I was taken aback this morning when I opened my mailbox to see a mail with the subject being: child labour. Imagine my absolute horror when I opened it and saw a petition to ask the Government to drop a proposed amendment to the child labour laws that would allow children below 14 to work in what they call ‘family enterprises’! It took me some time to process what I was seeing. I then searched the net to find out more and fell on an article very aptly titled: The Modi Government Is About to Make Child Labour Legal Again, And Has a Horrifying Reason To Justify It. I must confess that the rather toxic cocktail of heat+fever+work+IPL has impaired my access to news as news time is also cricket match time. I still do not know how I missed this one as I usually have a sound ear where children are concerned. Anyway before my rant and raves let me bring you to date with the intent of this horrific proposal. If the amendment is not shot down and I hope you will all join in helping doing so, then the hard work done in the field of child labour, work that has even been hailed by the Nobel Committee, is about to go down the drain as according to the amendment children under 14 till now protected by the existing law, will be allowed to work in ‘family enterprises’! And before you say anything let me enlighten you to the fact that ‘family enterprises’ include carpet-weaving, beedi-rolling, gem-polishing, lock-making and matchbox-making. And if that was not all, family enterprises also apply to entertainment and sports. The existing law + the Right to Education Act had entailed a drop in child labour from 12.6 million in 2001 to 4.3 million in 2014. Now, if we do not SCREAM and stop this aberration the figure will take quantum leaps. The girl child who is already deprived as is evident in the 64 against 82% literacy, will be kept home for housework and denied her right to education.

I can barely hold my rants but the article quoted above has some more horrendous justifications to this retrograde and inhuman amendment. According to the skewed rationale of our honourable minister of labour this will give kids an entrepreneurial spirit. But as the article caustically remarks not every tea vendor goes on to become PM. And come on the term: family enterprise is opened to every interpretation under the sun. Wily entrepreneurs will walk the whole nine yards to traffic children as cheap labour. A child activist painted the grim picture of what awaits children were this amendment passed: “All our campaigns to end bonded child labour, starting from the 1980s, will go up in smoke. Schools will be emptied out and poor children in states such as Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh will be back to working in sheds and makeshift factories that will all go by the nomenclature of family enterprises. The worst-hit will be the children of Dalits, Muslims, tribal families and those belonging to marginalised communities.”

I need to take a deep breath.

All the work we have done comes undone. True the laws were not implemented but for those of us who found our voice and indignation of a child working and reported the employer will now have no law to back us. This thoughtless amendment makes beggar children, dancing children, children working in tea shops and sweatshops legal as all these can be termed ‘family enterprises”.

The children in this picture also will be deemed legal as their families are construction labour. More pennies in the pockets of the contractor who can get them cheap. The list is endless, each more nightmarish than the other as by one stroke of the pen the state will legalise all forms of child labour. So hold on, are these not the children who also have a right to education till age 14? Then how does the equation work? It does not for me as  am one of those who believe that children should have a right to be educated all the way and even 14 is too young for them to work.

Children need to be nurtured, cared for, loved and educated. They have the rift to learn, to play, to laugh and even to do mischief. Any self respecting society should ensure that. Children working is a shameful blot on any society worth its salt. I cannot begin to fathom how such an amendment has even been thought of.

Made in India takes on a whole new meaning; this one is nothing short of unpalatable.

Let us for once raise our frozen and mute voices and ensure that this does not happen.

 If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice wrote the German Mystic Meister Eckhart. It is almost frightening to see how easily we ‘rush’ to pray when faced with adversity often not quite knowing what to pray for and ask for the first thing that comes to our mind  guided by our hearts and not our reason, and though I am the one who has always propounded the importance of looking with your heart, I have learnt the hard way that when ‘seeking’ you must let the heart take a back seat and bring out reason. I remember praying hard for my father to ‘live’ after his brutal and barbaric surgery till the day when I saw his pain and suffering and the emptiness of his life with mama gone and we on the verge of leaving for Paris. In the state he was, there was no way he would resume a normal life: the surgeons had ensured that. So why was I praying for him to live. I reworded my prayer making only one option possible. I asked for either restoration of his perfect health or his release. He passed away 20 minutes later, having asked for his glasses to look at the picture of his wife that hung on the opposite wall. A smile touched his lips before he  exhaled his least breath.

That day I had found the exact wording for my prayer but you often never do.

