Faith and knowledge are not incompatible – maybe you need both to achieve anything worthwhile wrote a dear friend, reacting to my crawl to the feet of the Black Goddess. It is strange how friends appear with the right words at the right time. Serendipity or messages from the Heavens? Anyone’ guess. But opportune indeed. It is strange how even the most Cartesian mind does encounter a seemingly insurmountable obstacle once in a while. That is when faith comes to the rescue. It was when I had exhausted all resources and options and still found no answer when trying to find out what ailed my husband who was disintegrating in front of my eyes that I turned to faith in complete surrender. It was my last resort, an abdication of my so called supra logical mind. From that moment there as no turning back. I had been heard and blessed. Maybe one needs to reach rock  bottom to be able to invoke genuine faith.

You may be wondering what other obstacle I have encountered to make me state that my friend’s words were timely. True there are umpteen issues that hit you when you reach your twilight years, when time is short and you realise you have many loose ends, some quite critical. I have more than my share. I am also aware of the fact that you cannot be greedy with faith, and the gratitude I feel for what I have been granted is immense and will be keep forever indebted. I also realise that however immense the issues I face may look, I have not yet dropped to a nadir and maybe only then can one seek heavenly help. I will soldier in all matters but there is one where I feel audacious enough to seek God’s help as it concerns not me and mine, but a multitude of innocent and helpless children whose dreams I hold in my withering hands.

Almost since its very inception, the future of project why has been on my mind. And though I must admit  there were times when I threw all caution to the winds, and allowed it to grow at quantum speed, a little voice in my mind always warned me of the consequences that lay ahead. Sustainability was a mantra I adopted in early days and tried to give it my all. And though we managed to keep our heads above water, taking a few ranks along the way, all efforts to find a sustainability option did not meet with any tangible success.

Time is short and though I am still willing to give it my all, one cannot forget that age has caught up irreversibly.

Is it time now to surrender to faith and plead for the miracle I cannot craft?

I do not know.

I will end with the words of the same friend. Maybe that is the way to go.

faith calls for surrender
surrender leads to stillness
stillness facilitates intuition
intuition connects to archival wisdom
voila, faith has brought home knowledge 

Let me begin by telling you a story:
There was a little boy, say 8 year old or even tinier. He lived in a remote village with his family and not a care in the world. He knows he does not have much, but for him it is more than enough as he has his family. One day a man comes to the village and talks at length with his parents. Some time later he is told to pack his bag as he will be leaving with this man for a nicer place, where food will be plenty and he will even have friends his age. Though he does not want to go, he does as he is told because it seems to make his parents happy. The few tears he sheds will be seen by no one. He follows the man quietly and boards a train. Like all little boys the train journey seems exciting. Maybe his parents had made the right decision. 

Fast forward one year later.

It is early morning. The little boy is asleep in spite of his aching back and burnt hands. A  loud voice and then a sharp kick in his ribs. It is time to wake up. The master is angry. In no time he is huddled with many little boys like him painstakingly gluing pieces of glass onto brightly coloured bangles. These bangles are the only colours he and his pals see. It has been eons since he saw daylight. The room where he works from dawn to dusk and where he sleeps are dark and damp. Another working day has begun.

This is not a fairy tale nor a horror story! It is the stark reality of thousands of small children ‘sold’ by their poor parents for a paltry few thousands of rupees and used as cheap labour in bangles and other cottage industries. A handful of them were ‘rescued’ yesterday.

The images that were aired on TV made my blood run cold. These boys were barely older than my grandson. They toil day after day and are not allow to rest, let alone play. The chemicals used cause burns that are barely treated. They live in unhygienic conditions and are barely fed. CCTV cameras are fitted in these salubrious surrounding to keep a check on them. Their spirit has been killed. They have become automatons too scared to break any rule for fear of punishment.

I have not been able to sleep since I saw this report.

In the report it was said that 5000 children are sold every month just in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. They are then sent to faraway states to work in horrific sweatshops. This happens across India in cottage industries, brick kilns, incense making units and ever firecracker making ones where accidents occur time and again. Child labour is alive and kicking! And it is not always invisible. Children work in tea stalls and shops. They work in neighbours and even friends homes. The tragedy is that even when we see them we remain mute and frozen.

It is time we asked ourselves why we do so. Is it because we do not want to ‘offend’ said friend or neighbour? Is it because we feel it does not concern us? Is it because we do not want to get involved in legal and such matters? Or is it because these are not our children and can never be so we simply do not care.

But these are children. Children who should be playing and attending school; children who should be laughing. These are children who have no voice and hope that someone will raise theirs. We all applauded Kailash Satyarthi when he received his Nobel Prize for his fight against child labour. For a a few days ‘child labour’ became the flavour of the moment, the talk at page 3 parties when everyone made the appropriate clucks till a new flavour took over.

There are people working relentlessly to help eradicate child labour but they are few and even with the best intentions cannot win this war alone. Each one of us has to take up the cudgels against child labour in our own way. All that is needed is to pick up your cellphone and dial the child help line or the Child Welfare Committee of your area, should you come across a child working. They will do the rest. You need not reveal your name should you wish to keep your ‘reputation’ intact.

Some will want to lay the responsibility on the shoulders of the parents. Come on, are they not the ones who ‘sell’ their children. How many of us have lived in villages and experienced abject poverty, the kind that makes you feed your child chillies so that she drinks enough water to keep her belly full. How many of us have had to pat a hungry child to sleep? If we had done so, we would understand how easy it is to fall prey to the well oiled seduction spiel of the middle men of mafias that handle child labour. Those five thousand rupees that we spend easily on a meal in a restaurant, mean the world to the hungry and probably indebted family. And then there is the promise of a paltry thousand or so every month.

There are laws, but again these are the kind that cannot be implemented without the help of each and everyone of us. Maybe the first thing we should do is stop giving money to children who beg. That would be a first step in the right direction.

Next let us ask ourselves why is there child labour in a country where there are so many adults on the job market. The answer is simple. It is so well exemplified in our constant need to haggle for everything and want everything cheaper. If you do your maths conscientiously you would realise that the price you are quoting cannot cover the cost of the good, if all laws are respected. The minimum wage in India is around 150 Rs a day for 8 hours. The children rescued were paid 1500 rs a month for 12 hours work. That is a meagre 50 rupees a day. And this tiny labour is not only cheap but docile and easily tamed with a few slaps or kicks. It is a win-win situation for the employer.

The law makers have a role to play too. It is pointless to have toothless laws or laws that have large loopholes. Maybe it is time that every thing manufactured bore labels stating that no child labour was employed and it is also time that we accepted to pay a higher price.

And what about the Right to Education. It is certainly not made for the rich and educated who will send their children to school law or no law. It is for those very children who run the risk of falling into the hands of child labour mafias. And I say it again it is the like of us who can help them and rescue them.

I wonder what happens no ‘rescued’ children. Are they truly rescued? How does one deal with the traumas they have suffered? How does one ensure that they go back to their family and are not sold again? How does one ensure that they get an education if it is not too late for them? How does one give them back their usurped childhood.

How does one make sure that they laugh again?

My bête noire and also my most rewarding challenge is and has been garnering funds for project why. I call it my bête noire because I have or at least had till age 50, found it infra-dig to talk money, let alone solicit for it. So when I was handed over the task of fund raising for project why, and knew that I and only I had to do it, it was a serious challenge. This was not a matter of writing off one of the innumerable loans I have handed out with alacrity. This was to keep project why going. I never knew what a hydra headed monster it would turn out to be and how it would test my very spirit and soul. Over the years I have discovered to my chagrin that it is easier to get donations for tangible projects that show immediate results or to get them for individual cases rather than a multitude of beneficiaries. It has been unbelievably easy to raise funds for let us say a open heart surgery, but raising the same sum to run a class for a month is a herculean task. Project Why works with education in all hues and education is long haul.

Once again I am faced with trying to conjure from my invisible hat, a ‘rabbit’ that would ensure that my children can continue their journey with us till they have grown wings to fly on their own. So I ask myself the question: what is it that I am asking money for. I thought it would be hard to find an answer, but it came to my mind in a brightly lit flash. I am soliciting support so that Munna can continue laughing and little Ashu can continue enjoying his chocolate in the messiest of manners. Munna is a mentally challenged young man who has been with us for almost a decade and who would spend the his days wandering the streets of the slums and become an easy pray to all kinds of predators. And Sneha would roam unsafe and filthy lanes with danger lurking at every corner. Munna and Sneha need to be safe and happy long haul. But that is not all. If Munna did not have the project why family then he too could be one day brutally beaten as was the case yesterday in Calcutta when a handicapped beggar was brutally thrashed. As for Sneha, her coming to project why may ensure that  she gets enrolled in a school and gets a proper education. After all let us not forget, she is just a girl.

But that is not all. I am asking money so that my children can run in green parks and get drenched in sunlight something that never enter their dark and tiny airless homes. So that they can play and compete against each other and of course laugh till they cry. The lives of slum children is not easy. They have to deal with violence in school as well as at home. Playing is not an easy option for them. We try our best to give them back a part of their usurped childhood. Playing is again long haul, is it not? So yes, I beg for money so that my kids can run and play to their hearts delight.

And above all the money I need helps children get a sound education. In Delhi today state run schools are in a poor conditions and in site of promised made with now tiring regularity nothing much changes on the ground. Children pass from class to class with little knowledge. We have students who have spent years on school benches and who can barely read. Parents are not able to afford private tuition and even if they do, it is often for the boys and rarely for the girls. The hours our children spend at project why enable them not only to learn, but also to top their classes and win scholarships and contest. However, learning again is a long term process and how can one possibly leave them in the lurch midway. They keep their side of the deal by presenting me with glowing report cards regularly; then how can I not keep mine by ensuring that our doors remain open.

Then there are dreams. Dreams that need to be fulfilled. Dreams of breaking the cycle of poverty in which most of my kids are born. Dreams to work in a big and brightly lit office and not have to push a vegetable cart in the scorching summer or freezing winter. Dreams of becoming a teacher or a computer engineer. And for those dreams I need to ask for more to be able to run skill imparting classes, computer centres, beautician training courses and even sponsoring singing, dance or art classes. Today many of our kids have fulfilled their aspirations and are working in the very offices they sought. Two of our alumni have opened their own beauty parlour and another has his own dance academy. Project why is about making dreams come true and what I ask is help to do just that!

The party that ruled India for most of its seven decades as an independent nation, and has ruled this city for the past 15 years, launched its election pitch by announcing a right to shelter for the poor. The  right to shelter however seems to have been enshrined in our Constitution as a right to life as guaranteed by article 21 of the Constitution. It seems tragic that even after 68 years of Independence, the right to shelter should be an election issue potent enough to seduce a seizable vote bank. But this is the reality. Delhi has over 4 million of slum dwellers and many live in ‘homes’ like the one in this picture. The conditions in such slums are abysmal to say the least.

