I have often wondered what is it that makes pwhy such a menace to local powers that be. Why is it that we get dragged to the labour court, accused of nefarious activities, ranging from pandering to stealing. Why is it that each time we solve a problem and start thinking that things are behind us a new problem arises, a true hydra headed monster with an elusive neck!

I have been mulling over this not quite finding a satisfactory answer. It hit me yesterday like a bolt out of the blue.

Education, a threat says who? Says ‘they’ say I is my answer. How can the little boy and his copy book can be a danger to anyone. The answer is that if he is given an empowering education than he is a huge threat to the existence system.

Let me elucidate this. Since the reservation issue aptly referred to as Mandal II raised its head and the issue of the creamy layer came up, I decided to ensure that all pwhy kids who fit into any reserved category should have the certificate to prove that. As usual I asked one of my staff members to find out, as he too is a contender. The answer was the usual I get, one that till date I did not doubt: I will check up with the local corporator’s office. Why should I question this, is the corporator not the representative of the people.

The next day I got my answer which was something like: there are no forms, they have not come picche se (from behind), they may come soon. Normally I do not dispute such answers but this time it disturbed me. No matter how badly executed we have a sound democratic system, at least on paper so of I went to friend google and of course in a matter of seconds found the forms waiting to be downloaded as well as the required information on how to apply.

That is when I realised the power of the kind of education I dream of, one that empowers. The cynics will say how can you teach everyone to search the net. My answer is simple yet sound, till we cannot get the kids to, we can show the parents the way: find someone to check for you!

Today I will walk to pwhy with the forms in my bag ready to be photocopied in as many numbers as wanted. When they reach the local politicians for countersignature I know I would have jumped a few places and be closer to the top of the wanted list, but I also know that I would have walked a huge step in the right direction and someone would have lost a bit of his hold.

It is another matter that some of the required stipulations have to be challenged in court as to get a caste certificate your family is required to have lived in Delhi since 1951. What about the 10 million who came after. Well they have to go seeking their Patwari. My question then is how come you are willing to give voters ID cards or whatever else is needed for your benefit and not what might help your potential voter. the answer looms larger than life.

No wonder that no one wants to get the creamy layer excluded.. wonder who would apply for the reserved categories in med school , IITs or IIMs then?

Somehow it maybe easier to call the bluff for by campaigning for the right to a certificate for every potential beneficiary. Is caste not an intrinsic part of a population count

P.S. while browsing the net for programmes for handicapped kids, I found out that most apply to those whose family earns less than six hundred rupees a month. Wonder which planet they live on

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deepak came visiting to show off his two brand new teeth! he even smiled and played with us. This brave little fellow has kept his side of the deal: he survived a code blue and even though his broken heart stopped beating, he willed to beat again; he patiently waited that adults finish their strikes and protests and in the bargain got a huge abdominal abscess that took a month to heal. he met all milestones and even produced two teeth at the right time and even had an angiography that now has to be redone. He tries to eat though it is not easy, and he is hanging on waiting for the rest to fall in line.

It is sad that children have to suffer because of reasons that they cannot comprehend or control. On the 26 he will undergo another angio and if all goes well will finally get the surgery he urgently needs.

Let us hope that this one will be the good one…

Distance makes the heart grow fonder says the jaded quotation. Most of us have at one time or the other used it.

Six long years trying to keep project why alive my way, has given a new connotation to these very words. We could also use Mark Twain’s Familiarity breeds contempt to describe the bittersweet reality that has been vindicated day after day.

In our quest for support we have been overwhelmed by the spontaneity of people living across the world, who have an may never drop by our planet but who somehow have understood its spirit. So be it the tiny amount sent by a student pining for home comfort food, or the generous gift of a well settled professional who feels that it is a way to pay back; be it the impromptu offer to volunteer of young people from different lands or the long plane hours taken to come by and write about us, it is the effort of those who are faraway that has sustained us till now.

The rupee a day option was designed for two reasons, one for each side of the spectrum. It was something even the poorest could spare and join the rank of donors and on the other hand something which I felt would allay the worst cynic who view everything with suspicion even if they have known you for donkey’s years. If some head way was achieved in the first case, then in the second the distance between hand and wallet still needs to be covered.

Another high road to bewalked

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JFK said: “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”. Wonder what he would have felt about their situation in India..

last week three blasts rocked Malegaon, most of the victims were children, many beggars who had come on this holy Friday to the mosque and the cemetery, traveling long distances to earn a few extra rupees.

This morning the picture of two young rag pickers was carried in a national daily. The sealing of shops in an effort to beautify Delhi had in one blow taken their livelihood as they did not know where to sell their daily collection.

In a few days the child labour law will come in force and many kids will be homeless and in search of food.

The little kids in the picture are filled with hope and dreams as they sit quietly in the middle of a garbage dump, oblivious of the odours or even the flies, or the heat. They want to learn, knowing intuitively that it may change their lives.

