by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 13, 2006 | Uncategorized
Girl’s education is accepted as a fait accompli in our day and age. However this was not so when my mother was young. Today on her 16th death anniversary I remember with fondness the way she told me about her early school days in Meerut in the early 1920s.
“When Raghunath Girl’s School opened there were no students. The teacher a Christian lady went around looking for students as her job was at stake! My father, after much persuasion by my mother and grandmother, two extremely modern women, accepted to let me go. Every morning the teacher used to come in a doli, carried by two men. The doli was placed in the inner veranda and the men left. I use to sit in it and the purdah (curtain) was then drawn. I was just 8 years old!
“When I sat for my class 6 examination I was very excited. I was made to wear a thick khadi sari over the long khadi shorts and shirt which used to be my usual attire. Belonging to a nationalist freedom fighter family, we all wore thick home spun khadi. While answering my paper the sari was in the way and I took it off. After the paper was over I ran home excited to show my answers to my father. I had forgotten all about the sari. Later the teacher brought it home.
“I managed to continue my studies with the support of my mother and grandmother. My father wanted me to stop but the two ladies would put up a great show. They would stand with long faces while papa had lunch and then would say “Kamala has not eaten, she is on hunger strike”. Needless to say papa would lose his appetite not knowing that I had been surreptitiously fed at night! A day or two later he would relent. I went on to do my matriculation, my BA and even my MA thanks to many well orchestrated hunger strikes!”
My mother, Kamala Goburdhun, nee Sinha [1917-1990] went from being a small town girl to an Ambassador’s wife. Along the way she even got her Doctorate. Much of what i am, is because of this special woman. You can read more about her life here.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
Excuse me saying this, but why don’t you sell this house.. imagine how many heart surgeries it would sponsor..
This is what a project why supporter and now friend said when he dropped on a Sunday to finally put a face to something he had till date known through the words I write.. One again I was faced with what I now call my moments of truth..
The obvious answer was that this ‘house’ was not quite mine as it was in custody for my children.. but the question perturbed me for a while as it was almost existential in nature and pertained to the very spirit of project why…
Even if the hosue was mine to do away with, did this act fall within the ambit of what pwhy set out to be.. A tough question I must confess as the answer could easily be miconstrued as an easy way out of an essential dilemna..
After much thought and soul searching, I realised that the answer would still be ‘no’, and that for many reasons. No matter how many open heart surgeries it could sponsor, it would be still a limited number and once depleted one woudl still find one’s self where one is today. But there was a deeper rationale to my refusal and that was that such action would against the very essnce of pwhy which aims at levelling and easing out differences and placing everyone on a common platform on the one end, and working out modes of functioning that can be replicated by one and all..
The aim is not giving up or liquidating an asset however big, but heping create assets, albeit tiny, for all.. leave alone the false sense of megalomania such an action would entail.. and above all one must not forget that charity – for want of a better word – has to be coupled with humility to retain any meaning… so begging bowl it is for now and always
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 7, 2006 | Uncategorized
This morning I began the mail I sent to many friends and supporters with the words: here I am, begging bowl in hand.. and many answered with the words: please do not use phrases like begging bowl..
Most of the mails I write when I seek help are instinctive.. true that I have never used the word begging earlier … it was time for a bit of soul searching..
To beg means to ask for something earnestly and humbly says the dictionary.. quite true as gone are the days of anger and resentment when no help came.. now there is only gratitude for even the tiniest coin that drops by, as with it comes the love and care of a human heart, the precious moment spared to write a cheque or fill an on line form..
As I searched some more I remembered the Zen monk’s begging bowl: each day the monk would go out into the world with his empty bowl, and whatever was placed in his bowl by kind strangers would be his nourishment for the day. Nourishment can take more than one meaning and I realised that maybe I was like the Zen monk and my bowl got me so much: a heart fixed, a tear wiped, a child’s smile, a mother’s prayer answered, children remaining in school, a roof on someone’s head…
As I look with moist eyes at the picture above and see Manu in a classroom, intent in learning the new excercise and little Sapna looking up at him, my mind goes back to the Manu begging on the street and being fed like an animal and Sapna not able to hold her head, let alone stand on her own… and lok at them today… and all this has been made possible because so many of you dropped a bit of your heart in my begging bowl..
As long as I asked for a contribution in impersonal ways and resented the fact that it was not forthcoming nothing changed.. it is only when I was able to shed my misplaced arrogance and pride and humbly beg with my heart that my bowl filled slowly and miracles happened around me..