Promises of regularisation of slums and of building proper housing for slum dwellers are regurgitated at every election by political parties of all shade and hues. I have been witness to this for the past 15 years. More than two decade ago, I had met Geeta Dewan Verma, an urban planner and author of Slumming India. According to her the root cause of urban slumming lies not in urban poverty but in urban greed. And to feed this ever growing greed, politicians keep the issue of housing for the poor on the back burner and resuscitate it at every election to garner votes. Master plans that earmarked land for the poor are redrafted over and over again to benefit industrialists and the rich and famous. In an interview Verma says: This is happening because of the moral bankruptcy facing our intellectuals, activists and celebrities. They are allowing our cities to die rather than taking steps to the contrary. To cite a few examples, if sprawling farmhouses for a handful are allowed to occupy prime space, then the poor will be forced to huddle in huts, as there is just so much urban land to go around. If fancy malls, used by a few, are allowed to occupy a lot of space, then shops catering to the needs of the majority will come up on the roadside. If only a few industrial houses are given prime sites, then smaller factories needing propinquity to ancillary establishments will come up in residential areas. I guess anyone residing in Delhi will get the picture.

Maybe, and let us continue to be cynical, there is a hidden agenda, just like the one in an education system that stubbornly refuses to hike the pass percentage from a paltry 33% to a respectable 50 so as to keep a large chunk of society illiterate and thus an easily manipulated vote bank. Promising housing to the poor is a good election plank! And when the bulldozers ultimately land up at their doorstep, then all the politicians are conveniently AWOL. I have seen this with own eyes time ands again. Election version 2015 is yet another repeat performance of a jaded script. Every party is wowing the poor. I guess they know that wooing the rich is of no avail.

One party has even come up with a Draft Bill aptly entitled “Delhi Right to Housing, Shelter and Property (rights) to Slum Dwellers Bill 2015.” It will of course be shelved well out of sight once elections are over to be dusted and resold five years down the line. What can one say.

It is difficult for those of us who live in proper homes, to fathom what living in a hole is. If you look at this picture carefully you will realise that you have to crawl into the ‘home’ in this picture and cannot stand once you are in it. And yet many live in such places and hope for the day the promises made to them will turn into reality. They promise makers however are still busy making drafts bills and spouting empty promises. It is time they stopped and began walking the talk. As of now all political parties are projecting  themselves as messiahs for the poor, the very poor that will forgotten once the votes are counted and the new dispensation is in place. The right to shelter is a basic human right. It is time we understood this.

This year my little grandson decided to forgo all toys for his birthday and to ask all his friends to send the money to Project Why instead. This was conveyed to me some in all seriousness some days back via Skype. Today is his birthday celebration and this morning I got a mail in my inbox informing me that a donation has been made. The message said: our friend Agastya in St. Louis is the inspiration for this donation. Thank you for all you do for the children’s education and betterment in India. I am sure you can imagine the range of emotions that choked me. I was and am still overwhelmed.

Agastya and the Project Why creche have along association. He was just over a year when he began spending a few hours at our creche each and every time he was in Delhi. And as you can see in the picture he loved being there. Now he has moved thousands of miles away, but he has not forgotten his friends.

The toys he will not receive this year will metamorphose into school bags, pencil cases and lunch boxes for his less privileged friends as some of them will be graduating from the creche and going to regular school just like Agastya. I know they will be thrilled and so will he.

Sharing and compassion are values that need to be taught to children at an early age. I am proud and humbled to see that Agastya’s parents have done so. I wish all parents understood how important this is.

I could blot have been who I am, if my parents had to found it necessary to teach me the right values. I will always remain indebted to them and hope to be able to always live to their expectations.

However a grandma is a grandma! Guess who is going to receive a box filled with toys verysoon.

Happy Birthday Agastya and thank you for being such an inspiration.

The Tenth Annual Status of Education Report – ASER 2014 is out. It is once again sad reflection on the state of primary education in India. Nothing has really changed. According to the report  about 25 per cent of India’s children in class 8 cannot read text prescribed for class 2, and math remains a serious challenge across classes! What is so terribly tragic is that it is not the fault of the children, but of the system that seems to be frozen in some time warp, a system that seems to have its own cover and dubious agenda. We have been working with children that come from underprivileged and disadvantaged homes and I can tell you with utmost confidence that it takes very little to get them to excel. So to me a class 8 student that cannot read a class 2 text or do a class 2 sum is absolutely shocking. For the past 15 years now our children have been doing well, often topping their class and even school. True there maybe the odd slow learner as is always the case in any society, but the majority of our children across all classes are above average.

The figures of the report are really troubling, more so in these election times when everyone is tom-tomming about grandiose plans for our capital city and for India. How cleverly politicians hide realities is frightening. If one were to believe them, all is hunky dory and we are ready to become a world class nation.

This morning I got a mail from an activist organisation. It was a copy of a letter addressed to the Chief Justice of one of our States bringing to his attention the state of education in a district of his State.

India has prided itself of its ICDS programme that was launched many decades ago to address the problems of children between the ages 0 to 5. One of the tenets of this well conceived programme were the setting up of anganwadis (creches)in every block. The letter I received this morning describes what an anganwadis looks like: The two rooms allotted to the Anganwadi serve the dual purpose of store-room and class-room/child-care centre.  Lot of space in both the rooms was occupied by wheat bags. Both the rooms were dark. There was no electric connection.
Tender-aged children were sitting on a mat made of plastic rags stitched together. The surface of the same was chilling cold. Two small kids were cleaning the room with brooms in their hands in the presence of Anganwadi workers. The utensils which the children had brought for mid-day meal were unclean. One of these kids was having a school bag with him and when the same was opened, bits of a torn book were found. How can children grow and thrive!

There was more. This time about the primary school in the same village. About 200-250 children are enrolled in the two primary schools. There were no boundary wall, no electricity-connection, no chairs, no drinking water-arrangement and no toilet in either of the two primary schools. Cattle could be seen tied down in the vicinity of the school building.

Need I say more? Maybe just a small added bit of first hand information: the anganwadis in the Delhi slums are clones of the one described above.

Instead of all the grandiose blah-blah one is hearing, I would so like one candidate to say that he or she would audit all existing social problems, and there are many and each one is sound if implemented with a modicum of honesty, and ensure that they work. India would be transformed.

I know that each and every child has the potential to grow and succeed. It is for us as a society to give them the enabling environment to do so.

I often borrow the title of the famous Neruda poem: I’m explaining a few things, to share my thoughts when things need to be explained. Today the need arose because of the comments on FB to my last post. The post was prompted by an incident that happened in Pune, where a child who sold balloons was thrown out of Mc Donald’s simply because he was poor. Never mind that he was accompanied by one who was ‘rich’. I had recalled the visit of some of our kids to a Mc D’s and the fact that they were well treated. The Pune incident simply validated my theory of the 2 Indias. Had our kids been treated like this, I would have brought the roof down!

The comments of course pertained to the wisdom of taking our kids to a such a place. Let me say unequivocally that I am against it for all the reasons stated in the comments and many more. But on the other hand I will not accept that a child be denied entry into any place because of his or her being poor.

Now, if you have read the comments, you will see that the choice was made by some of the teachers in spite of our lovely supporter who would have preferred taking them to a local eatery where they would have got real and not plastic food. It is difficult for many to comprehend this. Let me tell you it took me a long time to do so. I will try and explain it to the best of my ability.

As you may be knowing, all project why staff comes from underprivileged homes. Many of them would have remained in their homes, cleaning other people’s homes had we not landed in their street one fateful day.

Over the years I have seen many of them slowly and sometimes imperceptibly climb the social ladder. It could be seen in their dressing, in their acquiring new gadgets, in their desire to question and so on. It could also be seen in their falling prey to the seduction of commercials on TV that made them feel empowered should they follow them. They became house proud, often so proud that you would have all lights on and two TV sets running even if a room was empty. It was a sense of having reached!

The game spoiler and party pooper was me and my ilk who talked endlessly of saving energy, not using plastic bags, not wasting water, not eating all the foods endorsed on the box by their favourite Bollywood stars. I soon realised that there was almost a sense of bewildered resentment as these were things they had just begun to enjoy, things we had enjoyed before we realised their true value. Mc D’s is one of the most prominent commercial.

Now I am a true tartar when it comes to these matters and no one would dare suggest taking the kids to Mc D’s but when they see a tiny window of opportunity then they jump at it.

I guess it will take time for them to understand things and we need to tread slowly. It takes a generation for a migrant to come to a city and be in a position to acquire things. A generation of hard work, of living in abysmal conditions, of barely surviving before being able to enjoy the fruit of their labour.

They will learn. We just need to give them time.

But once again, whether Mc D is good for you or not, it cannot deny entry to anyone based on his or her social status.

“You better be there on 26th. I will call you and tell you the time. It will be such fun. And Maam’ji I will enter the dance competition and will win!” These were the words an excited Utpal told me as he left for boarding school last week after a month at home. He was so looking forward to the fair. Last year he was new in school and did not know about the yearly Republic day fair teeming with rides and yummy food stalls and even a DJ and dance competition. Since January 26th 2014, Utpal had been looking forward to 26 January 2015 when he had hoped that we would come and enjoy the fair with him.

Yesterday evening a very forlorn Utpal informed me on the phone that there would be no fair this year because of ‘some bama’! You see the fair has been cancelled because of the Obama visit. I wonder how a Fun Fair located in a remote place a good 20 km away from the Obama show is a security threat. At best, the rides could have been removed one day later.

So for Utpal and his almost 2000 pals it will be no joy rides, no yummy food, no dance competition that you could win! And win he could have as he attended one whole month of hip hop classes during his holidays and did so diligently come rain or cold. I guess the day scholars will stay at home and the boarders will have to content themselves roaming the empty and silent ground that should have been filled with fun and laughter.

Has the cancellation of such a fair been an over reaction by our security wizards or is there a logical reason. Even my fertile imagination cannot find one. At best it would be the difficulty in carting material across a city that is soon going to be locked down. Anyway, I and other citizens of India cannot go to India Gate for a week because of the Obama visit.

Terrorists strike almost at will. There are countless examples of this. Even the latest Paris attack was done by people who were on a watch list.

Many questions come to mind. The first is how do explain this to children. Is it not a sad reflection on our society and our world that terror has become an integral part of child’s knowledge bank. A few months back I was saddened to read the letter that my grandson’s school sent to all parents at the time of the Ferguson verdict. Here is an extract: If necessary, we will go to a shelter-in-place or lockdown mode at impacted schools. Shelter-in-place indicates that all exits to school are closed and no one is allowed in or out of the building. Lockdown indicates the same, with the added precaution of interior doors also being locked and all staff and students remaining in their room or another safe location. You will be notified via Bright Arrow if either of these are activated and notified again when it is safe to pick up your child(ren) at school. Heads of School will determine what level of security to activate at their individual school. 

My Agastya is 6. Mercifully nothing untoward happened but the fact that things have come to this is so terribly sad.

The second question that comes to mind is: how far will all this go and is this the right approach. Today it is only part of the city that is partially locked down but there may be a day when the visit of another Mr Bama will entail all of to be told to remain in our homes.

