by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 7, 2006 | two indias
that is the end of the rule of law and the breakdown of democracy were the harsh words the Chief Justice of India used yesterday while haring the pathetic excuses of a government caught red handed!
Thanks heaven for the rule of law, no matter how tardy, it ultimately catches up and sets things right.
As the Supreme court verdict enfolded, it was pathetic to see that no one truly understood what was at stake. Everyone was busy protecting his own tiny reality be it the traders, the politicians or the administrators. I am no judge but even I find the arguments put forward laughable and almost contemptuous. An elected government that confesses it cannot handle law and order, an angry trader community that decides to oppose the law, and petty politicians looking at ways to further their hidden agendas.
What one would have liked to see is all concerned accept part of the responsibility and put forward a concrete option whereby everyone gave up a little. maybe the courts would have lent a more lenient view.
Laws exist from time immemorial when human beings decided to give up their solitary living to form a social group. What we have been witnessing over the past years is an absolute disregard for laws and a proliferation of news ways to break them. I was appalled when a trader friend explained to me the difference between having a shutter and a gate, the former being commercial, the later within the law, never mind if the activity within the gate/shutter is the same.
The government has done nothing for crucial urban issues like habitat for the poor. An example is the Lohar – nomadic – community of Delhi, who has been promised resettlement for the past 25 years and not got any. They still live in shanties along the main arteries of our society. But hold on, the shanties have a postal address, its occupants a voter ID.
Migrate to India’s capital city and two years down the line you become a voter; try and get a caste certificate to be able to qualify to the innumerable schemes and you are asked to prove that your family resides in this city since 1951!
The situation that we face has taken years of corruption, and law breaking to come to what it is today. And the law has been broken with great impunity. Wonder why?
I guess it is because our moral and social fibre has been corrupted and we are we have turned into a selfish bunch of people. We are appalled by the slums and are willing to defend sari shops and branded good stores.
Never mind if the former is because we just forgot that the poor needed proper habitat, though we continue to use greedily all the services they offer and the later, the later our own kind so deserve our support. Only, as we are above all selfish, we are willing to withdraw our sympathy when their acts irk us – namely we cannot go shopping, send our children to school and go for our kitty party, or simply commute.
The government has tracts of land available, wonder why everyone does not for once give up their petty agendas and sit around a table and work out a resettlement plan that could then humbly be presented to a court. I was aghast to read in the press that politicians of the ruling party are busy inventing new band-aid fixes that range beyond the gate/shutter one: divide the shop between brothers so that it comes within the limits, wall the facade till a solution is found, shift your ware to your house etc
Driving this morning to pwhy – as we are open – was an eerie experience as the hustle bustle of the roads was no there to greet one and reassure us that all was well. There were no children in their sparkling uniforms rushing to school. A city is held to ransom because someone someday had broken a law and no one was there to stop him.
reminds of the story of the boy walking to the gallows who tells his weeping mother: why didn’t you slap me the first time I broke the law!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 3, 2006 | Uncategorized
here we go again.. says the popular song.
I have been watching the tos and fro’s of the local authorities regarding the now existential question: to seal or not to seal!
To take the Shakespeare reference further we could easily say; all is not well in the State of D.. (substitute Delhi for Denmark). Is there a solution?
To understand the present situation one has to travel way back and ask a multitude of almost rhetorical questions: why the master plan which had a fair allocation for commercial buildings was not respected? Why did the local authorities happily give green signals to illegal activities? Why did the politicians promise regularisation of unlawful construction before each and every election? many questions and no answers as it is a chicken and egg situation.
For the past few days the government both local and national have been in their usual band-aid mode? One arm says yes to sealing and the other no. But what is disturbing is the pathetic excuses: a festival here, a law and order situation there. In the meantime a city is held to ransom, children cannot go to school and violence lurks at every corner.
Everybody has been caught unawares! Those who paid and retreated into comfort zones, those who received and promised, those who broke laws with impunity and those who turned their eyes away..