Normally one remembers God and prays in time of strife and trouble, when our pet hubris fails us and a rude shock brings us to earth. Then one hurriedly conjures a prayer and sends it out. Far too often it is not the right one. Last week a dear friend and my staunchest supporter was in town and talked about the elusive pot of gold that someone has ‘promised’ to give us next year to build our sustainability programme. Neither of us truly believe in it as the same person held out one such pot some years ago and never gave it. But what came out of our little chat was also the danger of having too many strings attached to the pot, strings that may go against the spirit of project why we so cherish. So do you pray for the pot? For the pot without strings? For sustainability? The list is endless and the prayer loses its value.

Prayer has to be humbling. I remember the days when Ranjan was fading away and I was totally lost, my hubris trampled upon and all my carefully nurtured cartesian options an abysmal failure. Along the way I did pray and even held religious ceremonies meant to ward off bad times. But it is only when I reached the point of accepting to crawl on a filthy path to the sanctum sanctorum of a Goddess were she to grant me his health, that doors opened one after the other. I guess sometimes God does test you in his or her own inimitable way. I of course kept my side of the deal!

I did not turn the picture on its head; this is the way Agastya posed!

But there is another way to pray and get what you want without asking. That is to turn the whole matter of praying on its head. Do not ask for anything, just be grateful for everything you have been given and leave the rest to the One upstairs who knows better. That is the true meaning of Eckhart’s words: If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice. We so often forget and take for granted the things we have been given with such magnanimity! If we did find that minute minute to say Thank You, the rest would follow. And if ask you must, leave it to children, God listens to them. 

The new project that was inaugurated last week has been christened! It’s Godfather is none other than our staunchest supporter and the name he chose was: The Yamuna Project. I am so glad he did as I got a bit lost and over the top with options like: ‘in the fields’ or ‘by the riverside’! Today was a special day as thanks to a wonderful soul who truly sees with his heart: the Yamuna Project children had their first lunch. This person  I must ask him whether I can use his name – has promised a hot lunch six days a week for these lovely kids. On the menu today was kidney beans curry, potato and cauliflower curry, rice and chapatis. The food was delicious as was duly reported to me by Xavier who had a bite, and he is a connoisseur of Indian food.

So this little project that landed in our arms thanks to our kind landlord is well on its way and I hope that many will support it. These children are undoubtedly from the end of spectrum. They do not even exist on paper. They world is limited to a 1 km radius.

 I can keep saying that I will not increase the size of pwhy; someone else decides its destiny. The location of this project is idyllic if you set aside the stark reality that surrounds it. You lunch under a tree, in the midst of green fields, with a breeze flowing from the river and the chirping of birds. It is the best al fresco dining experience. I hope I will be able to spend some time there.

But I had to give it a miss today as we had some visitors and potential donors coming to see Okhla. They were extremely kind and very appreciative of our work and wanted to help but there was a catch: they belonged to an organisation that has its set of rules and specific areas where they can help and sadly as always we were not a perfect match.

They very kindly offered to give a ‘scholarship’ to one child per class. This once again brought to the fore my reluctance and I must say that of my team too, to the idea of singling out one child. In my humble and responsible opinion sponsorships are not ideal for the beneficiary though rewarding to the donor. I let my team battle it out and decided to spend some time with the secondary kids. On the spur of the moment I asked them how they felt about one kid being singled out and the concerted reaction was a big NO! I told them that to me each one of them was excellent in his or her own way and thus deserved the best. If one was good in her or his studies, then the other was good in drawing, singing or sports, and what about the one who was always willing to help. It was the right time to talk about the danger of dividing, be it a class, a family or society. That was the first step to its destruction. The children agreed and many gave their opinion. It was a rewarding experience.

Donors often do not understand the finer points and even dangers of what to them is a gesture of kindness. Wanting to reward one child entails many possible scenarios. First of all in our case as pwhy is free it would be difficult to put a ‘tag’ on the cost of a child. At best a school bag, some clothes, books…a treat! But then ask yourself how the other children would feel. And ultimately the beneficiary may find herself isolated by her peer group. But that is not all. Should we accept the offer we would have a posse of angry mothers at our doorstep the next morning asking why their kid was not given the bag etc. And then in a jiffy all that ails India would spew out: caste, religion, state of origin, you name it.

Till date I have been blessed by donors who have trusted me implicitly and in some cases even convinced their Board of Directors to bend rules as they felt that the money given was always used with utmost honesty. They have never questioned my decisions but lauded them. And that is the way I want it to remain as that is the spirit of project why, one that I have kept alive with utmost love.

So instead of helping one child per class, it would be so much better and wiser to sponsor the salary of one teacher: that would mean helping 40 kids! But then in the lexicon of organised donor agencies, the word salary is anathema. Never mind if the teacher in question comes from the same social strata as the children she teaches and her salary keeps her kitchen fire going.