Is it not time to take the bull by its horns and find out how to contain and eventually stop these acts of terror. Find out the reasons that have allowed terror to take such proportions and above all to be willing to accept that maybe we are in some way also responsible. But that is not easy. Sure it has taken time for matters to reach this point and will take time to unravel the web, but we need to begin or else our children will grow in a world with no fairs and dance competitions. Is that what we want.

I have often written about the two Indias that exist, separated by an invisible yet impregnable wall. The picture above is my creche kids, all slum dwellers, enjoying a Happy Meal at Md Donald’s Kalkaji. Yes I know fast food is bad for your health and am not one tom-tom its values. Far from that! But the kids had been taken out for an outing by a dear friend and this was a treat. And maybe also a cheeky way pf crossing that impregnable wall, armed with all the ammo needed should anyone have objected. The staff of this outlet was gracious and kind and the kids enjoyed the Happy meal. I guess they loved the toy more than the bland burger but who cares. It was our moment in the sun.

But last week a little boy in Pune had a horrific experience. The little boy was selling balloons outside the outlet when a young woman decided to give him a treat and buy him a float. A security staff immediately intervened and pushed the poor kid allegedly stating:” These kind of people are not allowed here.“The young woman shared this incident on the social network and the it seems the errant staff has been suspended.

This incident is not an isolated one. It is actually a telling reflection of the two Indias I often refer to. I have experienced it time and again. How can I forget how shocked a bunch of ladies from the other side of the wall were when I told them that we had eight kids from extremely deprived homes studying in a ‘upmarket’ boarding school. To them it was unacceptable. And what about the owner of again an ‘upmarket’ pre-school who wanted me to take the child of one of her employees in my creche. Could she not have just admitted the child in her own institution. I would give her the benefit of the doubt as probably it was blot her, but the parents of her ‘upmarket’ children who would have objected.

Needless to say that the kids who are enjoying the mandatory 25% reservation in all schools do not come from the most deprived homes. This reservation seems to have been God sent to middle class parents who are clever enough to fulfil all the paper work, even if it means bending the rules, and get their kids admitted to fancy school for free. What a win-win situation. The schools would not have liked having awkward looking kids in their mist, would they?

In spite of all their, efforts activists in favour of a common school failed miserably, though in my opinion that would be the real game changer in India and a real win-win situation. The reason is simple: how can my driver/maid/gardener’s kid share a bench with my kid! It is blasphemy! And as long as this mindset persists, some kids will be thrown out of Mc Donald’s and their clones.

Before sending our children to boarding school, we ran a one year residential programme for the where they attended a pre-school and then were groomed by us. We did not want them to be lost when we pushed them across the invisible wall. So we thought them to sit at table and eat with a fork and knife; we took them to Mc D and Pizza joints and introduced them to the toys and games that ‘upmarket’ kids play with. And when the moment arrived, they took to the school like a fish to water and never looked back. Many of them are doing exceedingly well and they are just like the other kids, if not a tad better.

The Rubicon has to be crossed, sooner rather than later.

I hope and pray that one day, it will dawn on our so called rulers to bring down the walls once for all.
But I know I am a dreamer.

As I opened my mailbox today, I saw a mail entitled: India’s education policy needs a complete overhaul! I opened it and found a link to an article bearing the same title. The author is an eminent educationalist. The opening paragraph is spot on: I was glad I did not know the boy standing on the high diving board, hesitating to take the leap. As I walked past, I realised it was the perfect analogy for India and her education issues. We still have to take that leap. It is known that the waters will be chill for a while, there will be shock; it will take some courage to take the leap, but it must be done. Standing up on the diving board only exposes oneself to fear and vulnerability; it won’t get us to a place where we can at least join the race, forget about winning it. These are exactly my thoughts and feelings. It is high time India took that leap, no matter how scary or shocking. Waiting is no more an option.

I read the article with interest. The big leap, as the author says, is different thinking. One was hoping that the new dispensation would address primary education head on, but it seems to be frozen on that diving board. A few cosmetic changes prompted by ideologies or other factors will do more harm than good. The author suggests that education should not be viewed as pouring money into a dark hole but as an investment. She goes on to say that education should also be viewed as essential infrastructure, influence and inspiration.

I agree with most of what is proposed but also realise that such mind shifts will take time and the one thing that education does not have is time, and while these ideas are accepted and then made into policy many will have missed the boat.

What we also need is bridge options that would benefit those in school today. In a small way that is what we try and do at project why. It may not be the ideal solution, but is better than nothing. As the author says, there are 12 million people entering the work force every year so let us say the new policy takes 5 years to be implemented 60 million will have moved on.

In the fifteen years I have been associated with education at the lowest end of the spectrum I have witnessed first hand the nitty gritty of education as it is imparted in state run schools. To sum it up in a word: pathetic! Overcrowded classes, disinterested teachers, scant teaching, poor infrastructure. The fact that 33% is the pass percentage, what you get at end of the line is poor quality. Maybe the first step that should be taken if anyone is interested in quality education, is to raise the pass percentage to 50%. It is a simple an easy step, provided you are truly interested in educating children across the board.

Then the sum of our education is rote learning of things you barely comprehend and regurgitate at every exam and as you need a mere 33% to pass, the writing is on the wall.

I am not an educationist or an expert in policy making. My wisdom, if I may call it so, comes from the fifteen long years I have spent with the very children that are been talked about. All is well I presume on the other side of the fence as the lapses and shortcoming of our existing system is taken care of by the support of the family ably aided by a myriad of things ranging from tutors, to learning material, access to knowledge banks virtual and others laced with love and understanding.

However, on the other side of the fence, education is often limited to what the school imparts, and in some cases with the addition of what organisations like ours give.

When I began this journey, I was deeply impressed by the four pillars of education as enunciated by Jacques Delors. These are: learning to know (the development of knowledge and skills that are needed to function in the world. These skills include literacy, numeracy and critical thinking), learning to do (involves the acquisition of skills that are often linked to occupational success, such as computer training, managerial training and apprenticeships), learning to live together (involves the development of social skills and values such as respect and concern for others, social and inter-personal skills and an appreciation of the diversity) and learning to be ( involves activities that foster personal development (body, mind and spirit and contribute to creativity, personal discovery and an appreciation of the inherent value provided by these pursuits). If these were to be the canons of education across the board, the changes we all aspire for would become reality.

Actually education today is barely the first pillar: at best literacy and numeracy!

If I could be a change maker I would revisit the education system and makes changes in sync with the  realities on the ground ands the first thing I would do is ensure that all the four pillars mentioned above find their place all along. Keeping in mind the 12 million that enter the workforce every year it is crucial to impart skills that meet the market demands and these can be imparted as early as class VI or VII.

Not every child is destined to be a doctor or a nuclear scientist. Academically inclined children would pursue academics. For those who are less inclined, it would be judicious to try and assess their preferences and guide them in the right direction by providing them skill training and apprenticeships  while they are still in school. To this one would add the others pillars of learning to live together and learning to be.

If we are indeed standing on the diving board and waiting to jump, then we must have the courage and guts to make radical and not cosmetic changes to the existing education system, the courage to dare to jump in the void without a parachute and see whether we have the wings needed to fly.

Four years ago on this very day Manu left us for a better world. On a cold winter afternoon he tip toed out of our lives without a sound. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. I have written umpteen blogs about him and me, and each time I revisit our bond, it is with new eyes and new meaning. It is a little like reading the Little Prince again and again and finding exactly what you are looking for. Manu and I were an odd couple to say the least: he a mentally and physically challenged young beggar roaming the streets and I a middle aged woman having lost my way. While he had spend his entire life in the confines of a tiny slum cluster, I had wandered across the world all my life. Like the fox in St Exupery’s tale, he seemed to have been waiting at one place for me to come so that he could show me the way and help me dig in my roots. When that blessed moment dawned in the summer of 2000 and our two somewhat lonely and lost souls met, our lives changed forever.

We had both come home.

There are many lessons Manu taught me, but I guess the biggest one was that no life, however miserable, wretched or seemingly hopeless, is meaningless. Every life has a purpose.  I sometimes wonder what my life would have been without Manu. Futile and empty I guess.

When we first met, Manu was difficult to approach and would hobble away as fast as his legs could take him, letting out heart wrenching cries or mumbling abuses. I guess his encounters with humans had always been offencive and irksome if not violent. From his abusive family to the insensitive community, everyone had riled and assaulted him with words and blows. Love had no place in his desolate existence, and yet love is what he taught me. Love and forgiveness as Manu had no mean bone in his body, and forgave every one who hurt him.

Our ‘affair’ could have been a short one had things turned out as I had first envisaged. Seeing his plight I had thought that finding him a home in a well run institution would solve all issues. The only hitch would have been finding the required funds but that did not see an impossible task. But that was not God’s plan and of course my valiant attempts came to nought rapidly. With Manu it was till death do us part.

To give Manu back his dignity was not an easy task. It meant, first and foremost, to get him accepted by the very people who had shunned him and even treated him abysmally. I was shocked to hear that even the ‘kind’ souls who did consent feeding him, had a separate plate and cup for him, like you would for a leper in the dark ages. Some found amusement in hitting him with their cars or motorbikes and laughing when they saw him shuffle away in pain. The stories were endless and heart breaking. And yet his spirit held on, in spite of everything. He kept wandering the same stretch in extreme heat, biting cold and pouring rain. He never left that street, no matter the humiliation and sneers. He knew he held the dreams and aspirations of thousands of children in custody and had to hand them when the time was right.

It would take a decade for him to know it was time to leave. During that time he rekindled the dying spirit of a lost woman looking for an anchor to moor her drifting ship. He had to set it back on course. To give back Manu what I thought was his usurped dignity, I had to gain the trust of the very community who had shunned him. And to do that Project Why had to be created. The rest is history.

I realise today as I write these words, how wrong I was in thinking that Manu had been stripped of his dignity and that I was the ‘saviour’. Far from that. His dignity remained intact as did is undying spirit. It is I who needed to be saved and save me he did.

I owe a huge debt to Manu and there is only one way I can do that. I must ensure that Project Why lives on and weathers  every storm that comes its way. That is the only way to honour the memory of a saintly and pure soul named Manu.

The Skype call came spot on at 6 am. The husband picked it up as usual and the little chap came on the screen. But this morning there was no usual banter with the grandpa. What I hears was : I need to talk business with Nani! So Nani promptly placed her face in front of the camera wondering what business had to be discussed. I was sure that it would be something related to his birthday, perhaps an extra toy or book in the parcel ready to leave as he celebrates his sixth on the 21st. Well I got it partly right as it was about his birthday, but totally wrong after that. What he said next totally floored me: Nani, I am not getting any toys for my birthday this year, and am sending all the money to Project Why children. Wow! Was I zapped. It transpired that this year all his friends’ parents were told not to buy him any toys but to make a donation to project why.

I cannot begin to describe all the emotions that filled me in that short instant. I was overwhelmed with love, gratitude, pride and above all respect and admiration for my daughter and son-in-law who have been able to teach my lovely grandson the art of seeing with your heart.