Fuelled by images they see on the box, they dream of being a Sachin, or a Salman. Some want to be doctors, others teachers… many even belong to the innumerable social divisions that benefit from umpteen reservations. But there is a catch: none have the required certificate to prove it and getting on is a nightmare. No one has told them about the value of that piece of paper, on the other hand many have denigrated its value by telling them it shameful forgetting of course to enlightened them about the many benefit they entail.

And for those who have a certificate, the door are closed as they will never get beyond the infamous 33 %. I was even told by a secondary school teacher that they taught only 40% of the course as that was sufficient to pass.

On the other hand the numerous population count that have been done include the caste. Now does it not become imperative for the government to issue the required caste certificate one wonders?

Maybe someone should take notice of this and act so that if one of the children in the picture breaks all barriers and gets to the gates of higher learning, he is able to benefit from what is his right.

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Have not written about mr. p for a long time. well it is said that no news is good news. he is doing great in school and his mom is doing great at the rehab centre.

His surrogate dad has been lurking around, trying to find the right excuse to scrounge a few pennies for his next drink. Needless to say that at this moment in time my detractors are having a field day filling his fuzzy inebriated head with vile ways on how to extort some money. I know that there is nothing he can do apart having nuisance value that can be easily dealt with.

But something stops me each time I think of dealing with this problem.

Moliere the French playwright wrote: It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do. These words keep flashing in my mind and it took me a while to understand why.

N is a drunk, but he is also the only father figure mr p has known. I cannot forget the special bond the two had and the genuine love mr p felt for this man. I cannot set aside the fact that in spite of everything he is the one who gave the stability of a home, no matter how erratic, to this child for the first 4 years of his life.

One day when mr p grows up and when I am not around, he may ask himself or others why I did not help his father. That day I do not want to have to fall in his eyes so it becomes incumbent for me to try my very best and do something for N. I may not succeed, but a least I would have acted and done my best and would be able to look into mr p’s eyes and say “I tried”!

This evening the now famous trio of maamji, radhey and amit bhaya will take N to a AA meeting, the same road that I took with mrp’s mom four months ago.

This is the only honorable things to do.

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Kiran and Komal are sisters. One is 6 and the other 16 days! Kiran was born on the day pwhy took off on its maiden flight. It was a time of dreams and visions, of hope and determination. It was also a time when we believed that good will prevail, that people will understand and take their lives in their own hands..

We kept on dreaming though at times the dreams seemed sated, but we held on to them trying one option after the other, battling enemies we could not have conjured, even in our wildest fantasy. There were some dreams that came true: children stopped dropping out of school, we repaired a few broken hearts, and above all we found well wishers all over the world. But somehow the bad outdid the good and we realised that our main dream – that of sustaining the project from within the community – turned into a nightmare. Surreptiously we found ourselves dragged into the usual you give, I take; you provide, I receive, moving into a state of immobility.

Just as Kiran had heralded hope, Komal seemed to have a different role. Her little dark face and protruding tongue reminded one of Kali, the goddess who destroys evil and protects those who seek her. Was there a message that one had to take stock, redefine our dreams and start once again..

Who knows?

Welcome to planetwhy Komal.

The results of a recent survey indicates that India is the sixth most dangerous country in the world. Afghanistan, Palestinian territories, Myanmar and Chechnya were placed better than India.

Many will and even are contesting these results, and even if we do better, there is much that is not the way it should be on planetIndia!

The first thing that caught my attention as this news was being aired and commented upon was the fact the welfare ministry would be consulting the labour ministry to determine what a child is! The UN convention says 18 and below, our labour ministry says 14 and below, rape laws say 16 and below… now if we were to go by the UN then we are talking of 42% of our population, unfortunately only very few are voters!

The factors that were given were physical violence of any kind (outside or within the family); mental violence; displacement; sexual abuse and trafficking; early marriage; child labour; a lack of formal identity, including birth registration; the absence of parental care; detention without sufficient cause; a lack of freedom of expression; discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity or disability; poverty; HIV/AIDS and other diseases; a lack of vital services (including education and health care)

When i look around me, at the kids of pwhy many of the above factors fit like a glove. So whether we are 6th or 66th, Indian children are not given their basic rights. And those who try and do something are hounded and harassed till they give up. the laws that are made for them, are often eyewash, as no proper roadmap is made let alone followed.

So where is the solution one may ask? Well like for everything else I believe it has to come one step at a time from the grassroots by creating simple models that raise awareness and make people responsible.

Seems like our law makers and protectors have forgotten the children of India. It is for us to make them remember that they too exist. It is time to take a serious look at them and do something.

And the combat ceased, for want of combatants.
Le Cid (IV, 3).

These words from a play long forgotten sprung to my mind this morning. Live every child put through the French system. Corneille is a must and often the play selected is Le Cid, where a tragic hero finds himself caught between his love and his duty as a result of a series of events outside his control. One is reminded of the doubting Arjuna in the beginning of the Mahabharata.

