In my previous post, I had written about the state of sports in the Government school next to our home and the quasi impossibility of doing ‘anything’ to make things better because of the absurd red tape that exists in our country. In short should you want to improve things and offer free help you will be shown the door and even run the risk of getting sued for trespass!

The state of the school grounds is abysmal and no child can play anything without the risk of being hurt. Teams exist on paper and the authorities wait endlessly for the file too move and for the right department to be finally, if ever, chosen to do the simple task of levelling the ground.

Sports are part of the curriculum. There is a sports teacher and a weekly period assigned to the subject.

You cannot imagine in your wildest dream the annual  budget allocation for sports for 2500 children. Hold your breath! It is 8000 Rupees per year, and no I have not missed out a zero, EIGHT THOUSAND RUPEES or 132 US$ or 95 Euros! That is 3.3 rupees per year per child. Need I say more.

I would love to know what our aspiring politicians intend to do about this. Oops I forgot, children are not vote banks!

Today I write an India Story. The reason why I entitle this blog so is that this little story reflects how things work in our beloved land. In an earlier blog I had mentioned how the husband was all excited about starting a sports project in the neighbourhood and how thrilled I was at his finding a project that I truly felt/feel will give him a new lease of life. His first visit to the school went on well as I was told by him. According to him, the Principal was amenable to Ranjan’s ideas and Ranjan who is quite a greenhorn at dealing with the likes of the Principal thought all was hunky dory. Any reasonable person would feel that way. Why should anyone in their right mind refuse free help for their children. Ranjan was ready to make a state of the art facility for the 2500 kids of the school and that too for free. But darling, this is India, and things do not quite work like that. Before he ventured too far in the wrong direction, I knew I had to intervene. You see he had gone to see the Principal of the school with one of my coordinators and must have spoken in an English the poor man could barely comprehend and as things go in India, the man must have nodded along and been lost. For Ranjan it was all spot on and he was busy calling people who would help in his project.

It took me two days to convince Ranjan to make one more trip to the school, this time with me. The ploy I used was that people like the Principal needed a bit of PR or else they would think that one had forgotten them. The real reason was that I wanted to make the Principal talk and state the real picture. The man was all smiles and very welcoming and called his PT teacher to join the talk. It did not take me a minute to have them say that they could do nothing without written permission from the top, whatever the top was. This was still quite incomprehensible to Ranjan as, like any sane person, he could not accept the fact that a Principal could not allow someone to do good for his children for FREE. Ultimately we had to cross the Ts ad dot the Is. The problem was that should the Principal give his permission the powers that be would come down on him and ask him what he got out of the deal and how much money he made. This was a shock to Ranjan but as I said this is India.

The PT teacher then told us that a well wisher had tried to do the same and the then Principal had agreed but sometime later when the activities were well under way they had to be stopped and not only was the Principal called to task and transferred, a case was instituted against the poor man for trespassing on Government land!  Ranjan was shocked and I was relieved. And there is more: the school has been trying to get the grounds levelled for months now but the file is stuck somewhere as no one seems to know which agency will do that: the PWD says it is the Horticultural Department who says they only plant grass and so on and so forth. In the mean time, and this is heart wrenching and infuriating, the children cannot partake in any sorting activity though we were told the school has a cricket team, a hockey team, a kabbadi team, a football team and so on. This is what we do to our children.

Ranjan is determined to beat the system and I know is anyone can it is my man! I want him to because I know that this project will do him immense good. I just hope and pray it happens. I know how hard it is and how you have to dig your heels and not give up.

Sports is an integral part of a sound education system. We have our own India story to tell. The picture you see was taken circa 2004 when we organised our own Sports Day. As you see most of the kids do not have shoes! The ground is uneven and only determined and motivated kids would accept to run in such conditions. The ground is part of a building complex that once housed the Labour Court and then lay unused and empty. Sometimes it became a wedding venue. We even had two of our Annual Days in the hall of the building which must have been the court room. Still naive and credulous I had made a project report to transform the place into a community centre with all kind of activities sports being one of them. Of course the file is still lost in transit but what happened was something else. One fine day the place was spruced up and we were told some swanky NGO was moving in. A board was erected that stated that the NGO did everything under the sun that could get UN and other funding. For a few days it housed destitute women that were poorly treated but even that stopped and the building does again once all funds had been collected. Needless to say the NGO belonged to the progeny of a very important person. Today the building lies unused and children have nowhere to play.