This crisis management situation has become endemic to our very nature with no one realising that it just delays the inevitable just a little bit longer.
The sealing situation threatens to become a hydra headed monster and no Hercules who would look for the neck and sever it. We just go on snipping the heads which grow again and again.
But one day the laws catch up and everyone stands helpless. There is a Hercules, but in this case not an individual but a complex entity covering all sides and willing to take on his or her share of responsibility and willing to lose some to set matters right.
Wishful thinking in this day and age where individual benefits are more important than collective ones, where rights are demanded but duties shunned!
Where do we go from here…
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I am livid. Do you remember Babli?
Here I was back in a comfort zone feeling smug like a proverbial Cheshire cat, thinking that with her brand new heart, Babli was sitting on a school bench making up for lost time when I was hit by another thunderbolt.
R and S came back from a field visit visibly upset. On the way they had passed Babli’s slum cluster and found her sitting on a cart selling chewing tobacco, cigarettes and biscuits instead of being in school, her little sister standing in the background.
The cart was supposed to be the father’s way of earning some money, but he simply left her there to pursue his gambling habit. Seems that it happens often as she sheepishly told us that her name had been struck of the roll of the school.
The mother spends long hours in the factory she works in and the father does as he pleases. Come tomorrow and we will set out on a remedial mission which will start with some plain talking with the impossible farthest threatening to put him behind bars if he abuses the child in this manner. Then a PR expedition to government school to ensure that she is taken back. Somewhere down the line the mother will get a dressing too.
These moments are when you just feel throwing your hands up but you stop midway and wonder how you can address the situation that actually is one of protecting children’s rights. We can carry on our crisis intervention, but there is a larger question that needs to be looked at: parents need to be informed about the laws in existence and about the importance of giving girls a good education.They should be made aware of the child labour laws and more..
The presence of little Arzoo in the background is a blatant proof of the fact that girls are treated differently as Ramu the brother goes to school.
There is so much to be done, one step at a time…
Note: two days after this post babli was back in school, and sister arzoo back at pwhy’s creche.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I have always feared comfort zones. You fall prey to them unwittingly. When things look alright, when no untoward incident occurs, that is when comfort zones appear and you easily fall prey to their lure.
This has happened time and again at pwhy though I have tried to fight it as best I could. When things are smooth you even stop seeing things as they are.
Then something happens to bring you back to earth and you feel a tad guilty looking for meagre excuses where none exist. And when it pertains to a child, then the guilt is far greater. So many little miracles have escaped my mind and yet where there for all to see.
Many of you may wonder why I have not written about Nanhe for a long time. Simply because I feel prey to the comfort zone syndrome. But a lot has happened and it is time to share with all those who have loved and supported him.
After his leg operations Nanhe has been able to stand and is slowly learning to walk with a walker. It is a huge step for this child who till recently was condemned to drag himself in a sitting position. To us who take our standing as granted it may not seem so important, but imagine what it means to little Nanhe. he can now stand with his classmates and take part in the morning exercise routine, and even dance with them.
No wonder then that the smile has got even bigger!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 1, 2006 | Uncategorized
My limousine had not come so I decided to spend some time in the creche where the big section – all between 4 and 5 – sat in a circle for its daily activity.
The past few weeks had been so hectic that I had barely found time to spend with the children as I was busy struggling to survive. But the breakdown of the three wheeler – ie my limo – allowed me that luxury. Once the children were settled and work handed out, I found myself staring at this little circle of around 15 kids and knew that there was something I could sense but not yet see!
It took me a few minutes to register what was disturbing be, till I felt hit by a bolt out of the blue: there were only 3 girls in the group!
It is true that the socio-economic profile of the early education group has always been different to the other sections. I guess that the presence of volunteers of all shades and hues and the fun and laughter that often emanates from this group made many slightly better families bring their children to us. This has been god sent to one like me as it was almost a precursor my dream of a common school as the solution to many problems in our country.
