ANOU’S BLOG

I miss reading your blogs! I hope you find whatever it is that you are missing very soon.  Writing is who you are 🙂 are the words that greeted me this morning in an email sent by someone very dear to me! It is true that I have been suffering from a bad bout of...

I have finished reading Ash in the Belly! It was an eye opener in more ways than one! It validated many notions that were quite nebulous. But what is more important, it gave a human face to  the very notions that were till then more academic than anything else. I...

A wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect wrote  Jonathan Lockwood Huie. And nothing can be more true as Ihave experienced once again. It is the time of the year when gifts come my way as it is soon my birthday. When I was a child I always got a new dress...

Life throws challenges at you, when you expect them least or when you have sunk too contently into your comfort zones. It happened to me today. For some time now things have been running smoothly at pwhy, and due to some personal worries, I must admit I have been...

The soul is healed by being with children wrote Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I for one second that with conviction. The first kid that came into my life was my elder daughter. She turned a spoilt somewhat selfish only child into a mom. Looking at her for the first time I felt...

Dear Member of ParliamentI had written an open letter to you some time back urging you to take note of the anguish we, women, felt and help enact a law that would recognise us as equals to you, men. I must admit that I had not much hope of anything happening as your...

A 3 year old was raped in Kerala. She was sleeping on the pavement next to her mother, a homeless rag picker. She was brutalised with a blunt object. When she was found. she had high fever and ants crawling all over her tiny body.  She will take a long time to...

I have just started reading Ash in the Belly by Harsh Mander. A few pages down it is my belly that is knotted and and on fire. The last time this happened to me was when I read Bitter Chocolate, Pinki Virani's shocking and disquieting account of child sexual abuse in...

Of late, I hold my breath each time I go to Greater Kailash 1 M Block Market. Wonder why? Well it is because I shudder to think which shop will have pulled down its shutters and closed and whether it will yet again be replaced by a new jewelery shop. Over the past...

The CEO of our city has always astounded me with her knee jerk solutions to disturbing issues. One can never forget how, in the wake of a young journalist being murdered whilst coming back home from work, she quipped: All by herself till 3 am at night in a city where...

Till date, I have shared the on goings of Project Why based on what I saw, or what my staff shared or what well wishers, supporters and funders wrote in reports, blogs or on social networks. Some how it never cross my mind to get the children to share their thoughts....

Two months ago, India was on its feet expressing its outrage at the barbaric rape and subsequent murder of a young woman in a Delhi bus. We were angry and ashamed and swore to not give up the fight till justice was done. We decided to wear black bands and keep...