Both are compelled to follow their duty and fight someone dear. In the case of the French hero, the battle ends as for want of combatants!

I find myself in much in a similar situation where a series of events seem to have snowballed pushing me inside a labyrinth I cannot find the exit of. What makes it worse is that the enemy is invisible but powerful using simple minds as Machiavellian weapons.

Nowhere does the law say that one cannot terminate someone’s service. There must be hordes of people having lost jobs for various reasons, and none of them seem to have been meat for shady Trade Unions as these as well as the labour inspectors are well fed by factory owners and other employers who break every law with impunity.

I find it strange that a tiny organisation, who pays minimum wages as per law, and goes beyond what is expected to be present when people are in need, finds itself accused of vile and reprehensible things at every step. How can we be a danger to anyone, or are politicians and slum lords scared of the awareness we spread?

From providing women, to pocketing funds, I have done it all. I wish I had the wisdom and the ability to laugh it off, but pwhy is a child I have created with love and hardwork, possibly the best things i have done in my life, and I cannot distance myself.

Sometimes I think of locking it up but I know that this is exactly what my detractors want. But when I imagine, even for an instant, pwhy closed I realise that it will mean shattering many dreams, dreams you see in the picture above: young girls will drop out of school, babies will be back on the street, manu will not have any playmates, nasreen will not be able to dance to celebrate Independence day, and young Sunil will have to beat iron all his life.

Many may say: so what, there are millions like them ? My answer is simply, yes but if millions like us took the first step then things may change. Some of my staff, feeling extremely dejected this morning, asked me why were such things happening. I just answered that it was simply a micro reflection of the macro reality of India, and it was imperative to set the micros right so that the macro can change.

Our battle cannot cease, we are its combatants and everyone who has believed and supported us. If it ceases, that it mean that there is no hope for a better tomorrow. The enemy has to be worn down and won over. And if you ask why, then my answer is simple: Manu cannot go back to begging on the streets, his body infested by maggots, Nasreen has to dance at every celebration and Sunil must have a choice in life.

This combat will continue, even it there is only one combatant.

I often wonder who are the present heroes that the children of India can look up to and want to model one’s self on. The ones that are often cited are jaded or otherworldly.

We live in times when all we hear about is violence steeped in the widest variety of sauces. Our so called leaders are busy fulfilling their dubious agendas, or filing their pockets, their bureaucratic acolytes in tow.

People are murdered in crowded rooms but the state prosecutor cannot find a witness as the so called guardians a law are busy perfecting the art of covering up.

When we were young there were many we wanted to emulate: our teachers, often being the first choice. Today students beat up teachers to death in public, and no one stands up for a dead colleague. This is the India we live in, one where everyone runs scared.. or almost every one as when you are about to give up all hope comes by a simple faceless Indian, a barely literate peon who rises above everyone and conquers his fear and does the right thing though he knows that he may lose his life.

Komal Singh Senger a peon in the college where the sordid incident took place did not succumb to fear and came out to tell the truth and identify the culprits. he is of course stunned by the inertia of his senior educated colleagues and says: Because they have lost all integrity. It’s a shame that they continue in this profession, all of them should be shifted out everybody should be shifted out. Everybody from the Principal to the entire college staff who are scared to speak. If they cannot speak out for their own colleague, there is no doubt that no one will protect me either.he goes a step further when refusing monetary sops to buy his silence he adds: Yes, I was offered money. They said they would marry off my daughters and bear the expenses. But I don’t care. They will get married when the time is right. I did not give birth to them thinking that such people would relieve me of my responsibilities. Why should I take money from them?

It is true that he has been given police protection but we all know the strength of two constables in the face of those who are trying to protect the culprits. One can only hope that this true Indian will be protected. It becomes incumbent on all self respecting Indians to ensure his safety. Were anything to happen to him than all that is honourable and good would be lost forever and we would become a land of people ruled by fear.

Sengar is someone that every child should know about as he vindicates the stand that integrity and righteousness does not come with money or power, but lies within everyone irrespective of his origin. he is a man who could not see injustice and stood by what he believed to be right.

We salute Komal Sigh Senger, a true Indian!

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Wonder what mr p. is thinking as he climbs the steps to a temple he decided to visit on his monthly day out.

This is the same kid who should not have been around had all things remained as they were in the life he was born to live. So what is it that altered his life? A simple question with a multitude of answers starting with the now jaded and tired karma. From a boiling pan to a boarding school has been a quantum B&B leap.

Everywhere around us with fashionable and compulsive regularity people talk about the need to change things, build a better tomorrow, save children, impart education. The list goes on ad nauseam and often stops there: a string of words that often end with a cynical shrug at the numbers.

And yet if even an infinitesimal percentage of these well meaning should make the effort to translate their words into action, the change would be huge. What one should understand is that even one life saved or changed or even touched carries within it a ripple effect no one can stop.

