by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 7, 2005 | girl child, utpal
When your teen age daughter or mine gets angry, or upset, or has a fight with the family.. she bangs the door of her room, pops up the volume and waits for one of us to come by.. and make things right
when Durga has a fight she leaves home, wanders dark unsafe streets and lands up at the remand home..
Yet they are both children of India, both have parents and families… so why the difference..
Durga is our little mr popples a.ka. Utpal’s half sister..
Durga was born of the loveless union of a young girl married off to an older man ; it was later found out he was already married.. The young mother was left alone with a child who from the moment of her birth had become an impediment.. She later found another man who promised to take her away from the dreary small village lost somewhere in Bengal and take her to the big city… but he did not want Durga..
Durga grew up in the care of her granny, a free and rebellious child who never found answers for all the questions that she encountered.. granny loved her in her own way but was too old to instill any discipline or order in Durga’s existence.. sometimes an almost unknown mom use to come, ladden with gifts and stories, but left too soon to answer any of the now disturbing questions..
Two years back she even heard about the terrible accident her half brother had.. but what could she do.. then a few months back, as she entered her 12th year granny died and her uncle brought her to delhi… she met her new ‘dad’ and her little endearing half brother.. and above all city life.. where your world is a tiny airless room..
Gone were the fields where you could run, the small vilage where everyone knew you and you felt safe.. this was a whole new ball game and no one had taught her the rules.. and above she had to get used to mom, who was a far cry from the nice smiling woman who had appeared and dispappeared..
So the battle of wits began: each one tried her best, but so much time had passed.. sometimes there was violence, particularly on nights when dad brought a bottle.. she discovered another side of her mom, one that did not fit any of the images she had conjured till now..
One night the fight was too much to bear and Durga ran away.. the parents too drunk to know what had actuatlly happened did not realise her flight till the next day.. by that time Durga had been found by the police patrol and sent to the remand home for children.. a lovely hurting child who had committed no crime.. she was just trying to cope with life..
The police came, the social workers came, the mother was made to feel guilty.. little Durga felt a misplaced sense of importance and declared she did not want to come home but wanted to go with the ‘ladies’!
Days passed and Durga’s family just got on with the task of existing.. I guess the mom felt that she was safe and anyway the Nirmal Chayya institution was near Tihar jail.. miles away..
I had made a mental note of trying to find out about Durga but I must confess that I did not.. a phone call from a kind hearted social officer jolted me back to reality.. she wanted Jhunnu to come and meet her daughter… I decided to go along because I knew inside me that the mother and daughter had to get reunited..
I will not go into the details of the harrowing experience of dealing with the juvenile justice department and the Children’s court.. but simply say that maybe they should walk urban slum streets and get in touch with the real world.. where children become adults and priorities do not obey the law of western child psychology..
All praise to Sapna and her kind heart as she guided me through this unknown world as she more than anyone else understood that Durga had to be rescued from this place and taken home..
It took all the patience I had to answer the incomprehensible and absurd questions thrown at me by people who did not even bother to look in the eye..
Durga was finally released under my supervision and has come home to her loving family, who maybe does not love the way we would imagine, but nevertheless do!
Now mother and daughter have to make up for lost time under the supervision of Utpal whose joy knows no bounds at being reunited with his sibling…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ” M.K Gandhi
Today is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday… the father of our Nation and the nation will render hommage to him… articles will be published and read, some may go to his samadhi and pray, TV cameras will ensure that everyone is informed..
Personally, I never truly understood Gandhi till very recnetly.. though he was present through out my life in the stories lovingly told by a mother who knew him.. yet as I grew up locked in the selfish state that childhood is, such stories seemed far away..
Years went by and Gandhi remained this elusive romantic notion that had brought us freedom.. but to my rebellious mind it remained confined to the past, having no relevance to my reality..
Yet as I look back, I am convinced that the seed of what I was to ultimately do with my life must have been sown while listening to these very accounts …
It is only very recently, when India came alive for me, as I discovered its true meaning in the eyes of the children of project why that Gandhi’s relevance hit me… As I battled each day with new realities, and failed many a times, a friend showed me the Gandhian way, the one where you looked for alternatives rather than bang against doors that would not open. From that day on, things began to change.
