

For two years, Nutan suffered, her condition deteriorating day by day. You may think that the surgery was delayed for want of funds.. well not quite

Nutan became an unsuspecting victim of what one could call enlightend ignorance. In her small village in the back of beyond of what is now known as the most backward state in India, this broken woman was fed on horrific tales of what a heart surgery was. In betwen bouts of severe and almost unberable pain, she heard bribes of conversation that described her body being torn apart and mutilated by city doctors and leading to a possible death.

Slowly a deep seated fright took hold of her pain ridden mind and she simply refused to be taken to the city and thus shut out the one option that could save her life.

It took two years of withering away, of bearing excruating pain, of witnessing her body slowly giving up for Nutan to accept to come to Delhi.

Nutan can barely walk, actually she can barely breathe. She is now undergoing the pre-op tests at the cardio-thoracic centre of AIIMS. We hope we can raise the money required and above all use our sources to get a date for the surgery and see this mom back on the road to recovery.

But Nutan’s case is not unique. How many people fall victim to ignorance, or what is worse half-baked knowledge.

Education then takes on a whole new meaning, a far cry for multiplication tables and historical dates…

as children we have all dreamt of what we would want to be when we grow up… i remember wanting to be an air hostess, a nuclear scientist, an astronaut and god knows what else..

even slum kids have dreams: they often want to be teachers, doctors.. even actors.. and sometimes they even say ‘we want to be like you’.

the young boy in the picture is Sanju. His father ran away with another woman. Sanju has two younger sisters. Deepa the middle one has been sent to the village. Manju, two and half, comes to our creche. Sanju’s mom cleans homes and leaves at 6 am returning late in the evening, leaving Sanju is charge of getting little Manju to school.

Sanju is an angry young man who does not know how to handle his feelings. He used to come to project why but was a difficult child to control. He stopped coming and hangs around in the street in spite of our best effort. In the afternoon he does go to school but that also is not regular. And in the evening he often has to bear the frustration of a tired mother, who often hears complaints about her neglected kids.

This morning I spent time talking to him, wanting to know how I could get him to come back and study. In the course of our little chat, I asked him what he wanted to become when he grew up. After some thought he mumbled ‘mend chains‘. I was perplexed and asked him to explain. He did: Sanju wants to become a zip-repair man (there is one who roams giri nagar repairing people’s broken zips)!

I was filled with immense sadness faced with this child and his tiny dream, his one life ambition. I just sat long after he left lost in my own thoughts. How could the life of a man who wandered through streets holding a few zips and lugging a shoulder bag become the ideal of a smiling boy. At an age where one can dare dream of the impossible, what makes a child stop at something so insignificant.. how suffocating and sad must his life be… what did he see in this man who goes around shouting in the street hoping for someone to call him so that he could earn a few rupees… was it escape from the life of a surrogate parent when one wants to jump and play with others, or from the embarassment of having a little sister clinging to you..

Sanju has to be given back his childhood and te right to dream big, but how?

that is the question.

the little fellow in red singing his heart out is Aman a little gypsy child.
last wednesday, his mom made him wear his smartest clothes, scrubbed squeaky clean in spite of the paucity of water in the camp where they live and sent him to project why.

in days gone by, i succumbed to the fashionable funding option of sponsorships even though every fibre of mine was telling me not to. but at that time the sources were few and the need urgent. the deal of course was that there would be no special goodies or add ons, but just the basic requirement for the child to be in project why. we carefully divided the cost of each section by the number of children and came up with a figure and got some funding that way. since we have ben able to try and get our message across and do not go for sponsorphips of individual kids anymore.

I have often wondered what is it that makes this so popular and once again one is compelled to conclude that it is a matter of giving in to the donor’s conscience. has anyone ever stopped to think how the kid who has a sponsor and smart thinks is treated by his peers, how he is marginalised and considered an outsider. have we not all felt this way in our childhood days?

Then how do we explain to one parent why the other parent’s child has been sponsored. and when you view a set of pictures what makes you select one rather than the other? the cutest one? the saddest looking one? Even in our group adoptions we have always found that it is the smaller section that gets the most support. Sometimes the special kids, as it is fashionable, never the secondary kids though for them it is the last chance to catch the train to a better future..

well to come back to my little fellow, he was one of the chosen one and last week after umpteen mails and calls the person was to come and meet him. we of course told all parents that we would have a visitor so that every child came looking his best.

So it was a bunch of really smart kids that set out that wednesay morning waiting for the guest to come… he never did.

I guess aman and the others never realised that they were kept that little bit longer, as project why is a fun place to be in. For them it was just another day…

and I just once again remebered the fox and his quiet message:

One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.

may i never lose that ability…

just got back from chennai and will write about my visit soon …
but today i want to share the joy I felt returning..home!

yes this little planet as i like to call it, has become ‘home’ as isn’t home the place you feel wanted, loved, cared for… was it the little children who ran to me screaming maa’m, or the more subdued ‘morning maa’m’ of the older ones.. was it the relief written large on the faces of some of my colleagues.. or the happy face of TunTun the scooter driver as he drove me to work..

maybe it was all of that ..

or was it the incredible joy and positive energy that dwell in every nook and corner of this little project and was so visible in the faces of the special kids as they greeted me this morning…

yes i was home…

when the tsunami – a word none of us knew post 26/12 – waves hit the shores of India on a fateful sunday morning, I did not know that it would create ripples in a little planet tucked away in a small delhi slum.

we set about collecting money for a boat, and we managed to do so in record time. today a beautiful little fishing boat proudly bears the name ‘project why’ as it bobs on the East Coast of India bringing new hope to little children and their families.

in project why classrooms, a picture the little brightly coloured boat is displayed on the walls with great pride, creating new yet invisible bonds.

now as we all know the tsunami relief operation did go a bit out of hand as the world found its lost conscience and wanted to put it to use in a hurry. we managed to convince some donors to set aside a little money for the children of a fishing village and my visit to chennai was to try and see what could be done to erase some of the terrible memories that little minds still carry, and that are often not understood by elders.

A drive along the East Coast Road brought to light many realities that we are unaware of. Several villages have been affected and the fisherman now live in ‘camps’ some of which look unreal, I was horrified by one where dwelling units were made of hessian cloth dipped in black tar, and looked like a vision of hell, others looked a little more welcoming and they used natural thatch. DV Sridharan my guide for the visit, pointed out something I would have missed: carefully worded panels that almost ‘invited’ you to visit these camps. I was appaled by the lack of sensitivity that made a human tragedy into a new form of tourism..

More disturing however was the fact that today many villagers have made releif their main ‘economic’ activity, with fishing taking second place… here again we are made aware of the thin and invisible line that lies between helping and handicapping. When fishermen stop fishing something has gone terribly wrong… whe people start concealing reality in the hope of getting more, the purpose of aid gets defeated… this is something we have also faced time and again, and to my mind herein lies the litmus test of any development work: the ability to know when to stop!

Alas this is easier said than done as the problem does not lie only with the recepient but also with the donor who rides on the high of becoming a temporary god or at least saint of the day!

Then what does one do, become a follower of Diogenes and sink into cynicism, or does one carry on with the hope of being able to stop when the need arises.

That is the question.