That has been our philosophy all along and I can say that our success has been far greater than expected and heartwarming. The problems encountered have strangely and unfortunately come from the very people who master the art of juggling words and expounding on the need to change things. They have the power to do so, and it would not take them much. All we ask them to do is to dip in their pocket and give us one coin each day, but we have learnt that the coin in question is very elusive.

One of the stumbling blocks of organisations trying to work at the grassroots has been sustainability, which translates into the act of finding that elusive coin. Somehow between the thought and action lie a host of obstacles that can all be bundled into one word: mistrust. I do agree that present NGO sector is replete with dubious organisations, but among those lie some who do reach out and transform lives.

The reason why we thought of seeking a-rupee-a-day donors was based on the prevailing scenario in the hope that people would agree to set that mistrust aside as the amount sought was almost invisible. We still hope to be able to do it but at the same time we are aware that the ultimate power of change lies within the beneficiary group and that is and has been our ultimate goalpost, or to say it in other words the high road.

One has to however realise that this will take time and were we not to survive that the whole exercise would come to naught.

We will not give up, but this i a road we cannot walk alone, i hope someone is hearing?

The picture is a little hazy, just like the dreams these kids dare to dream…maybe it is better that way.

These are children celebrating Independence day 2006. It was their decision, their planning and they even invited to local SHO, Mr Khan who always makes it a point to come.
They sang patriotic songs and spoke about freedom and what it meant to them. It is with pride that they hoisted the national tricolour and saluted it, their eyes looking up with hope and barely formulated dreams.

Most of them are OBCs or belong to some reserved category and yet not one of them knows it, let alone what it means and how it can change their lives. Most of them did not even go to school when pwhy decided to clean up a garbage dump and start its work. Today most of them have integrated school and some even topped their class. Suddenly the dreams seem less hazy.. or so they believe with their tiny hearts..

When I see these kids and realise how they trust us, I am at a total loss. The reality that they will grow up to seems bleak if not black! The protection that was so carefully crafted by those who wrote our constitution got hijacked without their knowledge and remodelled to suit other interests by the very people who should have guarded them. These kids will have their dreams shattered one by one at some stage or the other, it is is just a calamity waiting to happen.

As I watched students being doused by water guns in one of the anti quota rallies, I somehow felt that they may not have protested had children like the ones in the picture been the beneficiaries. But to reach that door, they have to walk passed many that still remain shut. The portals of the primary schools, the gates of the secondary one and then the entrance to higher education.

One does not need to be a rocket scientist to see the game Machiavellian game being played. The vested interests will ensure the loyalty of their vote banks while also perpetrating their illiteracy and hence their manipulability and all will be well in independent India where children of lesser gods have no voice.

I wonder what those like Gandhi or even simple people like my mother, who decided not to marry unless her land was free so that her child would not be a slave to the British would say?

Sixty years down the line, Indian children are still slaves: slaves to the greed of others, slaves to hidden agendas and much more. The Right to Education Bill lies unattended, dismissed, sent off to states whereas the bill to raise MPs was passed without a murmur.

That is the state of India, a tale of unkept and hijacked promises

A well rated TV channel has been airing dramatic pictures of instances of child labour, and we all agree that child labour should be banned as it goes against the essence of human dignity.

Then why have I been so disturbed by some of the stories and in particular the one of the little Mania?

This little child has nowhere to go if he stops working at his dhaba. His whole world will crash. His huge deformity will bring endless taunts and without his work he will have no shelter, no food and not even his surrogate family.

There are many many Manias who will suddenly find themselves alone and lost. Mania did want to study but circumstances shattered his dreams and though he has a right to education enshrined in a constitutional amendement, the law executors cannot find the money to make sure it gets to the likes of him.

True child labour should be abolished, but what are you going to replace it with particularly for children who have no homes to go back to, or whose parents can barely feed the siblings that are still there.

My work on the field for the last six years has taught me that things are not quite how they look and making laws without keeping the human factor in mind is more dangerous than the prevalent situation, however abysmal. Kids like mania will roam streets, steal to feed their hunger pangs and then find themselves branded as thiefs or bad elements. The number of working children is staggering, and a month down the line when the ban comes in force they will have nowhere to go.

Has anyone thought of mechanisms to get them back home, if home they have, or to give them a safe shelter and three meals a day; are there schools where they can learn or does the powers that be expect small organisations to do the job while they bask in the glory of having passed a great social law. Organisations like us are constantly trying to survive and prove that we are not crooks. But we also are the ones who open our hearts and meagre resources to anyone who is hurting. But how much can we do?

And who will bell the cats a.k.a the professional, well educated, well connected people who employ so many children in their homes and sometimes treat them in disgraceful and terrible ways while nodding their heads in public places and parties while someone disparages the practice of child domestic servants.