Giving has to be for the right reasons. There are many quotes on ‘giving’ but the one that has always touched me is Jack London’s: A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

Normally I have no problem in writing about any and everything that comes my way. But yesterday for the very first time I was overwhelmed by a surge of emotions that I was unable to process, let alone put down in writing. It is now time to share this unique experience and I hope that my words will do justice to story I am about to tell. When faced with a succession of intense feelings, it is sometimes wiser to take a deep breath and reign in the desire to follow your heart to let reason speak. So let me narrate things as they happened. A few days ago Dharmendra told me about a man who was teaching some children in the proximity of our women centre and needed some support. This had been told to him by our landlord who owns some tracts of agricultural land on the bank of the river and the children in question were the kids of the people who tended to his land on a contractual basis. This was all double Dutch to me as till date I was not aware of the existence of the rural side of the very city I lived in. My first reaction was to say the least not very enthusiastic as keeping pwhy on course was enough of a challenge and the thought of a new item in our budget was anathema. But Dharmendra is not one to give up and if anyone sees with his heart deeper than me, it is him. In his gentle voice he persisted adding that the landlord was willing to give us space and that the cost would be minimal. He requested me to at least come and meet the kids.

I guess he knows me better than I now myself.

I agreed to do so, and as we had three volunteers who had come for Rani’s marriage, I thought it would be a great idea that they to came and ‘met the kids!’ We decided to do so yesterday morning. Before I go any further, I need to share a thought that has haunted me time and again. I have often asked myself the one ‘why’ that has been never shared with others but maybe time has come to do so. That why is simply: why me! Or in other words why was I destined to take the longer road. I know I have come up with a range of clichéd answers that range from the famous paying back a debt to answering the whys that came my way, but deep in my heart I have always felt that someone somewhere held all the strings. I was just an instrument. In recent times, when the weight of the morrows gets heavier to bear, I have also asked myself whether I had reached the end of the road. So I must confess yesterday’s visit did have a tinge of misplaced duty and a slight lack of early days brio. The one surprise that did put a smile on my face was the fact that the husband accepted Dharmendra’s invitation to be one of the party.

We drove from the women centre towards the riverbank, first on a reasonably good road and then turned onto a bumpy one that led us straight to the fields. After a short while all we saw were tracts of vegetable patches dotted by a few thatched dwellings. The buzz of the city had vanished though it was but a short distance away. We stopped near a cluster of such dwellings, and behind one of them, under a beautiful tree and next to a well sat a group of children between the ages of 4 and 14. They all had books and copy books in front of them. A middle aged gentleman nudged them to wish us and they did, albeit hesitantly. The gentleman was their teacher. For an instant time stopped and my heart missed a beat as I felt a huge sense of belonging. It felt like coming home. The teacher asked the children to introduce themselves and show us their work and we were all impressed by their well kept copy books, neat handwriting and shy pride as they showed us what they had achieved. Slowly the story unfolded, another story of India, one that could have remained untold.

These children had never been to school and the work we saw was the fruit of two years of unstinted effort by one man. This man was a government school teacher who left his job because of the uncaring attitude of his colleagues and their lack of desire to teach. He decided to do something meaningful. Belonging to the same district as the one these children belong to, he knew of their existence and the plight of the agricultural labour who had left their villages in search of a better life. They had finally settled in this area where they tended to the land of rich landlords to whom they paid a yearly sum. They grew vegetables, the very ones that reach our doorstep. The children helped in the fields and never went to school. Our caring teacher decided to change things and teach these kids. To ensure that their education was validated, he registered them in a school in a village in the adjoining state and worked out a system by which they would get their certificates. The system worked spot on. The teacher took some money from the parents and met his added needs by taking tuitions classes in the evening. In a span of two years he had ‘mainstreamed’ these kids.

I listened bewildered and humbled as he told his tale. My eyes smarted and my throat constricted but I held my tears. As I heard the man speak my father’s dying words : Don’t lose faith in India, came to my mind. The man telling his story in a soft voice spelt: HOPE. The children and their pristine copy  books filled with beautiful writing were a stark reminder of how we had failed them and how worthy they were of our care and attention.