These elections look more and more like the Mad hatter’s Tea Party with toffees and balloons. This is what elections have come too. Toffees and Balloons and a tea party! This is what it has come down to: slandering and more slandering. And let us not forget the sprinkling’s of ‘off with their heads’!  We are really in wonderland or rather its very antonym: dread sea! The whole show is absurd. They are now even borrowing catchy lines from popular TV ads to make their point! I wonder what we can expect next.

Though I agree with one of the star campaigners that these elections are or should be for the heart of India, my take is somewhat different.

In the past decade or so I have seen, felt, fallen in love and embraced the heart of India. The heart of India is the slum kid who smiles, the little child who begs at a red light, the millions who survive despite every politician and do so with rare dignity and courage. Th heart of India is the desperate mother who ferrets rat holes to ensure that she does not have to once again lull a her hungry child to sleep, it is the mother who sprinkles large amount of chillies on the family’s only meal to ensure that they drink so much water that next meal can be skipped. The heart of India is the young boy whose eyes glinted with joy when I told him this morning that maybe we would be starting sports activities in on the neglected grounds of his school, the heart of India lies in the vegetable vendor calls out in my street in the sweltering heat or the bone chilling cold. The heart of India lies in the millions who find ingenious ways to earn a living even if it means being hounded by cops and officials who claim their right on part of his meagre earnings. The heart of India lies in the woman who sits at her door step late in the evening waiting for her man to come back with the day’s earnings and hoping he will not stop by the watering hole; the heart of India lies in my little Radha who sleeps in a hole with her brittle bones hoping that she will survive one more day without a fracture. I could go on but I guess you get the picture.

Why should I not be enraged when one of the aspiring PM candidate whose party has been in power for the best part of Independent India, states in a speech after more than 6 decades: Our top three priorities after the elections are “free medicines and free hospitalisation by law, a roof for everyone, and pension to all senior citizens. Does it take 60+ years to realise that everyone needs a roof on their heads and access to basic health care not to forget schools. What the hell were you doing till now.

 I have being watching  a TV programme called Election Yatra, were reporters visit remote areas and interview ordinary people and politicians and ask them to share their views. Yesterday they visited Uttar Pradesh. Should you wish to watch it here is the link. I was shocked to find out about a village that in its late found wisdom has decided not to vote this time. The reason is that every aspiring candidate from any and every party promised them a road and never fulfilled their promise. They actually never came back. This time NO ONE has visited this remote and lost village. You may wonder why a simple road is so crucial. Let me enlighten you. During the rains, the mud road – if one may call it so – gets flooded and the village turns into an island. Children cannot go to school and in an emergency you cannot reach the hospital in time. Two people from the same family died last year as they could not reach help in time. So this time first ROAD then VOTE. Maybe the real meaning of democracy is finally filtering down. The village is called Nada and the district is Etawah. The story is some 8 minutes into the programme. I forgot too mention that the village has a hand water pump that never functioned.

To me it is shocking that the constituencies of the top politicians look the most neglected. One would have expected the opposite and thought they would be models of development. I am at a total loss to find out the reason for the neglect. I am talking of constituencies who have diligently voted one family back for years. I hope they too get the message this time.

The probable winning candidate for the top post of the country has till now scared me. I know the country needs a kind of a  dictator but a benign one and I am a little weary of how power may alter all good intentions. I was however comforted to hear in his latest interview that he will not be vindictive. On cleaning politics this is what he said: What is the solution? That political parties do not give tickets to such people? But frankly, such a situation is not feasible just now. I am determined that candidates, MPs from whichever party, including the BJP, against who cases are already lodged, I will request the Supreme Court to dispose of their cases within a year’s time. So that if they are guilty, they go to jail and vacate the seat for a non-criminal. Makes sense and I hope that he will stand by his words and do just that.

I would like to know though what he will do to ensure that every child has access to quality education we as a country would not have to bear the shame of watching 5000 children die everyday of malnutrition.

And hove all, what he will do for what I call the heart of India.

I am one happy biddy today. Utpal alias Popples is up in the mountains on a school trip. It is a one week trip with rock climbing, rope climbing, trekking, sleeping in tents and even in a three star hotel! He told me about staying in a hotel when he called one day asking for new inner wear and socks and felt the old ones would blot do. he is becoming quite a little man.