And last of all, has anyone looked into the number of little children just a walk away from where we sit comfortably who are taken out of school to look after their siblings while both parents work, maybe to build that extra room we need?

mybe little mania will find someone after his national TV debut, but what about the other little manias who can barely comprehend what awaits them.

Three news item caught my attention today. Little Pakhi, age 6 is thrown out of her school bus as the driver brakes suddenly and dies on the spot, her school barely a 10 minute drive away from her home; 665 migrant labour come Delhi everyday and four years down the line, our government has not found the time to ensure that the the 82nd amendment is passed as mandated by the constitution of India to ensure that every Indian child has a right to free and compulsory education..

In my mind, all these issues are linked by one thread: education. If pakhi could have walked to school she may not have dies, if the 665 migrants had better options for their children – read good school – in their habitat of origin they would not have come and as for the last item it simply that the right to education bill is a bill without a will!

I would like to ask our politicians and law makers if the 3% extra allocation needed to give children their fundamental right at a time when we boast of a 8% increase is because children are not yet a vote bank to woe, or because they do not have a voice or because having large number of illiterate people will ensure manageable and influenceable vote banks: in a word, is this right not been given to children for some Machiavellian reason.

There are others rights enshrined in the constitution that are the right if everyone born in this land, but without education they become superb tools of manipulation and political battles using the cleverly nurtured illiterate base.

What our law makers do not understand is that education is the only way India can change. A citizen who can read, write, have access to knowledge, will undoubtedly rid the land of corruption ensure that projects are executed, make the rulers accountable.. and democracy functional.

But then the question that comes to mind is do we really want democracy or have we just shrouded our feudal ways in the garb of democracy.

I get appalled and my blood runs cold when i see the sustained care with which governments are wanting to privatise education. Why not democratise education and have a common school to which little Pakhi could have walked.

The 665 migrants who will bring kids with the hope of a better education will soon find that education is better in small towns as we have seen time and again. They will go looking for some shady mother nonsense convent and spend their meagre resources on trying to get their kids educated till their own illiteracy because the cause of the kids dropping out, their homes relocated to barren areas or too poor for join the tuition raj and though they belong to the OBC quota policy, the system would have made sure that they are never likely candidates.

Common schools all children would walk to could have with peer bonding may have made that possible. Mothers like mine wanted their child to be born a in a free India, but 60 years down the line are Indian children free..

Away from the petty problems that we are facing with misguided staff and our plethora of ‘well-wishers’, little Deepak fights his valiant battle vindicating thereby the raison d’être of project why.

His journey has not been easy. What should have been a simple heart surgery, turned to be, once again because of external adult games, a battle for life. The wrong doings of a quack lead to his heart stopping and his having to be revived, a true code blue, just as in movies! Then a total strike while he was in hospital resulted in an abdominal abscess that took over a month to heal.

he came visiting today, a little disoriented and very tired, but two days from now he will be admitted again and we hope that the much needed surgery will finally happen.

To me this braveheart’s battle is almost the sign from above that i needed to find in me the strength to carry on. I must confess there are moments when one wonders why one tried to do something positive in a world that abhors people who do so. Why does one have to prove at every turn that one is honest, sincere … Even an accused is presumed innocent till proved guilty, but no so in the case of people just trying to make a difference.

I get emails asking me how does one know whether a person is genuine or fake.. and frankly I do not know the answer. But I know that if I give up then there maybe another deepak somewhere who would lose his battle without a fight.

Many moons ago, when we were in our early teens, one of our favourite pastime was to dial random numbers on the phone in the hope of catching some young man and enganging in silly conversations.. This was often done with your best friend in tow and one quickly slammed the reciever down the moment things went a bit out of hand..

Those were the days when phones were still archaic and no one could trace the number.. and often one did not even rememeber it to dial again…

That was in the early sixties

Today we have the situation revisited version 2006.. but much ihas changed. It is not young giggly adolescents who are engaging in this inane game, but women with grown children. This is the direct result of the proliferation of cheap cellphones that have invaded the slums of India, where women married often without their consent at a very young age and propelled into motherhood, are suddenly finding a way to express a seemingly harmless repressed sexuality by dialling numbers and engaging in flirtatious conversations.. but these get out of hand as numbers are recorded and then they come sheepishly seeking help as their being found out would spell disatesr in their conservative homes..

One comes to their rescue but one is aware of the time bomb that is ticking away as this is happening in a society which has no pity or mercy for women.

we read about farmers committing suicide because of their inability to pay back their loans.. we read about children taking their tender lives because they cannot meet the required standards some insensitive system created..

i have been watching in silent horror another monster lurking and waiting patiently for its pound of flesh and to borrow the title of a jefferson airplane song, let us call it: plastic fantastic lover.

or simply the credit card…

The multinationals were quick to see the immense potential of the other India and thus we have pouches of every imaginable product: from shampoos, to detergent, to shaving foam, to tomato ketchup.. never mind the load on the environment..