As far as I know, these kids do not exist. Their parents have no papers, they are not registered in any school, they do not appear on any enumeration list, they are invisible. They read about the metro but have never seen one, let alone ride one though a metro station is being build a short distance away. They have read about India Gate but have never seen it. They read about wild animals but have never been to the zoo. Their world is limited to a radius of one kilometre. It ends at the shadowy figures of the tall buildings of Noida seen in the mist. Every year, when the rains come, their homes get flooded and they move to the top of the embankment waiting for the waters to recede. They spend their day playing or working in the fields where extra pairs of hands are welcome, even if they are tiny. They look at you bewildered when you ask them what they like doing. Come on! There is only one answer: studying! And when you prod a little and ask them what they like eating some may come up with the name of a sweet. So you wreck your brain and look for the question that would result in an answer that would make them seem better than you and the penny drops: what grows in your field? And pat come the answer: tomatoes, gourds, aubergines, beans…. So you tell them that you have never seen them in the field but only in shops and they laugh wholeheartedly like only children can. And for that tiny moment you forget that these are invisible children no one cares for. Then the anger, the rage, the feeling of helplessness! What can you do to change things. And your mind runs wild: a bus trip, a metro ride, a visit to the zoo! Perhaps. But what you need is to change their lives, to bring them into the light, to give them their usurped rights.

These are children of India, remember! The ones who are protected by rights, the ones for whom programmes are made ad nauseum and never truly implemented. But then how can you get rights when you do not exist. As their teacher told us with extreme wisdom, these children live the same life as children centuries ago, tilling the alluvial plain and moving to the banks when their homes are flooded to move back again and again and again. Nothing changes nor has changed.

We will do whatever we can. These are just a handful of children whose parents did agree to send them to school for two hours and even pay the small amount the teacher sought. But there are hundreds and hundreds of such children that dot the riverside. Some parents prefer spending the extra coins on hooch; others feel education is useless and a waste of valuable time.

The space we have been given is a cowshed that once housed two jersey cows owned by our landlord. They have found better pastures. The shed will now house the new project why outreach that I feel like calling ‘project why in the fields’. It will house the dreams and aspirations of these very very special children, dreams that have been entrusted to us.  We will do our best but the questions remain and the anger too. Is this the India the likes of my mama fought for? Is being in power sine-qua-non to losing your values and the ability to see with your heart? When will India be truly free!

It all started with the question why me? Because there is no option. Because it is His will! Call it serendipity but two cameos gave credence to my thoughts. The first was that my husband was not only there with me but was moved enough to spend time listening to a little girl read him a lesson in English. Ranjan is not an expressive man and in all these years he has rarely, if ever connected with children even  on the rare occasions he visited project why. But here he was gently encouraging the little girl. Needless to say, I was floored. And if that was not the wink from the Gods I sought, I got another in the garb of a wonderful soul who is willing to provide these children with a healthy lunch and also give them all the resources they need!

Need I say more?

Just a small point that needs to be made as the country debates the land acquisition bill and the farmers’ rights. The labour that till the land and have to pay a substantially large amount of money to the landlord, irrespective of what they make, irrespective of their loss due to the vagaries of weather are not the ones that receive the compensation given by the State. This goes to the one who ‘owns’ the land.

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light wrote Norman Rice. Around the ides of March 2003, I did dare do so. It was not a little hand but two beautiful eyes that defied all the burns and bandages and met mine. It was love at first sight, a love that has withstood a decade and a half beating all odds.

The reason I remembered this quote today is because someone shared a story with me, one that may not have a happy ending as the odds are against it. It is the tale of two boys whose father was murdered and whose mother was found to be part of the conspiracy and jailed. Some family friend decided, for reasons better known to him, to sponsor a sound education for the boys. A gesture to be lauded if it had been taken to its logical end but for some reason the hand once held out has been withdrawn leaving the young boys in the lurch. It seems that the decision is final though I pray for a miracle.

I wonder what made that family friend commit to help the boys and ‘dare’ to reach out his hand into the darkness of the two little children? Was it the ‘right’ thing to do at that moment? Was it to get the kudos of the entourage? Was it momentary hubris that dwindled when realisation dawned? realisation that the commitment was long term and a tad expensive. Who knows. The reality is that the had that reached out that fateful day to pull these gentle souls into the light is now the hand that will push them back into darkness. It is not easy to walk the talk.

When Utpal walked into my heart, I knew it was till death do us part. At that moment it all seemed so simple. We would nurse the child back to health and ensure that his family was cared for. Another case of hubris! We humans like playing God never realising that it is He and not us who pens the script. The plan that I made went crashing in no time and I could hear the Gods laughing. They had other plans.

As time went by, the script unfolded and obstacles appeared at every corner, but then when you reach out your hand you have no option but to hold on to it and never let go. Utpal and I have weathered many storms and know that there are more to come. This middle age love is put to the test time and again in  unimaginable ways but is also incredibly rewarding.

The child is now a teenager and new challenges are in sight. We will meet them head on. At this moment the critical issue is how to style the hair so that the scars are concealed. This led us to the hair stylist yesterday and we found a solution. The lad went back to school with a smile and a bottle of hair gel that the kind school has allowed him to use. You see when the wind blows then his scars are for all to see, even the girls! I can see what awaits me.