It is also true that the sex ratio of south Delhi is one of the worst – 784/1000 – but it is only today that I saw the chilling numbers it the very micro sample that is pwhy.
There are missing girls and we cannot afford to turn a blind eye. The importance and essential value of the girl child has to be restored in the minds of each and everyone.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 1, 2006 | Uncategorized
Come November and it is time for me to get off the spinning earth and look at time gone by as a rank outsider…
November never held much significance in the first for decades of my life. But the year 1992 changed it all. November took my father away and brought the most difficult closure in my life. For six long years I sought every crutch possible just to the fragile vessel of my life from sinking.
But November is also the month when life came full circle with the setting up of pwhy’s first class in Giri Nagar and somehow with the intuitive realisation that I had embarked on the last chapter of my life.
The last six years have been the most rewarding ones of my life. A barely formulated wish of paying back a debt turned into a discovery of India. What began as an effort to give Manu a life with dignity is today a throbbing project where over 500 children reclaim their right to be a child.
It is a matter of utter joy to walk every morning and be greeted by smiles and laughter filled ‘ morning ma’am’, when each child tries to get one’s attention. It is a matter of outright joy to see my staff dressed in their smartest outfit bustling around efficiently redeeming their lost identity. And above all its is a matter unqualified pride to see Manu smartly dressed sitting with his pals and solving a puzzle. And to say that just six years ago I sat in front of our one room centre trying to rid him of the maggots that infested his much abused body.
A deep sense of peace fills me as I relive these last six years, but I cannot allow myself to sink into a comfort zone, there is still so much to do. Pwhy is still a six year old child that needs to learn to survive independently.
And if I allow myself to dream about the future I see the November when pwhy will be sustained by the community itself, run by some of our ex students, the day when Manu will proudly show his identity papers as he sits in his own kiosk, earning his living with the help of his spirited younger sister.
That day I will allow myself to retreat into a comfort zone.
So help me God of the lesser ones!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 31, 2006 | Uncategorized
It was sad to watch Delhi come to a standstill. Whereas the big fish will remain unscathed, small shopkeepers will as usual suffer.
I the days when gandhigiri is a la mode, one wonders whether bandhs are the right form of protest. Gone is the outsider, the foreign invader against whom you unite, the enemy sadly is within each one of us.
I was not surprised when a prominent TV channel dug up the erstwhile master plan for India’s capital city and revealed that only 15% of its provisions had been met, one being the creation of markets and commercial space.
Yesterday was also the day when a man got the death sentence 10 years after committing a heinous crime that he thought he had got away with simply because of his father’s position.
So where have we gone wrong or to put it otherwise what ails our society?
Somewhere down the line our entire social fabric got hijacked and we sat in silence. I have seen it myself when our neighbourhood market which a few years back had vegetable an meat shop , a haberdashery, a stationery shop, tailors and dry cleaners and more today is a haven for luxury and branded shops and jewellery stores. When a few years back only local residents came often on foot, now people come from across the town in their gleaming cars.
And when the market itself was not big enough, residential buildings around it were commandeered too! Leading to the chaos that necessitated the courts to intervene.
One may wonder how it happened? Law makers and protectors hit their eyes to small aberrations for a few pennies, and slowly greed on both sides took over till a hydra headed monster emerged and got out of control.
Today both the administrators and the administered are battling the monster that grows a new head everyday.
We are a society that got engulfed by hubris and even challenged the Gods! Now our hubristic side has been exposed as we try to make sense of things a blame game has begun. Maybe it is time we took stock of things and accepted part of the guilt. Are we not the ones to look for the easy way out, jump a few queues, grease a few palms? So why be astonished when the little drops have turned into an angry ocean ready to submerge us?
The appeasement policy and bad aid therapy of our politicians has to stop. A new master plan trying to white wash past aberrations will only delay the process. Walking over the judiciary will ultimately lead to chaos and will catch up just as it did with the man being sent to the gallows. We must finally accept part of the responsibility and each give up a little to set matters right.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
I got a mail this morning from a friend of pwhy, who lives miles away, whom I have never met. I only know that he sees with his heart as he has always responded to my innumerable appeals with spontaneous generosity!