Then came the credit card which till date is often used for purchases such as motorbikes, or other r items.. but the day is not far when the simple folk realise that they can purchase everything with the swipe of a card: food, clothes, and other consummables. Whreas bank can recover bikes and TVs, disaster will hit when people find themselves in a debt stranglehold… and the ensuing infernal spiral..

The local moneylender does charge the outrageous 10% a month, but often after 2 to 3 years, once he has recovered his principal and a fair amount of interest, he forgets about you and goes looking for other fish.. but the plastic fantastic lover is heartless, merciless and will chase you till the end..

One is helpless.. maybe that is the price to pay in the new economic scenario we have embraced, but what a price

For some time no I have been getting messages, some veiled, some quite direct, some even harsh about what would happen to pwhy where I to die.. let me set everyone ones mind at rest by saying that it is something i myself have been thinking of..

It is true that I have carried pwhy on my shoulders from that time the idea took seed in my mind. many reasons guided my decision and I will clarify some of them in later posts.

pwhy was is my child, one that I conceived, carried and gave birth to, and like any child it gave him moments of pure joy and deep despair. Today it has grown and I can feel the rebellion in the eyes and ways of many who are rearing to do it they way.. As every parent suffering from acute bouts of over protectiveness I have tried to hold on, but now time has come to let the nestling fly, though I can foresee many falls..

pwhy has a sound team capable of handling all administrative day-to-day activities and learning projects and even muster new teams and set up new field projects. they have enough acumen based on the maxim of rani – majboori ka naam mahatma gandhi – to find spaces no one would think of.

The enormous problem is of course the one of taking over the funding saga as till date it was entirely based on my ability to communicate on the net, something they have not yet learnt. So they now have to evolve their own ways of finding revenue sources and they have been brainstorming about it: they are excellent party and wedding planners, and the team has a rich pool of skills they can ‘sell’. I am not venturing into this operation as in the past all my ideas failed, because they were executed but not internalised.

Like a good parent, the kind I advise others to be and find difficult to go along with, I watch from the wings, turning my tongue seven times in my mouth before venturing a word, or I just make myself scarce.. Like every fledgling they will have to fall before they learn to fly.. but that is the only way..

On the flip side, we now do have a building so we are no more on the road and I will make sufficient provisions in my personal will to ensure that it is maintained and if nothing else, is run as shelter for the likes of manu and many others… that would be the worst case scenario..

But my impassioned appeal to all those who are wondering ‘what next’, is that pwhy belongs to everyone who has helped it till now and even if my mails and blogs are not there, the incredible team that made it all possible is there and all of you can take on the torch from my now tired hands….

I do not why I am reminded of Brecht’s Mother Courage as I sit today my head filled with unanswered questions the day after the loss of a human life no one really mourned. Why does Brecht’s play written in nazi germany and set in the seventeenth century, ring so true today. I read it many years ago when I still belived that life was beautiful and hope existed and I could not quite feel one with Brecht’s cynical talk about the inconvenience of dignity, the efficacy of taking (as opposed to giving or, what’s more foolish, waiting for someone to give), and the worth and/or worthlessness of human life, and the faith you might still have in human nature is challenged at every turn.

Why is it then that six years down the pwhy line it all makes so much sense.. I am too headed the Mother Courage way, albeit for different reasons, and going to be left pulling an empty cart off an empty stage after having tried and lost all..

You may wonder why I feel this way.. and I guess all of you deserve answers before it is too late. Those who stood by me without faltering because you were too few, those who waited too long as they thought there were others, those who waited for me to prove my worthiness, those who could not shed their cynicism, and those who thrive on writing epitaphs and statistics.

Any process involving change is a long one set with many obstacles and though these are not unsurmountable, they often take time.. that is something many did not understand.. to succeed in getting people to shed old ways many roads have to be tried and only a few may work out, that too many could not accept… age old traditions are so deep seated that they have to be carried like dead wood no matter how galling, that too was not comprehended and the list is endless…

That the change has to come about in a world that tends to look more and more like the one out Brecht is known to portray seems absurd but is true: personal egos clash and children die unattended at the doorsteps of hospitals, children are duped away from the right path by promises of quick returns and those trying to make a difference are sneered upon and cast aside.

You carry on for a while because some still believe, because some still trust, because you see hope in the eyes of a child, because you see pride in the eyes of those you love.. and then those very people become more demanding, intransigent at times, unaware of the weight you carry and then the cruel blow as oblivious that you are almost there, they chose to abandon you… just like that.. saying words that do the one thing that is irreversible: kill your spirit..

It takes everything you have, what you have learnt from your experience, from your elders and peers, from your achievemements and failures, from every smile you gave and every tear you shed, to muster the courage to carry on pulling the cart till the end of the show..

sandhya
2000 – 2006

She tiptoed on to our planet quietly almost as if she wanted no one to notice her lest we let her walk into our hearts. She would slink softly behind her loud mother hiding her face lest you lost yourself in her huge melting eyes.. She would sit in a corner patiently waiting for us to finish whatever we were doing.. Sandhya knew she was a temporary guest.