It is a very precious bowl I hold out as hidden in its depth is the key to a new heart, a new life, and many tomorrows filled with joy..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 3, 2006 | Uncategorized
Just when you sit back and think that you have done your bit, and maybe can take a break , someone decides otherwise and a tiny broken heart lands softly on your planet. One look at the trusting eyes and innocent face and your mind is already racing.
Deepak is 7 months old and requires open heart surgery. Though his face is plump his tiny body is proof of how difficult the simple task of breathing is for this child. The scribbled now familiar green card of the All India Institute lies in front of you..
70 000 rs with the added 4000 for the angiograpy.. how can little deepak’s daily wage labourer father ever put that money together.. and you ask yourself which one of the thousands of prayers his mom must have whispered, did he hear!
One has to stop and I think at the reality we often do not see. One the one hand India is shining and more and more of our countryPals are making it on the world’s richest men list.. Five start medical facilities now attract a new form of tourism. But no effort is being made towards medical care for the poor.
A TV network recently showed an old educated couple begging in the streets of Mumbay. The dignified old lady wore a placard around her neck saying she had lost her eyesight, breast and home to cancer and needs help.
Looking at those pictures I felt so small and inadequate and wondered where had we gone wrong in building our nation.. True that after the programme, help poured in and the couple is now comfortable. But many questions remained unanswered.. is it only after a story of human tragedy is aired on TV that people open their hearts and feel a sense of responsibility..? does our charitable side needs external prompts to awaken..?
In our 7 years of up market begging one has had to accept the sad reality that individual heart wrenching cases do get heeded, whereas long term and preventive projects are difficult to sell.. the person willing to come forward in individual cases, tiptoes away when asked for help in our every day work..
A flash of intuition or some hidden instinct pushed me to set up a community driven grass root project, and in our 7th year running and in spite of the innumerable setbacks and looming temptations, the tug is still very much there. No magical wand is going to create a perfect social system no matter how committed an administration we have. The magical wand lies in our ability to awaken the charitable side that lies dormant in each one of us, so that a network of support is created at the micro level and takes care of its own – the poor, the handicapped, the old, the sick – and ultimately this is the network that will create the bridge between national programmes and the end user.
How, is the question, and my answer remains the same: the one rupee a day model, where the one rupee could be translated as free space, time, skills and resources.. If each of our outreach programmes could be handled by the local community, we would see a quantum leap in the number of children helped..
I have always held that India’s solutions lie in addressing simultaneously the macro and the micro level till the day the meet and synergise.
Will that day dawn in our life span, I do not know, but in the spirit of what has been said, one has to continue with conviction in what one feels is right.
Deepak needs a new heart that is today’s challenge, tomorrow’s is to ensure that we are still around for all the other Jyotis and Deepaks in waiting!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 2, 2006 | utpal
I lived a rare moment today.. one that I cannot truly describe as it was a kaleidoscope of emotions and feelings..
A late call yesterday night asked me to come and meet utpal’s mom who was in hospital with multiple problems.. they also asked me to bring utpal along.. So this morning, he wore his favourite T-shirt and we made the long journey to the hospital.. On the way he spoke a little, asking time and again whether we were bringing her home.. I told him that it would not be this time as she was ill..
As we entered the hospital ward, he clung to me and when he lay eyes on his mom he just looked away.. In spite of her efforts he did not go into her arms but talked a lot and then took the camera and starting taking a lot of pictures.. for a 4 year old the result was quite stunning..he even turned the lens and took one of himself! I
Then he set off with the radhey his friend and our driver, to get bananas and curds for his mom.. While he was away the counsellor came and told me about the fact that utpal’s mom was being difficult and needed to be talked to as her health was poor and that she had to make efforts and get rid of her tantrums.. that is when utpal came back and he must have heard some of the conversation, or at least sensed the mood..
He said nothing and sat on a chair waiting for us to finish… When it was time to leave he just picked up the bag of bananas saying that he was taking them back and after a quick forced hug he just walked away…
We dropped by the rehab centre where I had a few matters to settle, and utpal bonded with all the young counsellors happily sharing his precious bananas and walking quietly into many more hearts..
On the drive back he fell asleep, his little head on my lap and I sat wondering, trying to make sense of what had happened. Perhaps it was simply his way of telling his mom that he had kept his part of the deal while she had let him down..
Utpal’s mom has always been a difficult woman with too much attitude.. I just hope she is able to understand what her son tried to tell her as best he could!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 31, 2006 | reservations
It has almost become a habit and we blase about it..
The class X results were out and all the kids passed with a few compartments, mostly students who had joined us recently or were very weak when they came to us, some even failures..
At a time where reservation is spliting the country wide open, these children are a proof of the fact that with a little help and large doses of positive stroking, kids pass and with good marks. Of the 28 project why kids more than 8 have secured more than 65 marks with 2 having crossed 80. These are students who can stand on their own and compete with any peer and succeed.