This is what he writes in response to my wondering why I deserve the support I get:
And do you really need to ask why
you deserve it?
Reminds me of a scene from the TV series Star Trek (In case you’re
unfamiliar with it, it is about a group of people travelling aboard a
spaceship seeking out new civilisations and trying to understand them). At
the end of one episode, the captain gestures out the window to the doctor
and says “You know, out there right now someone is saying the three most
beautiful words in the universe. Know what they are?”. The doctor looks
quizzically at him. You might expect the words to be ‘I love you’ or such
like. But the captain, gazing out of the window, says “Please. Help me.”
You are one of the few who are driven to listen for these words and try and
help out. That’s why you deserve good fortune.
I sat quietly for a long time my mind traveling at incredible speed as I went back to the days when I too had watched this episode, and wondered when and where I had learnt to listen to these words, a question I had never asked really myself. It is true that my seven years of trying to raise funds have been an eye opener and leads me to think that maybe it was the way we were brought up, the values we were taught and the education we got that made us this way. And maybe these are the very things that are slowly getting eroded leading to other ‘ideals’ where looking with your heart and giving are not on the menu.
I can only say that I feel truly blessed to have been able to find many persons who had the ability to heart these three most beautiful words loud and clear.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
For most I should be elated and jumping with joy – age permitting – two monumental battles were actually won in the last few days. One with a huge bank vindicating the stand that no matter how big the adversary, if truth is on your side you ultimately come out on top, the other with a large funding body that you finally manage to convince in accepting what you always intuitively held as being the right way.
For project why this has been a quantum leap from days where you wondered whether you would survive the next one, to an easy sail where you know winds are favourable for months to come.
Then why do I feel a tad sad and empty? Another why to answer.
There are many reasons. Is it because this is a rite of passage for pwhy, and all rites of passage are always difficult as they spell the end of a stage in pwhy’s life and the onset of another yet unknown? Is it because with this step pwhy gets a life beyond all else and hence deprives me of the driving seat? Is it because we are moving into a comfort zone, and to me such times are filled with hidden dangers? Is it because this will make us deviate from our main challenge; that of finding a donor base within the community we work with?
Maybe all of these in some degree or the other. The real test lies in viewing this much needed help as a way to double one’s effort towards the initial challenge that becomes more doable when one is not struggling to keep from drowning. It means a change in direction where efforts would not be on seeking help, but would have to be aimed at keeping the team sufficiently motivated and to veer them from sinking into a stage of complacency. Easier said than done when my detractors love saying that I have enormous funding that I conceal!
But no matter what, this has to be done as otherwise pwhy will lose its very essence and could just become another clone of many existing efforts. It becomes imperative to view this gift as a stepping stone to the day when the bread of pwhy – staff and space – would come from the tiny drops gathered from the community leaving the butter and jam to outside support.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
Some of you may remember the little house of horrors.
We have not forgotten the children and are in the process of trying to save them, but we need to tread carefully and ensure that all aspects are covered before the final kill. The adversary is formidable and has been running this hell hole for over three decades. A master at concealing, he carries on his game fooling one and all and hiding being the garb of righteousness.
recently when some of our staff went on a cleaning and fact finding campaign they were stunned by the place and had no words to depict the horror. I had sent them to ensure that I was not overreacting and applying high standards. the ladies I sent were all from the slums and all were ready to hit the roof and had to be restrained as our game plan was not in place.
What shocked them most was the size of the solid gate and the fact that these girls could not ever see the outside world. One of them described the children as being little toads in a deep dark well looking at an inacessible sky!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 27, 2006 | two indias, utpal
The past two months were the most difficult in my life as I almost saw pwhy slipping away for no fault of ours and though the battle was uneven, the adversary formidable, there was an imperceptible force that egged me not to give up as hope was waiting at the next corner.