Sandhya was what they call a blue or cyanotic baby, where the heart is malformed and the blood deprived of oxygen. Since 1944 a simple surgery called a BT Shunt can repair the damage. For sandhya’s family the cost was exorbitant, but friends pitched in and two days back she was operated upon. However she did not make it, and tiptoed back to her world this morning leaving us all bewildered and lost.

Sandhya is gone but leaves many questions that needs to be answered. I am not being cynical if I say that maybe God showed extreme kindness in taking little Sandhya away had also slight mental retardation making her future very bleak. In a country where a girl child is already a burden, one like Sandhya becomes a millstone. Moreover, Sandhya seemed to be unloved, even by her mother as was visible from the moment I set my eyes on them. Never did I see a maternal gesture, a caress, a tender word, something that wold bring hope and cheer to the forlorn child.. Sandhya was a lost case from day one..

Yet we tried, our little team who accompanied her every time she needed to go the hospital getting her a fruit juice or a biscuit and feeling rewarded by her tiny smile, and the doctors who never gave up till she decided to at 12 noon on July 14th.

So go little Sandhya, evening star, go and shine on a world where children like you are loved and cherished.. we did not deserve you

If little deepak lives today it is because a bunch of doctors fought for him as if he was one of their own when his heart stopped beating, and brought him back to life. They did not have to do it: he was not their son, they were not going to earn a huge amount of money from his family or get an international award. They were just doing what they were taught by their teacher and mentor, emulating what they had seen.

Today their mentor has been humiliated and cast aside because of some petty and spiteful reason and dismissed from office. Bewildered, confused, taken a back, his team have done the only thing they could: stopped work. They above all know that many innocent will suffer, and among them little Deepak, the very child for whom hey fought, but then what else can they do to make themselves heard.

In some lands they could have worn black bands, in others registered their protest in more dignified ways but here they know no one will hear. Strange that this land that prides itself of being civilised is the one that somehow has turned deaf to all that is good and has learnt to just look at the bad. No one is perfect and we have perfected the art of looking at the bad and obliterating the good, no matter what the proportions.

The mentor in question is the one who made it possible for little Deepak whose father is a daily wage labourer to have an open heart surgery, something that only the rich could have a few years ago. pwhy is a silent witness to this fact as Deepak is our 7th poor heart on the block. But that has been forgotten. The mentor in question is the one that chose to be operated by one of his student when he needed an open heart surgery and who on the eight day after his surgery, when the likes of you and me are still tottering around, walked to the OT and operated upon a patient, not a VVIP as we know of, but his kind of VVIP a nameless Indian.

yesterday night, little deepak who is the perfect ambassador of thenameless Indian may have spent a difficult night, but he bore it bravely so that all that is good is not sacrificed to the altar of greed and apathy.

After why, what – that is the question.. almost a Shakespearian one..

Six years down the line we have successfully proved that with a little effort and local resources, drop out rates can be contained and children can pass their Boards. True that we have some students who cross the 70 and even 80 % line, but they are the exception; most of them hover around 50 and some even dip lower..

This is the time of the year when the famed or ill famed cut off marks are out. One stares with despair at the 92 and 93 % marks you need to enter a good college and wonders where does that leave children of lesser gods..

Evening colleges, correspondence courses, open universities… Most again leaving the students idle for part of the day, bearing the brunt of parental pressure urging them to work..

This has been disturbing us as school education in India is totally devoid of technical options. In many countries, weaker students are urged to take a technical stream that ensures that they leave school with a certificate and a skill. In France there is even a stream called bac en alternance where the student spends three days in school and the other three learning a trade: working as a sales person in a shop, training in a kitchen, working with a carpenter and so on…

After much thought we have decided to start evening and week end classes in plumbing, electrical works, air conditioning repair, computer repair, carpentry, tailoring, accupressure and naturopathy, beautician etc using local talent. If we are able to do so we would even think of launching – call pwhy – whereby we would offer these skills in a well organised way to friends and others.

Another option that we plan to start, and one where our special section can also play an important role is providing packed lunches and diners to offices and young people living alone. This would also provide work to handicapped people with tricycles as they would be able to deliver them and thereby earn a dignified living.

These are but a few options we have thought of, the mainstay being that children would acquire a skill that would come handy in their lives. We are looking for other ideas, but given our past errors, when we jumped and made things and did not find outlets, we only want to launch a new idea if there is a market to support it.

One must realise that a simple education is not enough; we are duty bound to give our children the required skills to be able to survive..

The myth of government jobs has to be destroyed, and children taught that nothing comes easy.. But if you have the will then the way is there as young Sanjiv has proved. He chose to learn yoga, accupressure, shiatsu and other massage and many alternative forms of healing while doing his studies (week end classes at Gandhi smriti) even if his peer group made fun of him and today earns a whopping 7 to 8 K and has a motorcycle. He is learning English with us and we hope to get him clients from the expat community.. Sanjiv did much more than survive just because he chose to walk an unknown path that a kind soul showed him with his head held high..

