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.