For the past seven years I have been overwhelmed by the love and affection that project why has been able to garner from every corner of the world and from the humblest to the greatest. With every passing instant I could sense an incredible web of goodwill being woven to protect us from each passing storm.
It was no mean thing as I stuck to my guns and maybe went against every rule in the book to the point that the only way pwhy could be qualified was by borrowing words from St Exupery’s Little Prince: a project that saw with its heart.
Amongst the battles I fought was my stubborn refusal to accept help that seemed to be rigid and ironclad or one that entailed complex administrative paperwork.
I had first stumbled upon Asha while browsing the net and liked what I ead. Who else could be better inheritors of pwhy then young successful Indians living away from their homeland. Unfortunately time was not ripe as my first forays into the land of hope were not quite successful as we met with hurdles though every time a wonderful and warm person was at the other end of the screen.
Somehow I could not puts across the very transient nature of the community I worked with where hidden enemies abounded be they social taboos such as caste or creed, violent and aggressive people or the powers that be that were hell bent on seeing me flee. So how could I ensure that one year down the line we would have the exact profile we began with. What really frightened us was when one day a person came and spent 2 days counting the kids! What would happen if we did not meet the specs?
Then one day a tall lanky man landed on planet why, armed with a camera and an incredible smile. In my usual style I drowned him with all that was bottled up inside me and he listened patiently. The man left promising to help and we carried on surviving as usual.
Last week while driving Utpal back to boarding – always a difficult moment – the phone rang. It was our tall lanky man telling me that Asha had agreed to help us in a substantial manner and above all that he would be the one we would interact with.
I cannot begin to covey the multitude of emotions that ran through me, but I think that the most important feeling was that my stand had been vindicated and that my seven long years battling alone had ended and that I had now reached safe shores. pwhy was safe and my swan song would live beyond me.
To all that have made this possible a big thank you, to all those that I may have inadvertently upset my heartfelt apologies and to Kannan Iyer simply that I believe in miracles.
Our Asha page is here
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 20, 2006 | utpal
Utpal is back home for his diwali break. I went to fetch him ins school and was amazed by the survivor spirit this child has. As the road was being dug up we had a long walk before reaching the gates of the school. En route I was stopped by many big boys who asked him “you have come for Utpal, he is a great kid”.
My heart filled with pride as I realised that this little fellow who had nothing but the god of little persons on his side, had set up his network in school, a network that transcended age, social divides and more. From the kind faced gateman to the dining room staff, to the remote class XII seniors notwithstanding the principal, the warden and the teachers, Utpal knows them all.
As we walked away we had to stop many a times as Utpal was hugged, taken in waiting arms, and patted on the back. We waited in the wings, sharing his much deserved moment of glory, our thoughts going back to the little bundle of pain that had walked into our hearts just 3 years back.
Yes he is a survivor and a perfect role model for us, as we battle our demons and try and keep pwhy going, as he proves that nothing in life is hopeless or doomed.
If we can do it, then we have to.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 19, 2006 | two indias
To the rich man’s mall there is the poor man’s weekly bazaar. A cornucopia of sight, sound and smells, an experience guaranteed to titillate all your senses.
The dreary road comes alive one every week as people come from faraway places with their ware, tables are set, oil lamps lit and the stage is set. Soon the cries of the vendors fills the space as each try to get you to come to their stall. There is one such market very close to pwhy and you can find anything you want: clothes of all kind, school uniforms, shoes, kitchen ware, spices, toys, music, food of many kinds and much more. For many the budh bazaar is a lifeline, a place where for a few roupies you can treat your self to everything you can dream of.
These weekly bazaars have been in existence for as long as I can remember and one finds them everywhere in India. This week there was no budh bazaar, the vendors came and sat dolefully on their tables, some tried to set their goods but were brutally beaten by cops who even walked over their precious goods.