Can we convince others to do the same becomes the next existential question.

I cannot but remember the days in May 2000, when I use to sit at a door step in Giri Nagar, and hordes of parents use do come with a single plea:

“English bolana sikhado” – teach them to speak in English-

How intuitive and right these poor illiterate parents were: last week spirited Garima, a class X topper was denied a place in a ‘prestigious’ English medium school because she could not speak English properly.. what properly means should be defined by the principal of that school..

Wonder if next time my French friends say: ze book is on ze taboul‘ I should cross them off my social list and what about the London friends who speak with a cockney lilt!

Almost 60 years after independence, one that was fought against the British, we still judge people by their ability to parrot the queens’ tongue!

Garima was lucky – NDTV picked up her story.. there are so many Garimas living under the stranglehold of their inability to converse in English, their self esteem eroded.. there are many whose mother tongue’s inflection is so strong that it permeates every language they speak and who can never quite get rid of it… the Japanese and Italians and our own Biharis or Bengalis are good examples of this

There is something terribly wrong in our land, now added to your social or religious background is added the ability to master the language of the erstwhile coloniser.
So now perhaps some smart alec will come up with a reservation for those who cannot speak English well..

Why can’t we accept the child who speaks English with her or his Indian accent, just as we accept the inversion of l’s and r’s by our friends from the Far East..

One of the most difficult tasks at pwhy has been to get our kids to shed their self-consciousness and put in active use the huge knowledge of English that lies hidden in their brain.. one understands why when one reads Garima’s story..

But there is another aspect to her story, one that I highlighted earlier with reference to the Mumbai old couple: the role of the media as an agent of change… a single story on the silver screen gets people to shed their cynicism and inaction and do something, be it redressing a tort or reaching out to another..

So maybe that is the road to tread..

PS: Kudos to Garima who has decided to remain in her old school, the one that helped her top and kudos to her parents who have stood by her.

When the aviator missed his Little Prince in St Exupery’s beautiful fable, he looked at the sky searching for a star… when he missed his laugh he thought of bells ringing..

Two weeks from now little mr p will walk out of my door to a new life in his new school.. and a new future just what I wanted, just what we all worked for so hard..

I must confess that though I have been making all the right noises and saying the right words, the ones everyone expects, written all the appropriate thank you’s and bless you’s, deep in my heart all is not quite well.. as is obvious by the fact that I have been hiding the list the school has given and that needs to be purchased as if delaying buying the little socks and hankies would make the two weeks seem longer, or by my erractic work pattern, or my tiptoeing in the dark room and watching popples sleep..

I must also confess that each time he says Maa’mji and comes struting into my office I have been far more indulgent in spite of the many raised eyebrows around me using my position as elder shamlessly.. silly behavior I know but when was love logical.

I have also spent long moments going back on the past three years since I first lay my eyes on this little chap and trying to understand the bond. It is so easy to find reasons to explain why you love someone and when it is little mr p, then they are there on a platter, but I think there are some hidden reasons that only you know and those are the real ones.

So you understand how a tiny fellow has shown you the way many a times when your steps faltered, has helped you find in yourself things you did not know you possessed, even if it is simply stopping your early wails each time you burnt your little finger..

Yes he has taught me many things: courage, uncondional love, stoical acceptance of humiliation and hurt, remarkable ability to adapt to new situations.. albeit adults ones.. but also brought into my life his warm hugs, his special maa’mji, his beautiful smile and above all his demanding love which beckons me and makes me the one he knows is there even if no one is.

But love means to know when your presence becomes hampering, when you need to tiptoe away as life waits with open arms and many dreams to follow.. So two weeks from now I will let mr p walk out of the door into the light..

kids are quite amazing.. mr p wore his Hanuman mask and had us in peals of laughter as we kept telling him to smile and he kept obliging under his mask not realising that no one could see his face..

we finally did tell him to remove it and the dazzling smile was revealed!

Keep smiling little Hanuman

This morning as I entered my office the light on my cellphone was flashing indicating a message in my inbox. I rarely use this facility and normally what awaits me on the screen is some promo or the other. I opened the message – not a promo this time – and read the beautiful words sent by a lovely young woman I recently met. It said:

I stared at the words for a long time letting their meaning sink in, and realising how true they were. The words written were in no way a message of resignation but one of hope. How many times have I not sat waiting for what many call miracles, till I realised that it was for me to make it happen, and then somheow things happened: the right words appeared on the screen as my fingers tapped the keys, the long forgotten name sprung back in one’s memory or the right option was sought..

One is but human and somehow one forgets that the greatest gift anyone can give you is the realisation that nothing comes by begging, but by believing in yourself and in your ability to get it, no matter how many hurdles you need to overcome.