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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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