There was ho hard and fast rule, with every challenge had to come a new solution provided you were clear in your mind about the goal you wanted to reach, and sadly, wearing a different garb, the goal reamined the same: free India from the shackles of the new masters that bound her.. intolerance, caste , creed, greed, ignorance…
Every day is a battle renewed, a battle against a new invisble enemy and the wisdom lies in your capacity to find the right weapon… therein lies the wisdom of Gandhi for me..
I will end this by recounting the latest and still nascent foe that is slowly conquering the simple minds of theGiri nagar slum dweller …
For the past few weeks there has been a buzz in the lanes of Giri Nagar.. a new way of making quick money. All you have to do is part with 7200 rupees – yes seven thousand two hundred rupees or two months salary for a project why teacher – and then get some more people to do the same, and lo and behold you will become rich.. everyone is talking about this… some hesitantly, others with bravado.. look at R.. he even has a barnd new yellow motorcycle..
At first I did not pay any heed to this, but when one of my staff members asked me for advise, I decided to find ot more. I fell of my chair as I learnt that the 7200 rs were for purchasing a e- learning programme…
Now I have great respect for e-learning and net based activities but what I ask you is how do you expect Soni a semi-literate slum woman, Radhey Shyam my autorickshaw driver or Ram Prashad, the juice vendor to benefit from the CD rom and access code he gets in return for his precious rupees and moreover how do you imagine him being able to sell the same to more of his peers..
The sad thing is that the desire for quick money aptly fuelled by the excellent marketing ploys, has led to many people falling into the trap, some even borrowing the 7200 rs @ of 10% a month from the local moneylender..
True that the urban poor is a huge market for anyone as is substantiated by the pouches that hang in every tea stall – shampoos, sauces, shaving foams.. and much else – but computer learning for those who can barely pay their children school fees is something beyond comprehension..
We all know that many of the unsupecting buyers will never get any return of this huge investment…just the burden of an unpaid debt
I can understand the need for new and emerging markets, but at this price..
I wonder what Mohandad Karamchand Gandhi would have to say…
I know we have a new battle to win….
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 30, 2005 | Uncategorized
for many months I passed by potty nagar.. a name coined by shamikaa for a cluster of ramshackle jhuggis all five hundred of them, where almost 100 families live in rooms piled on each other with rickery ladders in lieu of staircases..
I have already witten about potty nagar in vankakam or namaste and ladder of hope .
yes I had passed this way many times and yet it is only last month that we decided to start an extension class there..
Two weeks ago, when Shipra took the first class there were a handful of kids, a few days later the little room became too small and another larger one was found.. In two days even this tiny room is full to the brim with scores of little hands handing over their note books, and intense and eager eyes pleading for more..
A palapable desire to learn fills the room.. never mind the heat, never mind the fact that one has barely enough place to sit, the class spills out through the open door and more eyes peer at you from down the road..
The experience is unique and overwhelming as you watch these little kids from many parts of India bonding on this little bit of planet why..where differences are forgotten and set aside..
what an incredible clas this is, a vision of a country rearing to go, impatient to meet its destiny..
What did it take to set this up, one teacher, one room and a bunch of true children of India…
makes you want for more…
Can I have more….
note: there is a flip side to potty nagar! Serious accidents take place on these unsafe ladders. A child of 5 died last year, and the mother of one of our class IX student fell last month on a rainy night and succombed to her wounds.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 30, 2005 | Uncategorized
look at them… they are something these three.. dark glasses and all.. our very own genX..
this morning I decided to take a class.. and as we sat I realised that all was not quite as it should be.. most of the bacchas slumped and it took me some time to get everyone to sit up, as I barked instructions the way my pilates instructor does…
After some time and oodles of effort everyone did sit up, though most of them looked terribly ill at ease.. then it was question time and again I was faced with lymphatic kids and barely audible voices..
I decided that we would liven up the class and asked everyone to stand up and tell me what they had done this morning.. from the time they woke up to the time they reached project why..
Himraj started telling his tale and I was horrified to hear that all he had eaten in the morning was a cup of tea.. he revealed that he had had roti and potatoes at dinner, was carrying no lunch and would eat the small amount of free lunch that the municipal corporation doled out at 1pm!