The reason: last years bomb attacks! And to make their task easy a decision to not let the bazaars operate. Imagine the plight of the vendors who often borrow at incredible interest rates to purchase the goods they will sell. And over and above all this week is the one where they sell the most as it is Diwali week. Think of the poor people who waited for this day to buy their children clothes at a rate they could afford: new clothes the children dreamt of, utensils for dhanteras when even the poorest of the poor buys something to please goddess Lakshmi.
Was there no way the police could have ensured security without hitting the poor. The malls are not closed and neither are the upmarket centres so why once again hit the poor who wait for Diwali for that one special moment.
These images disturbed me as they seem to vindicate the sad reality that the laws are not the same for everyone.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
The last few weeks have been harrowing as one found one’s self in a soup for no fault of ours. A clerical error, a hurried decision and our bank closed our accounts.
It was a David takes on goliath situation but I was I knew the god of lesser ones was on our side. When the matter could not be resolved, I had no option but to write to the bigChief and felt like David. But then the god of lesser children was on our side and the banker was one that saw with his heart. Thirty six hours later, our accounts were restituted.
I just hope that one day he will come by planet why and meet all the children he helped and who would like to thank him in person.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
The Priyadarshini Matoo case has come to an acceptable closure and maybe Priya’s soul will finally be able to rest in peace.
Eleven years or so to finally send the rapist and murderer behind bars. I cannot even being to fathom the agony of the last eleven minutes of Priya’s life as she lay fighting her last battle, the pain and courage of her father who never gave up while her killer lived on, got married and even had a child. Did he feel that his father’s position was enough to have him do what he pleased. No Sir. We live in a democracy that works and have a judicial system that is fair. We are protected by a constitution that guarantees us our human rights.
Maybe it takes a little longer than hoped but if like Priya’s father you do not give up, you do not heed threats and carry on your fight, you win no matter how small, unconnected and fragile you may look.
Will potential rapists now think twice before they commit their dastardly crime? Will those who thought that money, connections and power were sufficient licence to do as they please finally understand that they are not above the law? I hope so.
Priyadarshini’s case is the victory of the people of India, a force to reckon with, one that is slowly emerging from the dark.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway, said Elbert Hubbard. Maybe that is why a blog written a few days back has been lying unpublished. Each time, my finger wanders towards the publish button, something holds me back.
Wonder why. Is it because what has happened looks so terrible, because it holds within it so many assumptions each needing to be addressed and denied? I do not know.
Is it because a touch of that key will maybe alienate many forever and leave us rudderless, or is it because one is afraid of tarnishing one’s now glowing image needs?
Let me explain as best I can now that I can view things with a little distance and less anger and even some hum our. Let me start by a asking you a question: what would you do if one day for not fault of yours, without any prior information you received two envelopes with two drafts, no letter or explanation barring a mention of the counterfoil stating that your accounts stand closed?
After wondering for an instant who the generous donor was, I read the words with horror and felt my whole world crash as innumerable images rushed helter skelter in my tired brain. I am sure my head grew a few more white hairs!
To cut a long saga short let me just say that as an easy way out and after operating our accounts for two whole years and not finding any fault, a huge bank decided that we were non-grata and just threw us out without any professional ethics probably thinking that we were to small to react. Surprisingly the same giant sent us two letters dated later than the draft that asked for a certain papers and with no mention of the closure.
When we asked for a reason and explanation and at least for a letter to the authorities stating the reason for such action, we just got wishy washy replies and a vague reference to Bombay being the ultimate authority.
Had this been a personal account of even a business one, I may have thought twice before taking Goliath but 600 pair of eyes was all that was needed to realise that at least the God of Lessor children was with me. So knowing that had done no wrong I wrote a letter to Bombay which had been held to me as the ultimate Goliath!
An answer came and then phone calls and vague explanations. The battle is still on and though I want no one hurt I still want to know why I was treated this way and above all a way to redress the tort.
The battle is on and I will no rest till it is won. However if I stand by what I was taught as a little girl my a doting father: always look for the larger picture, maybe there is a lesson to be learnt: work like ours will only succeed when the basic support comes from within. So no matter how things end, one has to work towards the elusive one rupee option as all other solutions, no matter how easy and comfortable, are fragile and finite.