Agastya knows project why well. When he was just 8 months or so, we had a play group that use to come and play with him at home every day. It was a small bunch of our creche children with one teacher. A few months later he was ‘enrolled’ in the project why creche and attended it each and every time he was in Delhi. His first pals were project why kids. And today it is with them that he wants to share his birthday, even though he is 12415 kilometres away. True he will have a party with a birthday cake and birthday games, but there will be no presents but the joy of sharing this day with children who have less than him is priceless. I saw that in his little face this morning. Needless to say the parcel grandma sends will have a few more toys then initially planned.

More than the little fellow, it his parents who need to be applauded. We all wonder why today’s youth is not compassionate and sensitive, particularly in India. The answer is simple. They are/were never taught to be so. And yet that is the biggest lesson you can give your child. But the only way to give it walk the talk.

Blissfully there are some rare parents who do so. We have a little girl who is 13 now, who has been celebrating her birthday every year with our special section children. This of course is because her mom decided to do so when she was 1, and has never stopped. Every year in February, the special section is taken to Dilli Haat and fed a scrumptious lunch of their choice before cutting a nice creamy cake. Games are organised amidst laughter and fun and each child gets a lovely return gift. I wish more parents did the same. It is not the fact of donating something as some do, but of spending time together that makes all the difference. The children my grandson is sending ‘gifts’ to, are children he has played and bonded with.

Today I am a proud mom and grand mom. 

Opened the paper this morning to this head line: Cops mull DNA testing of Delhi’s beggars. As I had written in yesterday’s blog, the plight of beggar children was in the news on day 1 of year 2015! And this from the High Court of our city! So it was not surprising that a day later we are made privy to the fact that the Delhi police is drawing up a plan to conduct DNA tests on people begging on the streets with children, to find out it these kids were their own or had been abducted and trafficked. We are informed that this idea was sent to the Prime Minister’s office by a citizen  who found that women were often found begging with children in their laps who did not resemble them. Though this may sound a great idea, it is in fact a knee jerk reaction to a monumental problem: child beggars. The concerned citizen seems to accept child beggars if they ‘resemble’ their mother, or so it sounds. I am willing to give the person the benefit of the doubt and applaud the fact that he or she found his or her voice and took a step in the right direction. On the other hand I am a little weary of the rapidity with which the suggestion was passed to the Chief of Police. We all know that whatever comes from the hallowed PMO is never viewed as a ‘suggestion’ but as a ‘directive’ and without weighing the pros and cons of the said suggestion ‘orders’ must have been passed in haste. It however seems that some sense as prevailed as the legality of such tests is being weighed.

If the concerned citizen was disturbed by the sight of a child begging, then he or she should have not stopped at the mother child issue, but express anguish over all children who beg. The way this idea sounds is that if the child belongs to the beggar woman, then it is all kosher.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Before I go any further, I would just like to be the Devil’s advocate and reiterate the comment of an activist on the DNA testing idea:“What if a woman claims to have found a homeless child? There are hundreds of cases where a woman beggar adopts the child of a fellow beggar after she dies. What action can be taken against them?”  

Child beggars are a blot on our society more so because, as is the case in any business, if there was no demand there would be no supply. It is because people give, and give abundantly, that beggary in any form thrives. 

As to the question of legality of the DNA testing, I tend to argue that everyone born in this country is protected by the same rights, and as such testing are done on a court order and mostly with the person’s consent, the very idea of forced testing simply because you are carrying a child that someone feels does not resemble you, seems absurd!

We should be outraged by children begging, yet we have learnt to live with it, finding our own coping strategies: tinted car glasses for some, looking away for others or rolling down your car window and handing out a doing without looking at the child. And we have been doing so unabashedly thus allowing beggary to become a lucrative business.

We should be incensed everyone every time we see a little hand proffered in our direction. The solution is not to remove them and throw them outside the city limits as was done during the famed Commonwealth Games. The problem of children begging has to taken head on. The government is accountable for the protection of all children and their are many laws that enacted for the same. 

Stopping children begging is not simply counting them and parking them somewhere, away from public glare. They need to be given their rights: to education, to food, to shelter and to childhood. We can barely look after our mentally challenged children and our orphans and we all know the terrible conditions of state run institutions. So what do you do after a DNA test tells you that the child is not the child of the woman carrying her. Where do you take the child, who looks after it and ensures its care.

You may want to believe it or not, beggar mothers do care for their children in the best way possible and unless we can provide adequate care, we should not embark on some hair brained programme that may do more harm than good.

I have always called Project Why, my magnum opus and my swan song, and often at the close of each year I found myself wondering whether these two images do really hold true. With age catching up and time flying at an unstoppable speed, pwhy is definitely my swan song. The question is whether  the final curtain call will be a success or not.

When I look back at the wonderful journey that began 15 years ago, I have no doubt in saying that in spite of some choppy seas, and even some terrible storms, our ship sailed on course and we were able to fulfil what is known in NGO parlance as ones ‘mission’. I do not know how many mission statements I have had to write, and perhaps as we are an organic organisation, there would have been some variants but the real mission, the one that stemmed from the depth of my soul and my heart and was probably never stated, has been the one that has propelled my sails. Project Why was meant to be my way of paying back a debt I have always felt I owed. Privileges that came my way because one day a man sailed on a slave ship and set roots in another land enabled me to be to the manor born; the privileges that came my way because a woman decided not to marry so as to not give birth to a child in an enslaved country and because two wonderful souls that took almost four decades to meet, decided that their child who was born and who grew up in foreign lands would be as passionate about India as they were; and above all because what I saw when I returned to a land I had only seen through the eyes of my parents was not the one I had dreamt of. Something was terribly wrong. But even to get to the moment I could open the eyes of my heart took many years of being so wrapped up in career and family.

The demise of those who had taught me everything and years of locking myself in my grief made  my world darker and darker to the point when I saw and felt nothing at all. It would take a broken beggar and his heart wrenching cries to jolt me out of my inertia and open the eyes of my heart. But more than that to steer me on the way of paying back that debt!

Fifteen years later I do not know where I have reached in this long journey. I guess that I can never pay back the entire debt in the short time I have at my disposal. But a tiny part of it has been paid in the small achievements we have realised: be it the fact that the beggar lived and died loved and cared for, that a little scalded little boy every one had given up on is now a young teenager; that so many children who would have dropped out from school are now doing incredibly well; that a young boy born on the roadside is now an international ramp model. But most of all that a bunch of special children, the kind many shun, have a place where they can spend a few hours surrounded by love and laughter.

So does this allow me to call pwhy my magnum opus. I would like to believe so. More so because it has brought into my once lonely life a bouquet of wonderful souls from all over the world who have given me so much love and trust. I now have a family, my family, the project why family and its DNA is that every member sees with his or her heart.

But the journey has not ended. For pwhy to be my  magnum opus and swan song, I need to ensure that the future of this family is secured even after I take my last bow.

It is that time of the year when one writes a year end message, so here is my take!

2014 can best be described as a sabbatical year, when one took ‘leave’ from one’s customary work to review achievements and failures and take remedial measures where needed. It was also a year when we took stock of our strengths, identified our weaknesses. A true SWOT Analysis moment.

 2013 had been a year when my husband’s cancer compelled me to take a back seat and leave the project in the hands of my terrific staff. In hindsight this forced leave of mine was God sent as it impelled my staff to act as independently as possible as they did not want to ‘disturb’ me in any manner. So when earlier they would call at the drop of a hat if faced with a problem, they now looked for solutions independently and more often than not found one that bettered mine! Come to think of it, I did feel a little forgotten. All for a good cause though! This gave them increased confidence and validated yet again, my decision to employ people from within the community.

It was soon evident that the only lacuna was fund raising, a task I had appropriated for far too long and that had over the years taken on a distinct Anou imprint! The skills I used were unfortunately skills that one could not pass on to another. One could I teach my gift for the gab or my obsession with words! Fund raising was undoubtedly our biggest weakness and threatened our very existence and thus needed to be addressed urgently. The urgency was further heightened when we lost a large chunk of the monthly donation of one of our important donors. The reason for this reduction was the drop in tourism following the rape of a foreign national from the country of origin of our donor. This brought to the fore the fragility of our funding model and required some serious thinking.

It is true that most of our donations come from outside India as we have not been able to muster a donor base within India. This was not for want of trying as when Project Why was set up I had wanted to launch what I called a one-rupee-a-day campaign which enabled each and every one to be a donor. It was very naive of me, more so in a city like Delhi which seems to have lost the ability to see with its heart and who also found the one rupee idea infradig! The campaign was resuscitated a couple of times in years to come but always met with the same fate.

Many organisations get substantial funds from Corporates and Big Businesses, but this needs you to be Page 3 worthy, and a recluse like me was not up to the mark. Perhaps I should have polished my dancing shoes and got the war paint out! But that was not to be, so we had to walk another path and we did.

The husband’s cancer also made me realise the true meaning of the saying: Man proposes, God disposes. No one is eternal and the wise need to accept this indubitable fact and take the right decisions. It was time that fund raising was revisited in the light of the skills of those who would be carrying the torch forward.

Rani and Dharmendra attended a week long fund raising workshop and though they learnt many finer points, they were a little weary of some of the suggestions that either required substantial investment or sounded too impersonal and thus went against what Project Why stood for. They both agreed that getting a call centre to spout a sales pitch from a written text, without ever having see pwhy, was not what we stood for. It was back to the drawing board and the need to evolve an in house model that would sensitise people around us.

There is a God, one I have oft called God of Lesser Beings but now plan to rechristen God of Project Why, who watches from the wings and appears out of the blue to help us. The visit of a long time supporter and dear friend brought into our lives the till now elusive Corporates, but these were special: they saw with their heart. And that was not all. My one in many moons appearance at a diner saw me seated next to a young man who is also a honcho but again one who sees with his heart, and he too has promised to help. So we did find a backdoor entry into the hallowed corporate portals and I did not need my war paint and high heels. I hope and pray that this will be the miracle we longed for.

I cannot end this message without sharing the update on Planet Why! Many of you know of this sustainability dream of mine where we had hoped to build a green guesthouse the proceeds of which would have run Project Why. Many of you also know that though we were able to raise the money for the land, I was not able to secure the funds to build. Some time back we had begun thinking of selling the land that had appreciated substantially and purchase a smaller plot in the vicinity of our women centre as we are on the verge of losing our tenancy. Yet for the past year we have not been able to sell our land as the property rates have fallen. I wonder whether there is another reason for the obstacles that are coming our way in this matter. We will continue our efforts and wait for the opportune moment.

I just realised that this long message has not touched upon the day-to-day activities of the project. This is because every thing has been running like a clockwork orange and without a murmur. All examinations have been passed, all Boards cleared, outings organised, workshops conducted, visitors received, volunteers welcomed! Project Why runs almost on auto pilot. All I can say is Chapeau Bas to the children and the team!

We await 2015 with bated breath. May it bring new avenues, new hope and above all the answers we seek.