As the class progressed I realised that barring a few kids who had eaten a resonable meal before coming, most of the students, all growing class IV and V boys had had a cup of tea with a rusk or a ‘fan‘, a sliver of bad quality puff pastry…needless to say that those who had eaten well had stay-at-home moms!
In urban slums, when both parents work to earn the elusive rupees, this si what happens to children.. in the village food is plenty even if you are poor: some vegetables do grow in the yard, and mom makes healthy rotis with the cereal of the region, the goat gives a little milk and some local fruit does grow, the water is clean and you run in the open breathing fresh air… and above all there are no rusks or ‘fans‘ as often there are no shops close by…
I am appaled at the poor posture of children in urban India.. where babies cannot crawl as there is no space, where fresh air is non-existent in the little holes you call home..
Is this the eldorado people seek? Maybe time has come for a reverse migration.. teach the children that the future lies in carrying back their newly acquired skills to the village where they come from..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 26, 2005 | Uncategorized
one-rupee-a-day was an intuitive thought that had come to my mind way back in 1998 when project why was a tiny embryon… it seemed to be such a perfect solution.. was not India rich in mumbers.. and a rupee was something easily spared..
like all intuitive thoughts it got pushed back in the face of raised eyebrows, puzzled looks and amused smiles.. copious advise about the ways of goodBiz was proferred: donations, funding organisations, fund raising extravaganza, charity sales and much else.. and the greenhorn that iI was had no option than to take the well trodden path.. somewhat ill at ease I must admit.. to my mind this did not gel with what I had stood for and certainly not with India..
the one-rupee-day kept coming back with obsessive regularity… but I paid all the dues to the goodBiz world, and did the rounds of all that was suggested, and to be honest many options worked and pushed project why into a comfort zone bringing success, kuddos, praise and even recognition..
but the goodBiz had its own hidden rules, one of them being its fleeting nature.. come on ms.B no one does this forever, you must change with times and adapt to the flavour of the day.. now that was not acceptable.. education is life long and not transitory and one does not leave people midway, one empowers them to carry on… and the solutions offered did not work..
reality hit us as we were pushed out of our comfort zone, more than once and each time the one rupee leit motiv sprung back to life. It seemed to have all the answers to problems. If education was perennial then the funding option we sought had to be one that any Indian could participate in and any Indian could steer..
So if we stand by what we set out to do: establish a model that can reach every child and be steered by its own, then all resources have to come from within. Five years of goodBizMessing had finally taught us that we needed to go all out and make the one-rupee-option a success, beating all odds..
But nothing would have prepared us for what was to ensue: a new discovery of India which no one could have imagined.
We launched a multi-pronged appeal to a wide audience: netizens, people from all walks of life through brochures, personal meetings, telephone calls.. and with the replies and reactions a new map of India came alive.
Indians living away from their mother land, be it students or professionals, reacted with overwhelming spontaneity and unadulterated love for their motherland. Individual responses and collective efforts saw the light and bore fruit at breathtaking speed.. needless to say most of them had never seen project why… There was profuse support from unknwon people across India, more so from the southern and western states… the community and weaker sections of society did come forward with suggestions and contributions..
We started feeling elated… come on India numbered one billion hearts, now finding 4000 should be easy..
But it was not so as we were to realise once again.. the cynics appeared with their unbelievable tales.. India’s capital once again took the lead of this tragic Act of the play.. what amazed us the most was the fact that people who had seen project why did not find it in them to write a cheque for 360 rs.. let alone get us contributions from friends.. everything possible was said to deter us, the trophy going to an upmarket restaurant owner who felt that adding one rupee to a bill may lead him to a litigation ten years hence..
Does one give up… the answer is No.. the cynicism is so deep that it has to be set right… if the goodBiz is in such a mess then why should a child in need of help pay the price… it is for us to reinvent ourselves and wipe out misconceptions..
As I look at this new map of India, where the common denominator is its heart and ability to feel compassion for the other, I see boundaries extending way beyond its geographical entity… and if the little hearts are few within its own land then somewhere someone has gone wrong..
The one-rupee-a-day has to work… to set matters right and the last shred of doubt I had was wiped away this morning as I flipped through a magazine which had an article on the children dying of malnutrition in Maharashtra with a photograph of a baby whose ribs you could count but whose eyes still help hope..
No you do not give up on planet India..
