by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 1, 2005 | Uncategorized
guess whose coming to tea…
project why’s very special page ‘3’ ladies… seema, sarita, geeta, urmila, vinita , savitri…
never mind if they live in shanties, or jhuggis, they were invited to a farewell tea by friend and colleague Mylene, with whom they have worked for the past four years…
they would have done any one proud as they turned up at the exact time, dressed in lovely colours and all excited to be in their friend’s house…
as they sat with great poise and dignity no one would have believed that one was a dalit , the other a gypsy and the other a barber’s wife!
They ate blueberry cheesecake and drank their tea, and were delighted to visit Mylene’s home, without a twinge of envy as they looked at the kitchen, far bigger than the home of many of them..
And when it was time to leave, there were many moist eyes, and silent tears… and promised to meet again…
I watched with pride at the small miracles that project why seemed to throw my way… with obsessive regularity…
It takes so little to change people.. a little faith.. a little trust and lots of love…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 1, 2005 | utpal
i had a most moving experience as i watched a scene enacted by two
beings as different as night and day..
one is a little 3 year old indian slum kid and the other a 50 year old
upmarket frenchman ..
but they are tied by an invisible thread called love.
so when xavier came by utpal decided to take him to his house.. he
went to fetch the keys from his mom and guided his motley troop of
xavier anu..ma’am, and tuntun (the scooter driver) to his house.. he opened the first door
then the second and led us into his one room home with the confidence of an adult and the grace of the best host you could think of..
he switched the fan on, requested xavier to take his shoes off and sit on the bed.. then he sat himself , after havingtaken off his sandals..
anu with the impatience and foolishness that only an adult is capable off said something silly like “come on they are waiting for lunch”..
utpal looked around and saw that there were two pots on the slab that is the kitchen and said “you will eat here, there is fish and rice”..
the pots however only had water in them, he looked a little perplexed, but then got off the bed and filled a glass with the water and offered it to xavier, who drank it not giving anyone the chance to comment on its origin or cleanliness!
i watched with tears welling up my eyes and a tightness in my throat what to me was sudama feeding krishna …
and i saw the look of love on the two faces as they looked at each other in total silence before big krishna swept tiny sudama into his arms,turning his face away so that we would not see the unshed tear…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 28, 2005 | Uncategorized
One dream one soul one prize one goal
One golden glance of what should be
It’s a kind of magic
One shaft of light that shows the way
No mortal man can win this day
It’s a kind of magic
The bell that rings inside your mind
Is challenging the doors of time
wrote roger taylor for the rock group queen…
strange that these words came to my mind today… the day after having had to face some of the social ills that continue to plague our society: caste, women ruled by their husbands, narrow mindedness..
yet this morning when i saw the little project why inhabitants getting ready for their morning activities, i was once again touched by the magic of our little planet…
look at the little souls in the picture.. a happy lot they seem, intrigued at the presence of the big ma’am…
did you know that one is dalit, the other a muslim, the third a watermark brahman, and yet another a nepali; one is orphaned, the other illegitimate, another is a gypsy; some are very poor others own scooters, some live in airless shanties while the others in well cooled flats… would you be able to stick the correct label on the right forehead…
and yet they as the song says, they are the shaft of life we seek but do not recognise… soon they will be taught the ugly and divisive side of life, but today they are touched by the magic… the magic of planet why..
shhhh.. do not disturb them… it’s a kind of magic
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 26, 2005 | manu
This is nanhe, nanhe means small or tiny.. he came to us a year ago, could not walk, was incontinent, and barely spoke… we put in with the creche children were he spent time on a chair looking at others ..
A few weeks back, we decided to ‘promote’ him to the special section.
Nanhe loved this change as somehow started interacting with his peer group and learning new things: puzzles, hesitant steps, smiles and sounds, sharing his food, anything to say ‘main hoon na‘! ‘hey, here i am, look at me‘ and of course the unexpressed words only audible if you listen with your heart: please love me!
All seemed well on planet why.. till an ugly incident occured bringing a simple question to my mind: when today is over for nanhe.. what about tomorrow.
One of the daily tasks of the special section is to give manu a bath. Manu, the one for whom project why saw the light.. Manu the child like adult, the child of the lesser god, the one with all the labels saying ‘wrong’ stuck on his head, and Manu’s bath, not a pleasant task i agree, is such an issue, but one that brings out the ugly side of India.
There are those who accept this task with love, those who do it as an act of charity, those that do it because it needs to be done and then recently some that refused.. citing all kinds of unacceptable reasons…
When logic and humanity did not work, the axe had to fall and it has on two persons. For us it was a simple matter of fairness and equality: what is right for one has to be for all..
Threats have ensued, threats of violence, threats of legal action and we will take them head on, as the question does not stop with manu, when today is over.. other boys in need of care and love and help would have grown up.. and the solution does no lie in employing a person of the risgh caste, age, sex, creed to do tasks one does not want to do.. creating barriers that seem to difficult to bring down today..
if tomorrow has to come, then barriers have to be broken with the heart!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 23, 2005 | Uncategorized
stay hungry, stay foolish
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dotswill somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Steve Job
Today I had to put my 7 year old dog, Cleo , to sleep. Cleo has been sick since the time she was born. She was a bull mastiff ; but Cleo was also the result of human greed whereby one forgets that nature has laws that should not be broken: Cleo was the result of extreme in breeding. She came to us one night and one look at her was enough to realise that nothing was right: from her distorted legs, to her tongue that was too long: but she was beautiful and we all fell in love with her huge melting brown eyes.
she lived a brave valiant life in spite of her kidneys having failed.. at the end she could barely stand and was in pain.. and today I put her out of her misery… all could say to her as I held her was ‘sorry’..
I was far more disturbed than I thought I would be and shared my pain with a dear friend who sent me a mail with the text of steve job’s speech delivered recently to a group of students. The words somehow dealt with all the questions that were crowding my mind…
You can read the speech here.
many times, when things are not quite the way you want them to be, you wonder why and it is only much later that the dots get connected into often a perfect picture..
Steve goes on to say:
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
And thinking back I am blessed as I have found what I love in project why and the rewards I get every day of my life.
I just had not realised it ..