Anou
December 2014

I am a Hindu. I am Hindu not simply because my parents were Hindus, but because I chose to be one. I was privileged to grow up in various countries and thus various religions. Since my early childhood I had friends who were Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhist but above all were my friends. To me as a child their religion only manifested itself during festivals that each had lots of goodies to eat. Mama use to celebrate all Hindu festivals at home – I came to know later in life that she herself was not into ‘rituals’ but did it all for her me – and I too had my goodies to share with my friends. Actually it was fun to have friends with diverse faiths. If I had questions, she would answer them. She simply set the stage for the questions to emerge.

Rebellious as I was, I was soon to challenge my religion in my own puerile way. It all began with me wanting to go to church with my friends, or to fast with my Muslim friends. Each time I asked mama, she would smile and tell me to go right ahead but not to do anything that would hurt the other person. So I went to church, and whenI wanted to taste the holy Host, I even found a Priest who agreed that I do so after I ‘confessed’. I also fasted during the Ramadan and broke fast with my friends and I cannot remember how many Sabbath meals I shared with my Jewish friends. So I grew up believing that Hinduism was a wow religion as it allowed you to believe in all faiths. And was this not also a religion that gave you so many Gods to chose from! There was no doubt in my mind: I would be a Hindu.

To be being a Hindu, or of any other faith, is a personal matter that is between me and my God, and remains in the confines of my home. So I spent a large part of my life comfortable in the faith I had made mine, interpreting it my way. The first blow I received was when the Babri masjid was destroyed. It did not make sense at all as I had gown up respecting all places of worship, and destroying a House of God was anathema. But I did not feel the need of rejecting my faith.

Religion is a personal matter and should remain so. But as Marx rightly said religion is the opium of the masses and is used by rulers of all hues to make people feel better about the distress they experience. Today it is a political tool that has gone out of hand.

In the name of religion innocent are murdered. In the name of religion political agendas are set. In the name of religion gullible people are duped by so called god men. Come to think of it you can do almost any and everything in the name of religion and get away with it.

The recent conversion issue is again a gimmick that does not make much sense to me.

First of all the word ‘Hindu’ is according to me a misnomer. Our religion should be known as Vedism as it emanates from the Vedas. I guess one can safely say that once upon a time all humans followed either Vedism or Judaism and all other religions stemmed from these two. Most of the new religions were some from of reaction to the two mother religions.

The recent conversion drama talks of ‘home coming’. If this were to be applied to the T,  then everyone should revert to the two mother religions!

What is frightening is that this new avatar of Hinduism is breeding hate, mistrust and suspicion. Let us not forget that most of what we call ‘new’ religions happened when an existing religion did not meet the aspirations of people. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism were off shoots of Vedism and Protestantism occurred when Catholicism became too lofty, and what about the Anglican Church that saw the light of day because a King fell in love!

But let us come back to today and all this talk of conversion and home coming and similar nonsense. If ones religion seems unfair as has been the case with Hinduism when it closes its doors to certain class of people, it is quite understandable that you embrace a religion that treats you better. Many conversions in India happened because of this. Then there are those seek to convert you by wooing you. I know of a mother who converted to Christianity because she was promised help for the treatment of her child. She did so after knocking at many doors that refused to open. I remember having been asked to convert to Catholicism way back in the sixties when I attended a convent school. What was offered in exchange was that I would be allowed to jump a class. Being who I am, I was indignant and of course refused vehemently. A year later, when I changed school because of my father’s new posting I jumped a class on merit!

Religion is a wonderful tool to manipulate people. Whereas it should be used in the right way, it is far too often used to fulfil personal agendas be they political or self gratifying. This is evident in the on-going inane debate on conversion as well as the plethora of self styled God men that are proliferating everywhere. I wish they would use their power to do good to society.

My father always said that there is no difference between a good Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew or even an atheist. I wish we preached this indubitable reality. Any religious interpretation that preaches hate cannot be true.

Sadly, the hold religion has on people, particularly simple and illiterate people is monumental and thus it is easy to manipulate them to do anything. The most horrific and recent example of this is the slaying of innocent school children last week in Pakistan. It was done in the name of a God. Many monstrous acts are done in the name of religion.

Maybe it is time that those who proclaim themselves to be guardians of different faiths should introspect and see where it all went astray and take remedial measures. To my mind it is totally absurd to pour milk over images of God in a land where 5000 children die every day of malnutrition. I am sure the same God would feel far better served if the same milk was fed to a hungry child rather than thrown in a drain. There are many such examples but I think I have made my point.

For those of us who have a modicum of intelligence and common sense, it is time to look at our faith and raise a dissenting voice if we feel the need.

As for me, I found my God in the eyes of all the children I have been blessed with. I do not need to seek Him or Her in stone images and places of worship. The God to whom I pray is the one who reaches out to me each and every time I seek help to continue the task given to me as a blessing by this very God.

I remain a Hindu. Does not my faith allow me to give God the image I want, and what better image than the trusting eyes of a little child. She is the God to whom I pray.

When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family wrote Jim Butcher. These words take a poignant meaning when applied to my darling Popples. There are few in this world whose life goes to hell from the word go. Born in a dysfunctional family where violence was the rule and not the exception, he fell into a boiling wok and had a close brush with death. I guess God had a change of mind and that is why he brought into his life an eclectic bunch of people whose mission was to heal his wounds with love and tenderness. He toddled through his first years with love in the day and violence at night, the kind of violence that comes with the bottle, not the one babies drink, but the one adults fall prey to. There were nights without food, nights where the tiny child got beaten, nights where you were dragged to the cop station and only God knows what you witnessed. At the age of three, he knew that he had to hide the empty bottles when I came visiting and would run ahead of me on his chubby legs to hide them as best he could.

We watched all this in mute silence till it became so deafening that one had to act. In a single day he lost what had been his home and family. He was just four. A few months later he was admitted to a boarding school and was safe. But then came the holidays and the violence again as he became the soft target that could be used to extract pennies for a few more bottles. No matter how hard we tried, no matter how many rehabs we sent his mom too, the bottle always prevailed. Once again the silence was deafening and we had to take out the big guns. He became my legal ward. He was eight. His mother simply vanished.

A few months later he became difficult and aggressive and we were at a loss. The unvoiced and thus unanswered questions in his little head took their toll, and we were not equipped to get him to voice them  and thus answer them. He went into counselling.

In his holidays he came  home to me, and though my love was unequivocal, there were others at home that had to be won over. Slowly and patiently the little chap worked his magic. It is true that for some it took longer than for others.

But that was not all. At school he had to deal with bullying because of his scars. When it became unbearable and the school remained insensitive, came another deafening cry. Mercifully the ruler he chose to auto mutilate was blunt.

We changed his school and he seemed happier, but the questions were still there; still unvoiced. He was assigned a mentor and last month he finally broke his silence when he asked about his family. He had opened the channel of communication and it was time he was told his story. And who better than his Maam’ji to do that.

I must admit I was nervous and scared. I knew that I held the key to his morrows. Mercifully I had a peg to start the talk: a family tree as part of his homework.

We sat at our work table and I asked him if he had any questions about his family. He hung his head down and was on the verge of withdrawing, a coping strategy he often resorts too when he is uncomfortable. If I diddled too long, I would lose the moment so I began telling him his story from the first day I met him, a few days prior to his accident. I spoke softly choosing the right words and making sure that I spoke only the absolute truth. After a few moments he looked at me and said: this is a film story. Yes little fellow it is. But we carried on till the moment when I had no option but to talk about his mother and her disappearing. I told him I did not know where she was but also added that she knew he was safe and loved. After some time he looked at me and said: I know where she is! My heart missed a beat and I waited with bated breath for his answer. She is in front of the biscuit shop he quipped with a smile.

Tears welled in my eyes. I stopped them just in time. I did not want him to see me cry. The last home he shared with his mother was indeed located next to a biscuit shop but that was not all. He associates his mother with biscuits as she always bought him some. I knew how much biscuits and mom are synonymous in his life but I was still taken aback when this morning he asked for biscuits and tea for his breakfast. Needless to say that is what he got.

It was now time to make his family tree and as advised by the counsellor, I waited for him to take the lead. He did and soon emerged the most beautiful tree you could ever imagine as it defied every single canon that defines a family. If I am Maam’ji and Nani (maternal grandmother), then my husband is Dadu (paternal grandfather). My son-in-law is Bapu (the name my grandson calls him by and a decision taken by the three of them) but my two daughters are Didis or big sisters., and my grandson is his little brother. Then there are all those who love and care for him: Deepak (big brother), Radhey simply Radhey, Dharmendra (paternal uncle) and mamaji (maternal uncle). That is his Indian family but there is also Xavier who is his French God father and Clarissse his French God mother. That is where it stopped at least for now. It is now left to me to put that in a family tree! What he knows deep in his heart is that we are all there for him and will never walk away.

He is safe and loved. We are his family!

Today I face the most momentous challenge of my existence. And as always in times of trials and tribulations my thoughts steered me to the magical book that has stood me fast in all such moments. You guessed right: The Little Prince. Today, I must muster and conjure the wisdom of the Fox who gave the Little Price. In this wonderful fable the Fox not only teaches the Little Prince the meaning of friendship but is also willing to sacrifice this friendship to the alter of responsibility, the responsibility he has towards his rose waiting for him on his planet. You become responsible forever for what you have tamed. Never have these words seemed as poignant as today.

I have been worried about my ‘rose’ a.k.a. Popples for quite some time. He has been moody, mildly aggressive and binging on food. After having rule out all physical probabilities it all seems to stem from deep seated emotional issues that he is unable to voice. His counsellor feels that it is time to tell him his story.

Call it serendipity at work but one of the home tasks he has to do for his holiday homework is to make a family tree in French! This may tune out to be the ideal situation to address all the issues that seem to be tormenting him and forcing him to resort to damaging coping strategies.

So in a few hours I will sit with him and we will work on his very special family tree. I think I will adopt Socrates’s Maieutic method. I will try and have him come up with questions and answer them truthfully.

The challenge is to keep a balance between what he has lost and what he has gained, hoping that the scales will tilt in favour of the gains.

He needs tone told that he is safe, and loved and will always be so.

We will make a family tree that will be very special as most of the relationships will be based on choices and labelled by him. We will break many social norms, but who cares. What matters is that the tree will have strong roots and that every branch and leaf that stem out of it will be steeped in love.

I did not sleep last night. I kept thinking about how much more was God going to put on Popples’s tiny plate and why. Some of you know how much he loves eating. He loves his food, he loves sweets and like all kids he loves all that is not ‘healthy’! For some time now he was been running large bills at his school canteen; so much so that the school authorities took note of it and informed us. He is a bundle of energy and always on the move and does not put an ounce of weight. For some time, we lit things pass, thinking it was just his way of coping with all that has happened to him since we was born. He suffered third degree burns, had epileptic fits as a child, got double pneumonia as a toddler and then to crown it all lost his home and family. Then there was all the bullying in school and the pain that goes with it. We had to change his school. He settled well but his eating pattern deteriorated and yesterday I took him to my trusted family doctor.