True one will have to deal with the there is no smoke.. types, they always lurk around as it would give them the awaited opportunity to slime out of commitments. One will also have to explain and vindicate one’s self and the trust painfully and patiently gained over seven long years
Yes one will have to pick up the pieces carefully and gently, and weave them together again with the hope that no cracks remain. And yet there is another lesson to be learnt, one that corroborates my almost intuitive vision when I wrote the first official document for pwhy, one that highlights the vulnerability of any developmental work that depends on outside support: true success lies in one’s ability to build a support system within the group one works with. One that is so small that it escapes all possible attacks, and yet powerful enough to grow by the day.
I just hope that those who stood by us will continue to do so.
Note: For those who are curious the problem seems to have arisen from the fact that someone forgot to look at all the documents filed and took a hasty Poncus Pilate way out.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 18, 2006 | Uncategorized
If all goes well tiny tots in Delhi will not have to face the dreaded interview to get admission in a school. However the procedure suggested seems rather complex. Whereas the 20 points given to proximity is a great one as it maybe be the harbinger of the still elusive common school, the 20 marks reserved for the education of the parents seems to deal a blow on those who may want a better tomorrow for their kids. Even if their relentless hard work can meet the fees, they cannot reinvent themselves.
I wonder how transparent this system is going to be, and how it will actually work on the ground. It is sad that one has become so used to people circumventing the system in today’s India, that even before a new system has been set in place, one is looking for the loopholes and ways to beat it.
However for those who love kids, it is a huge relief to see that they will not be subjected to grueling preparations at an age when all they should be doing is discovering themselves and the world.
In a country where education is a constitutional right, every child should have a place in a good school. Whopping amounts are spent on universilisation of education, but the ground reality is abysmal. Even in the country’s capital city schools lack basic amenities like toilets, drinking water and sometime even a roof. If state run schools were improved then many parents would find it a good option for their children as a simple perusal of the city’s map shows that every locality has a school at walking distance.
Long and dangerous journeys in badly driven vehicles is not what any parent wants for his child, but the social mores renders the government school infra dig. Like many things in India, the solution lies in a reversal of the present way but no one is listening, or rather no one wants to.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 14, 2006 | Uncategorized
I have been battling many demons and what now looks like trivial problems, when my good friend mr god decided to call me to order in his inimitable way.
We had been invited to talk about pwhy at a expat gathering when another ‘project’ was also presented by some of the ladies themselves. I must confess that at first we were a little put off as it seemed we were losing a bit of the limelight. How was I to know that it was mr god at work!
As the project was introduced and images flashed on the white wall my hackles stood up. And as one image followed the other I knew that this our presence their was for a reason.
The project is question as an orphanage for little girls an hour’s drive away. And as the lady shared what she had seen I knew that I was looking at something that was evil.
The worst was the plight of 15 little disabled girl who lay in their dirt with no one to look after them. As the last slide was projected I found myself looking for the lady who seemed to be the one in charge and offered our help. She gave me the name of a person who turned out to be a kind hearted well wisher and he asked us to come as soon as we could.
The place turned out to be a house of horrors: over 50 girls and 15 disabled girls between the age of 2 and 15 lived live without any one to look after them, not a single woman is there to care for them. The place is filthy and foul smelling, children are not bathed, their clothes ripped and some do not have wear undergarments. There seems to be regular physical abuse and god knows what else. The swami in question does not seem to believe in education and the children never go out.
What was the most disturbing thing was the fact that this operation has been going on for 30 years yet no girl was over 15! Where are the missing girls, and above all who are these girls?
My mind traveled back to the days when I first met Manu but somehow this sight was far more disturbing. I still do not know how the little girls are going to be saved, but saved they have to be. Every extra hour the children have to be spend in this house of horrors weigh heavily on my conscience..
We need to act!
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