I am over the moon. Of course like the old worrying and dotty Maam’ji enquired about the details over and over but yesterday night he called me all excited and told me about his day and his sitting around a campfire and having snacks! And then he would be sleeping in a tent. He had rope climbed, just like in movies he told me, and also climbed rocks. I hope someone is taking pictures.

This is the first time Utpal has been in a big bus, seen mountains, slept in a tent, sat around a bonfire and had fun. God bless him always.

Watching what one could truly call the biggest reality show on the planet a.k.a the Elections leaves me bewildered and saddened. No matter which way you look at it, it all seems wrong as no one is willing to address the real questions that plague our country: malnutrition, education, health and most of all the poor. One of the candidates for what may be called a 5* constituency as it has returned a Prime Minister and now has an aspiring one in the fray, stated that no development is  visible and the people feel betrayed. Logic would make us believe that a high profile constituency should be made a model for development, but this is not the case. Here, just like everywhere else, you see the candidate once in 5 years and hear promises forgotten before the dust of his departing cavalcade has settled.

For the past weeks we have been ‘treated’ to a script worthy of the best soap opera script writer as is proved by the twists and turns in the plot. Beats the Hunger Games. You have the case of the forgotten wife and her reappearance after half a century, the episode where you are told that boys are boys and can rape with impunity, followed by the one who prescribes death for anyone who has had consensual relationships outside marriage reminding me of the Bob Dylan lyrics: every body must get stoned! What about the slaps, punches, ink and egg throwing? The slandering matches are priceless and often absurd. It almost seems like all our aspiring Parliamentarians are simply interested in oneupmanship of the wrong kind. And what about the advertising campaign: the posters, the songs, the TV clips, the caps and God knows what else. Even the simple and normally pleasing act of reading your morning newspaper has become polluted by the aggressive PR campaign on each and every page. And then the TV debates, the India wants to know, the can I get a minute to answer. These prolonged and seemingly never ending elections makes one want to hibernate. I miss the days when elections were wrapped up in a day and then the results took two days of viewing Hindi films on TV with news flashes in between. Those were happy days!

But what truly upsets me is the lack of connect between this election soap and reality. Having spend almost a decade and a half in the field, for want of another word, I have seen reality. I am not talking of faraway villages or disturbed tribal belts but of slums in the nation’s capital city, just a stone’s throw away from where we live our privileged life. I recently visited the house of the husband’s acquaintance and have no words to describe it. Let me simply say I wished I had sunglasses on to protect me from the glare. Every item in  the house comes from Italy or some other hallowed land and the only words in my lexicon to describe the place is gaudy, over the top and nauseating. More so as the family lives most of the year abroad. Now for the show stopper that says it all. The house is replete with surveillance cameras right down to the kitchen and viewed from the master bedroom.

Barely 2 km away little Radha – the girl in the picture -, her brittle bones and her family of five live in a sunken dark hole that can barely hold a bed. This is how most of the pwhy children live. And what is galling is that in every election political parties promise them regularisation of their homes if they vote them in. Needless to say this saga has been going on for decades. I would like to ask these politicians if they can live one day in these conditions. Need I say more. This is India.

So what went wrong. A recent article aptly entitled Decolonisation of the Mind make interesting reading. The article begins with these words: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the least independent of us all? Or, to put it in more familiar terms, Macaulay ke asli aulad kaun hain (Who are Macaulay’s real children)? To find out read the article as somewhat we all stand guilty. Homosexuality is still a crime, we still have or had till recent days criminal tribes and our Penal Code relies on anachronistic Victorian values and legislation. And yet no political party has the b**** to change things. Both our minds and our politics remain in thrall to colonialism. The article shows us what the parties in the fray stand for. It is scary, particularly if you have your heart in the right place.

Who will bell the cat?

I will end by simply quoting the concluding words of the said article: Now is a good time to reflect on the colonial racism which infects mainstream India’s view of Adivasis as primitive savages who can be deprived of land and livelihood with impunity. Dalit and Adivasi perspectives should not be footnotes to envisioning a decolonised India free of hunger, disease, environmental degradation and deprivation: they should be central to it. Only then will we have a truly independent country with no family resemblances to the late Lord Macaulay’s vision.