Doc P felt that investigation were needed as the symptoms displayed could be those of Diabetes I. My blood ran cold. How much more does this child have to suffer and why? Diabetes I is a lifelong ailment that requires constant monitoring and insulin shots. This cannot be true. He has his whole life in front of him.

In an hour I will take him for his blood test and then there will be hours of waiting for the results, when one has tendency to paint the world black.

I wonder how wrong God went when writing the script for this little child? He then handed him to me to right every wrong.

Please say a little prayer for him.

I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches. I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream. The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again. My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me — I felt as though it was death that was approaching me. The blood curdling and chilling words are those of a child who survived the barbaric attack yesterday in Peshawar. He took two bullets and though he will live on, life will never be the same. His soul has been trampled by those black boots. But he was lucky to be alive. Death approached him indeed but changed her course. But that was not to be for 143 others. This could be their story:

It was a morning just like any other. The young boy must have gotten up early, or perhaps he was a little late and had to hurry to get ready for school. He grabbed his bag and stuffed the lunch box so lovingly prepared by his mother. As he left home, he heard his mother bidding him good bye but he answered hurriedly  as his bus was coming. Little did his mother know that she would never hear his voice again.

School began as usual. In between two periods he took a bite of the lunch his mom had given him as he had not had time to have his breakfast. It lay on the table untouched. This would be the last meal his mother made for him. And the hurried bite he had surreptitiously swallowed would be his last meal. The fourth period began. Then suddenly gunmen burst into the room, their black boots stomping the ground and the teacher screamed to the children to hide, but it was too late. Bullets riddled the young body and he fell without a sound.

Nine pairs of black boots destroyed the childhood of over a thousand children and snuffed out the life of 143 children with their bullets. This was done in cold blood. Children were lined up and shot in their heads, some were shot as they hid under desks or watched helplessly as their friends and teachers were killed.

This is no horror movie. This happened.

So what will we do? Express our outrage. Hold vigils. Write blogs. And though it is being said ad nauseum that the perpetrators are not humans, the sad reality is that they are. They were born just like any other human being. So what went wrong? How did they turn into the monsters one is making them out to be? What made them don the black boots of death that fateful morning and execute the mission they were entrusted with? In what and whose name did they commit this crime? Which God, if God it is, allows such reprehensible acts? Why do children pay for the perceived sins of adults?

True we are outraged at this moment, but how long will our rage last? When will this aberration become fodder for political ends? And what do you do. The nine pins of the bowling game have fallen. How long will it take for nine or nine hundred more to rise. Will the death of these 132 tiny and blameless souls bring anyone to their senses.

Without being cynical, the answer is no.

The death of children are too soon forgotten.

In a small town in India, a seven year old boy died. He was brutally beaten by his school teacher for not doing his homework and not paying his fees. Who will pay for this death.

There is no footprint too small to leave an imprint on this world says an anonymous quote. Today over 100 children were killed in a dastardly attack on a school in Peshawar. The terrorist group responsible for the attack said it was in  retaliation for the army’s continuing operation against militants. The operation was even lauded as a success. I am stunned beyond words. What can one say in front of such horror. What kind of being can shoot a child in cold blood without flinching. And what does one call such a being. How have we allowed our world to come to this. What is the use of all our education and so called progress if a we are unable to keep a child safe. How does one pay for such a deed.

The death of a child is the death of God as it is in the eyes of a child that God abides. Have we become a civilisation that has perfected the art of killing God day in and day out, without remorse.

These tiny souls that have flown today leave an imprint in each of our hearts, if hearts we still have. How will we react. By more killing or will we have the courage to look into our frozen souls and break the deafening silence.

Only time will tell.

Will those who have died today, and their comrades who die every day because of our failing ever forgive us.

No footprint is too small to leave an imprint on this world and in our hearts. Let us remember that and let our collective conscience mourn the departed children.

This world is not a place for children; neither it is a place for God.

You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed wrote St Exupery in the Little Prince. This is an indubitable truth. Just like St Exupery, a little prince landed in my life about 12 years ago. he did not fall from the sky. He walked into my heart after a terrible accident and filled a space I never knew existed. I christened him Popples and he made me his Maam’ji! Thus began a love story that is still enfolding. Like all love stories it has had its share of laughter and tears. As we both grew, we faced new and unpredictable challenges but as in all love stories we had no option but to weather each storm. I must admit that the scales were tipped in the little man’s favour and the old biddy had to adapt and conjure miracles at the drop of a hat.

I had done all my growing up by the time he came into my life and he still had all his to do. The bonny baby became a toddler, then a child and now is in the throes of adolescence. Like all children it is a surprise package you cannot begin to fathom and you have to come up with answers and solutions on the spot knowing that what you do or say may have lifelong repercussions.  In the case of this boy, the answers are not easy as his life has not followed the tranquil course one would want every child’s life to follow, but has been and is replete with challenges that test every fibre of your being. There are the formulated questions that are easy, but there are those who remain unsaid and compel you to read between the lines. There are the challenging behaviours that are cries for help and need to be understood and addressed. It is no easy task and yet you know you have to meet them head on because on one fateful morning you dared look deep into trusting eyes and held out your hand. Once you take that step, it is irreversible till does you part.

You are responsible forever!

For the last few years I go back to school twice a year and have worked byway up from class I to VII! Wonder why and how? Simply courtesy Popples’s homework. It is uncanny how much home work children in India get. The whole meaning of holidays needs to be revised altogether. No wonder why a new business has seen the light of day as you now can outsource your kid’s homework. But that is not the way we do things Popples and I. Quite frankly much as I look forward to him being home, I dread the homework like you would the plague. He hates homework and I hate the monster I turn into to get the work completed.

As soon as I collect him from school and we enter the house, my first task is to fish out the homework sheets and gather the courage to look at them. The truth is soon revealed: charts and models, the dreaded pages of writing – this time cursive – essays and paragraphs and even stories to be written, project files on many subjects to be made and more of the same. Stationery lists are made and will be bought today itself and the battle will begin. The biggest challenge is to tame the child and make a timetable that I know will not be followed easily as all the lad has to do is look at me with his melting eyes and plead for relief. And come on, these are holidays and on holidays you sleep in, you play, you have fun. How does one make a child take pleasure in sums and equations and learning lessons. But I cannot change the system.

I need to muster all the patience I can and find ways to get the darned homework done. Wish me luck!

On the very day the Nobel laureates were receiving their award and addressing the world, I had my own moment! The venue was a palace hall replete with the pomp and splendour associated with such places. My audience was a group of CEOs of the French tourism industry. My mission was to bring to life the dreams of the project why children and make those present not only believe in them but reach out and help them come true. A tall order it was! How do you give life to the aspirations and hopes of slum children standing in a space that is so alien to the reality they belong to. Most of the persons in that hall had never been to India and the little they had seen was touristic spots, luxury hotels on the one hand and annoying beggars on the other: the antipodes that India is far too often known by best exemplified by the jaded image of maharajas and snake charmers! I can never forget how angry I was when a classmate of mine refused to believe that Indians lived in houses; she thought we all lived in trees! This must have been way back in the late fifties. I had requested my nana to send me a picture of our home to prove that we too lived in houses.

So here I was, in this magnificent hall that was once used by a maharaja to hear petitions from his people, having less than an hour to get this people to cross the line, albeit virtually, and  be touched by the vibrant and real India far too often concealed and misunderstood. I decided to share my own story of discovery and how I one day had crossed the invisible barriers and fallen in love with a part of my land I barely knew existed. I talked about my tryst with destiny that had changed my life forever. But that was just the tip of the iceberg as what I had to do was also share the problems and challenges that these souls faced everyday and how we could overcome them with a little help from friends like them.

It was a stroke of serendipity that the Nobel prize was to be conferred on the same day and that the invisible ones were centre stage. I pegged my discourse on this and could talk of children and education with ease. I spoke from the heart urging all present to hear from their heart what they could not see, hoping that my words would evoke the images in their true colours. I shared stories of success as well as stories that captured the harsh reality that such children lived in but that could be easily resolved if one wanted to.

It was much later in the day that I heard the speech of one of the Nobel laureates and was amazed to how akin our thoughts were. I guess that anyone who has had the courage to look deeply into the eyes of a hurting child is compelled to react in the same manner. Kailash Satyarthi recalled the words of a little girl he had saved from bonded labour and who asked him why he had not come earlier. Earlier that day I too had reminisced about the young man who was the local goon of the area we worked in and had apparently threaten to ‘kill’ me. When I met him, I did not see a thug, but a young boy with gentle eyes who assured me that no one would touch our school as long as he was around, a promise he has kept till date, and then who asked me in the quietest of words: I wish you were there when I was growing up. I too see God everyday in the eyes of every child of mine.

I know I poured my heart out in that glitzy hall. I was the voice of all my children and of all their dreams and aspirations. I simply hope that at least one person in that gathering was able to open the eyes of his or her heart. 

Godmen are in the news for all the wrong reasons like the one whose followers pitched an armed battle against the state, or the other one who has been frozen for the past 11 months as his followers await his resuscitation. I do not know what adjectives to use to describe these absurd oddities, but nevertheless they feed on the ignorance and credulity of innocent people who get swayed by their absurd discourse. Never have Marx’s words been more appropriate: religion is indeed the opium of the masses! Well with Godmen being in the news, I have been asked about my opinion on these deviant beings. Here is my take.

First of all, I absolutely and unequivocally condemn such individuals. Let that be understood. Nevertheless one has to be admit that they exist and hold power on millions of followers and thus are agents of change and transformation, albeit of the wrong kind.

Hinduism was first and foremost an oral religious tradition where the sacred texts were cryptic and meant to be the learnt by a few chosen ones. It was left to to them to fulfil the mission of spreading the word. They were given the responsibility of adapting the essence of the precepts to the time and audience. This made the religion dynamic and open to change. At some point however, the texts were written down and the religion slowly turned static. It lost its vigour and adaptability and was only interpreted to suit vested interests. Had it remained oral, things may have looked very different.

The power of Godmen and their ilk is humongous. Sadly these supposedly religious creatures use their power to fulfil their greed in every which way. From amassing obscene wealth to satisfying their base instincts, they do it all.

With the power they yield, these characters could be true agents of social changes but they do just the opposite! One never hears them condemning social evils like child marriage, child sexual abuse, female feoticide and infanticide, bride burning, honour killing and such evils. Imagine the difference they could make if they did!

Whenever I have been on the verge of giving up, and God knows I have more than one would imagine only I keep these moments of weakened to myself, the God of Lesser a Beings, that I strongly believe should now be rechristened God of Project Why, sends me an unexpected miracle to bring me back on track. Today it came in the shape of a Facebook picture I was tagged in. It came all the way from a place I did not even know existed Lliria. It is a small town in Spain, close to Valencia and with a name as lyrical as this no wonder it is the musical capital of the region. It also has a large number of immigrants, many from the UK.

