by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 18, 2006 | utpal
I have always loved the Greek word ‘hubris’. The dictionary gives many meanings to it: from arrogance, to pride to cockiness.
According to me there is only one being who has the right to be hubristic and that is God him/herself, in whatever shade or colour you may want. Only God can turn desperation into hope.
Many of you may have forgotten J a.k.a Mr P’s mom. There are many who may have written her off as a gone case alky, a bad mother, a woman of lose morals and many more such explicatives.
I have always held that God makes mistakes and then sets on to paint very large and sometimes incomprehensible pictures aimed at setting them right. J is one such case. Her lonely battle to turn the leaf began on a terrible night when little Utpal fell into his boiling pot and we landed in his life. A series of occurrences followed as time was not ripe. Many drunken brawls had to be endured and the abandoned daughter had to make her journey back!
Then on a fateful day in April things hit rock bottom and made us take a tough decision: we had to separate mother and son, Utpal went to boarding school and J into rehab. It was not easy for this woman who was a free spirit. But she held on the nine long months needed to heal.
Next week J will be taking her first hesitant steps towards a new life as she goes to work in a institution where her daughter is waiting. It is time for this mother to make up for lost time with a daughter she has walked away from to live her own private hell. And during the Xmas holidays Utpal will join his little family for a few days.There are still many battles to be won, many pitfalls to avoid but somehow I feel that they will be. It is just a matter of time!
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 17, 2006 | Uncategorized
A few weeks back we were contacted by a organisation asking us to participate in a national effort whereby young bankers of a leading multinational bank would come and spend a day at pwhy as part of the CSR effort.
A draft programme was sent to us and we were asked to send a concrete proposal which we promptly did. The idea was that about 10 such persons would ‘spend the day’ with our kids and participate in various activities.
Then as usual we got caught in our day-to-day life. Yesterday we remembered that the programme was scheduled for this week-end and having not heard from anyone we decided to call them.
Why was I not surprised when we were told that though Bombay and Calcutta had met the required numbers, Delhi had failed to do so. No need to wonder why, Delhi will not give up its Saturday spent mall crawling, star gazing or partying to walk filthy slums and play with poor kids.
Dil deke dekho– dilli – try spending a little of your heart!
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 16, 2006 | sealing
It has been along time since one has written a blog about pwhy children. Somehow the sombre mood and events of the past few weeks had hijacked much of these posts.
But while the city was being held to ransom by the sealing saga and numerous bhands, life did not stop for an instant on planet why. We have had some new admission and one of them was little Himanshu in the creche.
Himanshu and his younger sister are orphans being brought up by their aunt. Right from day one Himanshu seemed a little different and unlike his sister who took to her new friends like a fish to water, Himanshu remained withdrawn, locked in his world, banging his head occasionally or sitting in a corner.
Today we shifted him to the special section so that our very efficient team would assess him. As soon as he entered the room, Himanshu suddenly felt at home. He smiled, and settled down as if he belonged.
After some time, he decided to sit by Nanhe and soon rested his head on Nanhe’s lap a broad smile on his face. Nanhe of course rose to the occasion suddenly as this was the first time in his life that he felt responsible for someone.
We all watched in silence as this was a huge moment for us all.
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 16, 2006 | sealing
I asked my old acquaintance Mishraji why our local DDA market had so many cars parked in front. Mishraji and I go back a long time, when he worked at a provision store in M block market GK1 and I shopped there for my daily needs. That was about 25 years ago!
Today Mishraji works the local chemist in the DDA market the store he worked in then is now a lingerie boutique!
“behanji, did you know that there were 34 provisions stores in M block market in those days, now there is only one, so the many residents of diverse blocks in GK 1 come to the two provision shops here”, was Mishraji’s answer.
A zany thought crossed my mind: will they one day seal this tiny complex because of traffic snarls!
Thinking back I do remember many such stores; they all disappeared giving way to showrooms that sell jewellery, fancy shoes, fancy apparel, sports goods, crystal ware and more of the same. And shoppers comes from across the city and even across the country, in their cars and create those terrible traffic jams.
This blog is not about rules and the breaking of them. It is an epitaph to days gone by, days that remain forgotten memories in the now tired heads of the likes of Mishraji and I. With malls, and showrooms the bond that existed between the shopkeeper and the client is gone and in its place is a business like exchange. I guess one has to move with time but some of us still long for the days when things were different.
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 16, 2006 | girl child
She is 11, goes to school but there is a catch; she has been married to a man more than twice her age who is also the husband of her handicapped sister.
The future of children and particularly girls with disabilities has always been a source of concern.
Often their already grim lives turn to nightmares after the demise of their mother when the reins of the home passes on to a new entrant: the elder daughter-in-law.
It is for this reason that we try at pwhy to teach each and every special child basic living skills so that he or she can remain within the home. Often we have to argue with parents who try and see the child as normal and chart out a life for her which leads to marriage as the very Ponce Pilatus option: I would have washed my hands off her. No one ever thinks of the plight of the girl in a new home.
Yesterday a TV channel aired a story that disturbed me a lot. A father had married his deaf and dumb girl to a much older man; only there was a catch: he also married his 11 year old second daughter to the same man! His explanation was brutally simple: his disabled daughter would find a home.
The understanding was that daughter no 2 – still a child – would remain in her parental home till she finished school. Only that is not what happened, soon after daughter no 1’s wedding, the in-laws started abusing her and insisted that daughter no 2 come immediately. Apparently this case is not unique, many parents of disabled daughters have had recourse to this.
I know that everyone reading this blog will be horrified, but seven years in pwhy have taught me to look at the larger picture before condemning anyone. True that the authorities have moved in, the father is behind bars, the younger daughter still in school does not quite understand the situation, and the handicapped young woman is back home, her future as bleak as ever.
Now had the ‘deal’ worked, it would have remained a secret and the sisters would have lived together. The larger question nobody seems to be addressing is: what will happen to them now and what is the future of the innumerable young women with disabilities in a country that has no option for them?
Powered by Qumana