I do not know what caste they are, to me they are simply children of India who deserve the best. If we can , with our limited means and resources, ensure such results, does it not prove that what we need is well run schools to erase social or other differences.. The question is do we really want them to succeed?
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 29, 2006 | reservations, utpal
In my quest for a future for Utpal there have been many lessons that have come my way. The overwhelming support for this child, the kind words of people from far away lands have crated a network of friends till date unknown.
Many have also pledged their support to finance this child’s education and maybe he could stand as an example of how a good education from the word go can make any child compete in an open field.
The first step was to locate a residential school which was not too up-market and in or near Delhi. We did find one, an hour’s drive away and it looked very promising. The school authorities were willing to accept him provided Project Why be the local guardians. We got our legal friends to draft a small paper which stated that we would assume responsibility of this child. Everything seemed to be on course till a mail dropped in my mailbox with a new draft from the school.
While some parts of the document was acceptable – assurance of payment of fees, participation in PTAs etc – there were two provisos that were beyond comprehension. One that the school would not be responsible for any mishap that occurred in school or during picnics. The other that we would be responsible for any legal claim made by parents/relative/individual/ government etc.
Utpla may have had an initial setback when he sustained burns, but he is a healthy young boy. Now any child can either develop a problem or get hurt and a residential school has to assume that responsibility. As for the legal claim, Utpal has a mother who by the law of the land is the sole person to decide on his future.
The draft the school sent makes me uncomfortable as it subtly sets Utpal aside from the others. Will he then be treated fairly or is this one more case of preconceived notions based on the origins of a child? Here is a case of a baby who has been in our care from age one, and who has received the kind of attention, care and love that our kids get. Come to think of it, more than many as he has people the world over willing to help and ensure he gets the best in life. One would have hoped that the school would accept him as a challenge.
In the light of the reservation issue that is dividing our land, Utpal’s story stands out as an example or how difficult it has become to smooth differences and yet the only hope we have is that such preconceived ideas are done away with and a healthy acceptance of each other sees the light of day.
I have always held that many of the problems in India need to be addressed simultaneously from top and bottom so if the non-political committee to review the entire reservation policy that is being sought by students is the top, then maybe securing Utpal’s future is a step to be taken at the other end.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 28, 2006 | Uncategorized
Wonder what a mundane potato chip and a prayer to God have in common..
Yesterday I had a fall as the old knee gave in resulting in a badly bruised ankle.. An ice pack and bandage later I hobbled to where Utpal was playing.. he stopped and looked at me with a quizzical face.. Upon hearing what had happened he got up and went to a fetch his pack of potato chips and with a serious face took one out and told me to eat it as it would take the hurt away.. then he declared that he would pray to bhagwan to make it all well and turned his little face up, shut his eyes and folding his hands he sent his simple petition to the heavens..
I cannot find the words to express the multitude of emotions that filled me as i watched this little fellow pray.. The room was for that moment in time filled with palpable much energy and divine light..
His prayer finished, little Utpal went back to his toys leaving us all overwhelmed by the power of what had happened..
Needless to say my pain was gone..
God listens to children.. maybe we should too
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
Once again the dreaded happened: two young children of india took their lives away in the land capital city because they failed their Boards examinations.
This has been happening with obsessive regularity and yet no one had don anything to put an end to this..
Wonder what goes into the head of a child that makes him take this extreme irreversible step
Is failing in a set of questions in a limited number of subjects – some so inane and useless to life – tantamount to failing in life itself.. is our society so perverse as to judge a human life in whether it knows how to add, or remembers some statistic or the other.. is it the parents who put undue pressure, the peer group or the inadequate opportunities our society gives its members that make a child who has barely taken a few step in life take this momentous decision..
Imagine the sense of despair that the child must feel at that moment..
It is not the child who has failed but we adults who have made the norms of success so narrow and bigoted that they cannot account for those who are otherwise endowed.. Who knows the child who took her life may have turned out to be a musician, an artist or maybe just a good human being, something so rare that we have forgotten its relevance..
I work with people who by our standards are failures as they have never passed an ‘examination’ in their entire lives and yet when one looks at them, one can see that they stand far above what we call successes, maybe not in material terms but in what makes a human being worthy of that name. Mothers who never give up, women who carry on their station in life in circumstances that would make us give up a thousand times, men who toil so that their children can have a better tomorrow, people who may have nothing but are generous to a fault..