That I guess explains the presence of Spainsburys, a British supermarket stacked with all the goodies you can imagine. more so as Xmas is around the corner. You must be wondering what the link of Lliria and Spainsbury and Project Why is. Till this morning I did not know of the existence of either! So imagine my surprise when I opened my Facebook page and saw a picture that warmed the cockles of my heart and took my breath away.

The heading looked all too familiar as it was the homepage of our old website but the content was different. Hold on. What its said was that Spainsburys was organising a raffle for the benefit of Project Why and the draw was rot be held on December 17th! You could win Xmas Goodies, wine, chocolates and much more. Imagine how humbled I feel. In a little town thousands of miles away people are thinking of our children and reaching out to them. And not just humbled but grateful and loved. Tomorrow we will talk about Lliria with our children and tell them of all the wonderful people who will be sharing their Xmas joy with all of us.

This is nothing short of a Xmas miracle and I feel blessed.

Thank you to all who made this possible.

Love you and Merry Xmas

First picture with Papa Prague 1952

I just realised this morning, whilst rummaging for pictures to put in this post, that the first picture with my father and the last one were both taken in Prague the city where I saw the light of day. Strange that the last picture with him was taken more than three years prior to his demise, but that was before the days of digital photography and smart phones and taking a picture was a pother for two souls who preferred anonymity. In hindsight though, it seems that the Fates were conspiring to ensure that both these snapshots were taken in the place of my birth. Blessed I guess.

It has been 22 years since he left me on a cold Sunday morning, shattered and alone wondering who would knock at the door I just banged. The truth is I never banged a door since. In that instant the child in me died and a lost and shaky woman was born. She would have to pick up the pieces of her past life and build something that he could be proud of. No mean task. More so when you have no one to show you the way and catch you when your steps falter. How much easier it would be to slink into a hole and shut the world around and I did for far too long! But on a hot summer day in the year 2000 another lost soul would show me the way. I wonder if Papa had anything to do with this life changing encounter.

Last picture with papa Prague 1988

One may wonder how an ungainly beggar can thaw a frozen heart specially in a land where beggars abound and we master the art of making them invisible. But Manu did. Was it his heart rendering cries or was it the fact that he always was there no matter what time of day I passed by, almost as if he knew of my coming and waited with aching patience for the moment when I would finally look at him with my heart. Or was he simply taming me, just like the Little Prince tamed the Fox! I do not know. All I know is that one day I did open the eyes of my heart, eyes I had closed shut on that fateful morning 22 years ago to the day when the one who taught me to see everything with my heart left me forlorn and heartbroken. You could not see with a broken heart. Only Manu would be able to mend that heart and teach it to see again.

And he did. He did in a way that would make up for all those years when I barely existed frozen heart and eyes shut tight. I set out to help Manu, something I first believed would be an easy task: a few phone calls an adequate purse! But that was not to be, as helping Manu would entail setting up project why. I did it with my heart and soul as it meant redeeming myself in Papa’s eyes and accounting for the years I had lived forsaking what he taught me. Today I can say that I think I am on the way to redemption.

I learnt many lessons at papa’s knee; the essence of them all would be that in everything thing you do in life, you must retain the ability to see with your heart. And true to his wisdom, I keep him safe in my heart!

Welcome to our brand new website. I just uploaded it! It took umpteen hours, breaking back aches, gazing cross eyed at the screen for hours, looking for errors over and over again, making sure there were no broken links till the one moment when you say: enough and upload the files. I know there are many issues but I beg your indulgence and promise to set them right after giving eyes and back a few house break.

This is I think the fourth or fifth edition of our site, and this time I got a little help with the design and the technicalities but all in all the content and feel is mine.

I wanted the site to be a mirror to project why and impart its spirit and essence. It had to reflect the fourteen years we have been in existence and share our journey.

When I think project why I smile! And that is what I hope the new site will urge you to. In spite of all obstacles and challenges, we have always smiled and sought joy in everything we do.

While designing the site, I realised that project why is replete with stories of hope and fortitude that need to be told. This was the needed push to get me to continue writing the project why story that I had begun some time back but somewhat set aside. I intend resuming writing it instantly.

Enjoy our new site!

Two wonderful souls decided to celebrate their 60th birthday by bringing smiles to less privileged children thousands miles away. In the country where these children live, another birthday is being celebrated. It is the 75th birthday of a politician. He decided to celebrate his birthday by riding a buggy imported from the land the two souls belong to. I wonder if the two birthday wishes crossed in the sky! But that is not all. The man will also cut a 75 feet long cake. Hubris! What else. There seems to be an abundance of it in our land. I wonder what was the need of importing a buggy all the way from England. And if the buggy, why not the horses, or are local horses good enough. Where will the hubris end.

I often wonder whether politicians and their acolytes are of a different mettle as they seem to have the capacity to be totally oblivious and impervious to everything that happens around them. I guess their eyes cannot see the pain in that of another. They cannot hear the deafening cries of the hungry child or the bereaved mother. They cannot feel the anguish of the very people who put them where they are and believed in the promises they made to get their vote. They seem to suffer from post election amnesia that lasts five year when once again promises are resuscitated for a short spell. You have to cultivate a hell of a toughened skin to be able to ride in a buggy and be blind to what lies around you. Or is power such an intoxicant that it makes you forget the very reason of your being.

Those in power should hang their head in shame as long as there is one beggar child in their fiefdom or as long as one person has to go to sleep hungry. How can anyone think of a 75 feet cake when 5000 children die everyday of malnutrition. A 75th birthday should be a day where you take stock of years gone by and pray for enough time to set things right. But who does that. Certainly not your politician. They seem to live in an impervious rosy bubble where you behave live the proverbial Queen of Hearts and  spout your share of ”off with their heads”!

Politicians more than anyone else should have the ability to see with their hearts. But I guess that happens in only in Wonderland!

What do you normally do for your birthday? Have a party, treat yourself to a day at the spa or to a dinner in a costly restaurant. And if it is a special birthday like you 50th or 60th then you mate go overboard, particularly in India. But when you are a person who see with his or her heart then you do something quite different. This morning when I opened my mailbox a very special mail awaited me. It simply said:  Andy and I are on the brink of our 60th birthdays, Andy next week and me the week after. We thought about what would make us happy on these BIG birthdays, and the nicest thing we could think of was contributing to the smiles at Project Why, so via Jenny you’ll be receiving an extra 120 GBP, a pound for each year of our lovely, happy lives.

You may wonder who Andy and Irene are? Two lovely beings who came to project why on the first day of 2008 and spent the day rebuilding the Okhla Centre floor with the help of the children and the staff. Though we met ever so briefly, I think we walked into each others heart as Irene and Andy have been a huge support particularly when things were hard and I needed a pat on my back. Irene never misses a blog and often leaves a note that warms my heart.

For the past years they have been staunch supporter of project why.They have run marathons and organised garage sales and never forgotten to share what they have with the children of project why.

Andy and Irene are the kind of souls that make the world a better place and help us carry on our work with a smile. God bless them!

Happy birthday!

This is the state of one of the numerous toilet block built over the years in our capital city. I have very graphic pictures that I chose not to use as they are revolting to say the least. The reason I write this blog is subsequent to yet another speech of our Prime Minister where he urged NRIs ( non resident Indians) to build loos in their place of origin. He has also exhorted big business to make loos their CSR mantra. Whereas I am all for loos, I cannot but shudder at the thought of what they may all become if the programme does not have an in built sustainability component, in other words adequate funds to pay staff, buy cleaning material, maintain the building on a regular basis and that ad infinitum. Hence the loos should be able to ‘raise’ funds in some way of the other.

A few months back an NRI had shown interest in building toilets and asked my humble opinion. That is when my staff and I went on a loo visit in the slums were we work and this had been an eye opener. I had shared my views about the matter in this blog. What we found out was that most of the toilet blocks we visited were in a sorry state not because of the fault in design or even quality but because no one had given adequate thought to how they would be maintained. The poop story needs to be heard.

It is no wonder that the maintenance is so poor. We met the man in ‘charge’. A tired looking thin man who seemed to carry the burden of the world on his frail shoulders. In seems that the blocks are built on a supposedly and ludicrous sustainable model as the in charge only gets to keep the money collected from usage 1 to 2 rupees. In that he has not only to feed hid family but keep the loos clean. He is given nothing: no broom, no pail, no disinfectant, no floor cleaner, no soap- nothing! Normally it is a jet of water, if water there is, that is meant to do the job. No only that, not all people pay. Some get so violent that the poor man has been beaten more than once. A woman goon even slaps him every night as he refused to pay her a 20 rs a day commission. On a good day he makes 150 rupees. Such a model is doomed to fail.

My fear is having loos doting the country that will find the same outcome. I do hope that someone will think about this before it is too late a nd millions and millions of rupees have gone to waste.

What we need is not only to build loos but raise awareness about the dangers of open defecation and above all have communities take ownership of the toilets that are built. Unless we do that, the loo sag may well become a tragedy.

Angels exist. Believe me! In times of despair, they have descended upon us without fail. They are not the winged creatures that fairy tales are made of. They look just like you or me. We had one descend on us yesterday to save the dreams and morrows of our little ones and ensure that they remain safe. Every morning, 35 children from the most deprived homes wait for our three wheeler to arrive and ferry them to project why. They remain there till 4 pm when they are ferried back to their homes. For a few hours they regain their right to be children. They laugh, sing, learn, play. They do what children are meant to do. Sometimes they even to to a park or for an outing as they did some time back when another Angel dropped by and took the out for a treat.

In the time they spend with us in our creche, sometimes 2 to 3 years, they prepare for school and learn their alphabet, their numbers, their rhymes and songs. They learn to hold a pencil, to sit a a desk and to share with others. It is always a delight to stop by and spend some time with them. It lifts you out of the darkest mood without fail.

A few months back we are informed that a large chunk of our monthly donation would be cut, force majeure of course, and we were at our wits end to figure out how we would carry on. As always, it is the weakest who faces the axe, and it was decided that, if the need arose, then we would have to close the creche. Post that decision, I found myself avoiding the creche as I could not face the little eyes that always look at me with the deepest trust.

So I did what I do best and what has always worked. I took to my pen (or rather my keyboard) and poured my heart out. I also turned to the God of Lesser beings, begging for a miracle. The days passed. Then one fine day Angel no 1 appeared and told me that things would work out. She set to task and ferreted Angel no 2 who came with his invisible magic wand and showered invisible dust. My babies were safe.

I think I need to tell you what the plight of children like these is. They come from extremely poor families, often of migrant labour where the father earns a daily wage and the mother struggles to survive. Sometimes she would turn to brewing hooch to bring a little relief tot her loved ones. The father is often a drunk and thus the situation is precarious not to mention the violence that accompanies the bottle. The house, if one can call it that, is actually a damp hole often surrounded by factories that spew smoke and vile discharges that flow in the drain next to the house. The home is so small that children are pushed out and condemned to play in the filthy and insalubrious surroundings, or the busy road where car and track  fumes abound. Far too often the drains are blocked and what goes for a playground is covered in drain water. Yet children play there all the time. Is this what India’s capital city has on offer for its tiniest inhabitants?

