by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 9, 2005 | Uncategorized
It was a very special afternoon on planet why..
At 1 pm the children of the special section were ready to receive their guests. There was a sense of palpable excitement as their classroom got ready for the show: a big screen, a LCD projector, a young indian astronomer and the senior primary and secondary girls. Over 50 people crowded in the little room where Pranjal was about to take them to a journey across the solar system…
A motley crowd it was where difference was the uniting factor. People no one would have put together to watch such a show. Yet they sat as the msyteries of the universe got unravelled by this young scientist who intuitively knew how to reach every single mind, with simple words and stunning pictures so that each one, could travel and dream for that one moment in time…
One again planet why had conjured its magic… as for that one hour all differences were left outside and only the joy of learning remained..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 8, 2005 | Uncategorized
Mili died last night.. as quietly as she came in to our lives …
She found us when we were hurting, and adopted us. She put up with all our tantrums and ways whereby we humans decide the way our animal friends should live. She delighted us with innumerable antics and filled the empty space with joy.
But she was a child of the wild and could never forget that. She fought the tomcat, and attacked birds to our misplaced horror. She put up with us as we tried to domesticate her.. Then one day she was all grown up and needed to follow her instinct. A huge court of admirers she had and we were quite helpless.. Some felt she should be let free, but she always came back.. An uncaring adult even called her names.. was that the day she decided that this world was not for her..
But the harm had been done once again by adults who do not understand. She had got used to us, to the comforts she got and had forgotten some of her survival skills. Two days back she was hit by a vehicle and came back howling to what had a become home. We took her to the vet who said she was just shocked and would be allright… We tried to nurse her back to health but she had decided otherwise…
We found her inert body… her free spirit had flown away.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 7, 2005 | Uncategorized
When the kids of sudhar camp aka potty nagar were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up the answer was: teachers, doctors, firemen, policemen…
Now the parents of these children left their homes to eek out a better living in the city and do menial jobs: rickshaw pullers, vegetable vendors, household servants, small shopkeepers then how and how can their kids dare dream otherwise..
This was the reaction of a visitor from another land.. with malice to none I would like to ask a simple question: does not one see children of workers become doctors in their homeland..
Come to think of it, maybe that is where the tragedy of our land lies: the labels we stick on people that stiffle their future. So the son of a domestic worker will remain that even if he becomes a CEO! That is probably the modern day avatar of the erstwhile caste system.
We at project why dare to dream and teach our children to do so.. if they cannot fulfill their dream, they can fulfill it for their children…and the road is one: education, the one possession no one can steal or take away from you..
India will change when quality education is imparted in each and every school, and that can only happen when our modern rulers accept to do it, when NFEs and parallel systems of learning are done away with…
And have you ever thought that in the dream the child expreses lies the hurt he has seen: and if a sudhar camp kid aspires to be a doctor it may simply because of all those who died around him because no doctor was there to help, or if he wants to be a policeman it is because of the helplesness he felt as a tiny tot when policemen humiliated his father in front of his eyes..
I do hope that out of this anger and hurt comes out the will to break invisible barriers and fulfill impossible dreams..
Children have a right to dream, so please do not take away that right from them…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 5, 2005 | lohars
I dropped by the Lohar camp today and once again was taken in by the warmth and generosity of this proud people. Kamlesh was cooking makki rotis and I got treated to one, topped with sarson saag and oodles of white butter.
From the corner of my eye, I saw that the quantity of dough kneaded was tiny and that maybe what was being offered to me with so much love was someone’s much deserved lunch. But then not accepting it would be he ultimate humiliation for this proud people. I sat on the proferred charpoy, on the main road to the amused looks passers by, and savoured this offering of love…
We set down to discuss what I had come for and I was, once again, taken in by the rapidity with which everything I said was understood and improved on.. Then I walked through the basti – just 32 ramshackle tents along the main road – to greet old friends. As I walked I sensed that something was amiss. The smiles were there and the warmth too, but there seemed to be a lassitude, an imperceptible feeling of hopelesness that I had not see earlier. It was more than understandable: it had now been almost 4 long years since we started our project in the basti and launched our legal battle to get the Lohars what had been promised to them: permanent shelter. The Public Interest Litigation is still pending in the High Court. Our plea to the NHRC for the plight of these children remained unheard. These children of India, who enjoy the same constitutional rights as yours or mine, see the light of day in dingy tents, getting their first breath of car fumes instead of fresh air…
They came to the city much before other migrants, over 55 years ago and still live on roadsides. Vague and empty promises were made to them as their tents were given a smart sounding address – rana pratap camp – thus bringing them into the voter’s net. But they lie forgotten, waiting for a miracle.
Their children have grown with urban tastes and want to be included in what is their rightful home. But they bear the brunt of labels given to nomads the world over. Yetwhen you ask them what their favourite food is they reply in unison: pizza!
Habitat for the poor is an alarming problem. Haphazard constructions on reclaimed land led to the Bombay and more recent Chennai floods. The sad part is that no real solution will emerge as they would shake the precarious political equations in place.
One has to seriously think of telling people to take back the skills acquired to their habitat of origin to ease out the pressure that will choke our cities to death. Habitat with basic amenities have to be built for those that will remian, as we must not forget that their form an integral part of our society in which they have a vital role to play.
We try at pwhy to make the children realise this by valorising their habitat of origin and tellin them that they need to take back what they have learnt to other children in the villages, as every child cannot come and live in cities. this is one of the reasons the pwhy model is based on in-house resources.
I am not one to beleive that this will not happen some day.. when the people themselves realise what is best for them.. recently the mother of 6 children said in the course of converstaion that in the village her children were in better health as they could have access to vegetables and milk and good water, and run in the fields..
I simply smiled… a matter of time it is.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 4, 2005 | Uncategorized
religion was called the opium of the masses by marx..
a panacea for all ills it has become an easy answer to what requires serious consideration, a way of explaining what defies logic..
now have you ever wondered how children get drawn in the net..
a few weeks back as we walked passed a statue of some leader erected high on a pedestal, mr p tugged at my kurta and pointing towards the statue kept saying ‘boman’ boman’ and then folding his hands while he urged me to do the same.. slightly irritated I complied just to ensure that stubborn mr p would agree to move on..
it is much later that I unraveled the mystery of the word ‘boman‘.. well it was ‘bhagavan‘ or god! to this little fellow anything that was big, and made of inert material was a bhagavan and had to be shown respect…
one can wonder how mr p who is an extremely sensitive child perceives this entity: something big, something to be scared off, to be wondered at.. the first message that has been given to him is one of diffidence. Does his mother get angry if the little fellow does not fold his hands?
all will depend on how the lessons proceed… but that is how the first seeds are sown.. at present anything big is ‘boman‘.. with time it will acquire qualities and subtler definitions, and then differences of ‘boman’ will appear, your boman and their boman…
oh how is wish that boman remains boman or at best beauMan – how different the world would be…