I sometimes or rather too often wish that I had sufficient resources to reach out to every child in need, but alas even protecting my 35 is sometimes a challenge.

Today is children’s day. Maybe we should remember the children who have been let down by all of us.

Once again my super girls have done me proud. I just got a call informing me that Babli, Meher and Manisha, the three project why girls who study in boarding school had got prizes for their academic performance. They were felicitated at their Annual day which is still underway and where all three are performing. My thoughts go back to the day when I decided to send them to boarding school in spite of all the criticism, mostly from the rich and privileged who could not accept the fact that children from the most deprived homes should be given such an opportunity. But I stood my ground and sent them anyway. Some of you may know their stories but for those who do not I think they should be revealed again.

Babli came to us way many years ago. The child could barely breathe as she had a hole in her hearts and her family was too poor to come up with the money needed for her surgery. In spite of her poor medical condition, Babli was a spirited child with big dreams: she wanted to be a policewoman. We raised the money for her surgery and she was back on her feet. She came back to project why for some time and then stopped coming. To our horror we discovered that she was managing her father’s cart while he played cards. It was time to take out the big guns and we did. When the opportunity arose and with the help of some kind hearted supporters we were able to send her to boarding school. She has never looked back and is now in class VII. I know her future is bright and she will fulfil her dreams.

When we first saw Meher, she was rummaging for food in a garbage dump. She had been severely burnt she she was a few months old and was  badly scarred. But more than that her fingers had fused and she had lost the use of her hands. Thanks to the determination of a volunteer who moved heaven and earth, funds were raised for a series of reconstructive surgery that gave her back the use of her hands and took care of the worst scars. But what she needed to break the cycle of poverty in which she was born was an education and she was admitted to the same boarding school. A true imp, she excels in all activities and is set to conquer many heights.

Manisha comes from an extremely poor family. Her mother is a rag picker and her father barely works. A bright child she was doomed to a life of poverty and would have most probably been condemned to child labour. Today she is studying hard to be able to change her destiny.

To all my detractors I would like to say that every child deserves a bright future and the fact that they are denied this, is because we have forsaken them.

I have never regretted sending these girls to the best school and they never stop doing me proud.

Well done little ones. I love you.

I rarely visit swanky buildings that house corporate offices but yesterday I needed to meet someone whose office is located in one such building. The building bears the lofty name of International Trade Tower and is located near my home. I had gone with Rani and as we alighted from the scooter, our eyes fell on a pile of rubbish. Now rubbish, dirt, filth and all the synonyms possible are the flavour of the day post our new PM’s Clean India Mission. We at project why have been thinking about how to approach the issue and many debates have ensued. My take is that what is important is not to rush with a broom and ‘sweep’ the surroundings but look at the problem differently. It is quite useless to clean areas if one does not go to the root cause: where does the filth originate from. I have asked my staff to take this up with the students beginning with a simple exercise. Each child should be asked to make a list of the rubbish he/she sees on the way home and identify its origin. It is obvious that 99% of the garbage comes from us in the form of wrappers of all kinds and things that we simply throw without a thought. To Clean India one has to find ways of education and sensitising people into not throwing, spitting etc. How does one do that is a million dollar question. I think, like was suggested by a participant in a recent debate that one should get schools involved and work ones way up.

But let us come back to the building. After our meeting Rani and I decided to walk down the six flight of stairs as I do not like elevators and as we walked down we find these two cups of unfinished tea on two steps with of course no one in sight. Proves my point does it not? We have got used to chucking our garbage just anywhere. No one is in the habit of looking for dustbins or garbage cans.

Where does it all stem from? It is anyone guess. Is it because of the ingrained division of labour that  makes us believe that someone else will come and clean after us and makes cleaning below ones station in life unless you are born in the cleaning clan? Is it because many of us, particularly boys that have grown into men have never done an iota of house work always having mom or sis to clean up after them? Funnily the person who litters with alacrity and impunity in India will never do so in another country. Is it because laws are stringent in those lands. Maybe we should have a law like in Singapore where you are fined 1000$ the first time, 5000 the next and the third time have to wear a lovely sign, which states, “I am a litter lout”. Will the name and shame work in India? I do not know but I know that laws do not work. We have had a law banning plastic bags for years now with no avail. Seems like laws are on paper or better than that: you can always pay your way out. Even laws for your own safety like wearing a helmet are violated. Maybe we just do not like laws.

I could not end this post without talking of yesterday’s gem. As Clean India is the flavour of the day everyone is cleaning but some do it with for photo ops and tone politically correct. A bunch of politicians decided to pick the broom and clean a road. However the road in question was perhaps one of the cleanest in Delhi and thus dirt had to be bought and dumped on the clean road for our well dressed politicians to pick a broom and sweep. I have nothing else to say!

Meet Nirvi. She is all of eight months old and is the new admission to our creche. Everyone, her mom and gran most of all, thought she would cry and make a fuss but our little Nirvi took her new class better than a fish takes to water. Far from crying the little imp had an array of tricks up her sleeve to charm one and all. Like a true pro she handed back the toy given to her by one of her classmates to show that she knew all about the game of give and take. She played with all the toys given to her by the over solicitous teacher who like all else believed that this eight month old would need special handling. In no time Miss Nirvi had established that she new the rules of the creche and needed no special care.

But that is not all. Our little fiend to took the show one step further. She decided to ‘charm’ the volunteers and particularly one young man out of his wits. She fluttered her eye lashes and doled out sweet smiles and in no time had walked into the unsuspecting man’s heart. Wonder who will shed tears when parting times come.

The one thing she does not do is cry. Crying is for babies. It is certainly not fore eight months old like our Nirvi. She spends the whole morning in the class playing with her mates and entertaining the likes of me. Two days back after a long I spent some time at the creche with, your guessed right, Nirvi! We played a host of games and laughed a lot but more than anything, the moments spent with her showed me how important our creche was in the lives of little souls, more so those who are deprived of everything a child needs and should get.

Thank you Nirvi. I needed this lesson.

Many have been wondering why I do am not writing as regularly as I did before and I think that I owe all an answer. First and foremost let me let the proverbial cat out of the bag. For the past months I have been writing my next book which is the project why story and gave decided of late to hurry it up a little and hence have been neglecting the blog. Mea Culpa. In my defence I can only say that though the heart is still young the body has aged and thugs cannot perform as efficiently as earlier. I really think that the project why story is one that needs to be told as it is in many ways the story of India viewed through a unique prism and seen with ones heart. Much of the story lies in the recesses of my memory and need to be ferreted out before synapses snap.

But that is  not the sole reason for my silence. As it is revealing time, I guess I need to share a rather covert tactic I have devised to ensure that my incredible team and support team take on the reporting role I have held till date. This tactic is borrowed from Randy Pausch head fake tactic, which is a way of getting people to move in another direction surreptitiously. I would urge you to read Pausch’s Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon, delivered shortly before he passed away. It is most touching and ends with these words: So today’s talk was about my childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and some lessonslearned. But did you figure out the head fake?It’s not about how to achieve yourdreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take careof itself. The dreams will come to you.Have you figured out the second head fake? The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids. So maybe my silence is the head fake that will bring my team to begin writing about project why. I can feel that we are at take off point and wait with bated breath for the first salvo.

Even though I have been absent from project why and that too for a well thought of reason where my gamble has paid handsomely, I share each and every heart beat of the project and am privy to all its trials and tribulations. You see seeing with your heart is nothing short of magical.

I miss early days when I spent time at the project but I know that every parent has to accept that the child will fly the coop and cop me on which teenager likes to be watched by his/her parents and project why is 14! I will simply watch from the wings to make sure that I am there when needed.

Serendipity is the occurrence of event by chance and in a happy way and synchronicity is the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear related but have no real causal connection. So says the dictionary. Life is full of both, but we often fail to make the connections. I am in the midst of reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande a book that has been heralded as life changing. That the subject matter is death should not deter you in any way; it is a moving and humane and urges you to aspire not for a good death but a good life lived to the very last in dignity and joy. As I read the pages, a host of memories long forgotten come back and took on a new meaning. I could now understand my mother’s obsessive and sometimes childlike desire to not live where she not able to walk to the bathroom and wash her own undergarments. It was her choice. Just as refusing treatment for her advanced cancer was her choice. I must admit rather sheepishly today that pa and I did resent it though our love for her was so strong that it transcended logic. Kamala knew that if she took one step in the direction of conventional medicine it would be a free fall and strip her of her dignity. For her pain was acceptable, loss of dignity was not and she died on her own terms with a smile on her face. So remember this if any loved one makes a choice that does not seem right to you; he or she has the right to make that choice. Atul Gawande puts in words what we all refuse to accept: the obsession medical fraternity has to prolong life at all costs is more for us then for the elder we subject to it. I do not think any one in our right state of mind would want life at all costs. I for one have stated in no uncertain terms that I do not wish to be put on life support.

When mama was detected with cancer, though the word C was never mentioned in our home, she told us in no uncertain terms that had I been younger she may have considered medical support but she felt she was ready to go on her terms as she had seen me married, played with her grandchildren and wanted her husband to send her off. That was her choice and we agreed to play along. There was no place for logic or reason. It was all a matter of seeing with ones heart.

I still do not know where I stand but Gawande’s book made me aware of how serendipitous Project Why was for me personally. He argues that the quality of life in our twilight years greatly depends on our sense of purpose and usefulness. He recounts how Dr Bill Thomas decided to bring ‘life’ into a nursing facility for sever lay disabled elderly residents: he simply brought in plants, animals and children and everything changed! The residents who earlier had no ‘reason’ to love for suddenly felt ‘responsible’ for the plant in their room or animal on their floor and played with the staff children when they visited. The results were for all to see: the number of prescriptions diminished and so did the cost. I was reminded of the Little Prince and his rose: he has to go back to his planet because he is responsible for his rose.

Project Why saw the life of day when I was touching half a century and somewhat lost. The children had grown, the parents had moved on and life seemed without purpose. Enter Manu and with him countless children that still colour my day and whose dreams are in my custody. And if God remains on board then this will remain true all the way till the end. This I realise today is the greatest gift of all and I am humbled and deeply grateful.

We all need a purpose in life and whereas once life expectancy was shorter and not prolonged by medicine with contented itself to a palliative role, today the spectre of death in a brightly lit ICU where the concept of time is warped and where machines taken the role of the body is very real. In the name of love we subject our helpless loved ones to a terrible ordeal.

Gawande recalls how death once happened in the comfort of the home, with some medical care, where one was surrounded by familiar objects and those one loved. Today there are scant famous last words or simple farewells, be it just holding hands. The whole art of dying has been rewritten in language that is sadly inhumane. No priest or chants but the whirring of a ventilator or the bleeping of a heart monitor. How lonely death has become.

I was blessed again to have bid farewell to my parents at home and on their won terms. I heard their last words and could say good bye in what was home, giving them their final sip of water and chanting the prayers that they had so lovingly taught me.