What makes my blood run cold is that every year, as if on cue, one or more children take their lives after failing in a school examination and we do nothing barring a few chuckles of sympathy. One child dying for in this way should be enough to make us stand up and do something.. There is something terribly wrong in this numbers game which is foul in more ways than one..
I cannot begin to express the sense of immense let down I feel, when an illiterate parent comes beaming from ear to ear with his child’s school results wanting to share the joy of the child having passed. A glance at the report card where no number exceeds 33 and the words grace marks jump at you, are sufficient to prove the worthlessness of this piece of paper where the word PASS stares at you. You know the child will ultimately go the same way as his parents, as the certificate gathers dust and fritters with age..
What is this pass fail ka khel and can someone change the rules?
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 17, 2006 | Uncategorized
Ram Pyari, Nanhe’s mom had told us that she was off to the village for a few days with Nanhe. We thought nothing of it, though we wondered why she had chosen the hottest month to do so..
Yesterday we were taken aback when she came back and told us that actually she had taken nanhe to Narayan Seva Samsthan’s specialised hospital in Udaipur for his leg surgery.. I remembered her telling me a while back that she had registered at the polio camp held by the Sri Sumathinath Jain Navyuvak Mandal in Delhi last year. At that time we were worried about nanhe’s general condition and I had not given much heed to what she was saying..
Seeing Nanhe back with his smile and a cast on his leg led me to stop what I was doing and savour a very rare moment.. here was a mom saddled by destiny with 3 disabled children, a woman who had lost her husband and who fed her tiny family by selling cucumbers in the day and boiled eggs near the local watering hole at night, a mother who had never given up on her child, no matter how ill or debilitated he was.. one who had found the options possible by herself and left not stone unturned to see her last born walk, even for a short time..
Ram Pyari is a rare woman, one who takes on life with a smile not matter how bad it is, who never gives up and knows that miracles happen when you want them to, and above all that they happen when you have the courage to walk alone.. and a smile like nanhe’s to light the way..
When I come across women like Ram Pyrai, I feel tiny…
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 17, 2006 | okhla, reservations
The children in this picture belong to our okhla primary centre.. and if one were to believe all the pro quota politicos, they are the supposed beneficiaries of the reservation policy. Most of them are dalits and OBCs.. what is noteworthy is that all their pwhy teachers are also dalits or OBCs..
I had gone to meet the parents and while waiting for them I decided to talk to the class V and VI children about the reservation issue.. Though many have TVs they were unaware of the reservation debate, as were their parents… I tried to explain to them that there were seats reserved for them in medical colleges, and other institutions.. and we talked for a long time.. Some looked bewildered and others were trying to understand.. their parents were also as lost..
We all know that these kids may get through their school as they have pwhy to support them.. but they are a drop in the ocean of such children who will slowly fall of the education net. Sometimes close to the next election, politicians will come and tell them how they have fought for their rights and the paid supporters will clap and cheer.. but no one will tell them the way to those elusive seats..
The solution mooted are again divisive or futile.. more seats will not help these children neither will a parallel school system that sticks a label from day one! We need schools that are not only run properly, but reflect the social reality, where children from all walks of life learn together and compete in a healthy manner irrespective of who their parents are, of the caste or creed they belong.. We need to do away with the abysmal 33% pass percentage whih gives a useless degree.. we must do away with the attitude of government schools where teachers only aim at getting their students to pass.. and where in some cases even the course is not completed because all they need is 40% so why teach them more..
The first step would be to make them aware of the reality and make them realise that they too can aspire for the best, even if the road is a long one.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 17, 2006 | common school, reservations
The summer of 2006 will go down as one of disturbed and angry students, greedy politicians, brutal policemen and bewildered citizens..
All is not well on planet India.. the hydra headed monster of reservation has resurrected for reasons that only God or a few know!
Reservation was instituted by our erstwhile policy makers as a short term relief measure aiming at unifying and not dividing, at making up for past mistakes and at healing wrongs. When was its spirit hijacked and usurped by greed, I do not know but today it looks like a hydra headed monster that grows new heads each time one is severed.. and far from uniting, divides with glee an already fragmented society..
A simple look at statistics would show how miserably this policy has failed: the reserved seats often lie vacant, the poor get poorer, the drop out rate increases in quantum leaps and no rocket scientist is needed to guess what segment of society those falling out of the net of learning belong to.. and the number of reservations grow and new castes are created. Even when tiny voices of reason are heard begging for better primary education, solutions suggested reek of division: classes for ‘them‘ after ‘ours‘, prep schools for ‘them‘ but not with ‘ours‘..
The dreaded privatisation of education lies waiting to pounce, a deat knell for many children, and making us think of the obvious hidden agenda: prime land!
Wait a minute, are we all not stating, albeit unknowingly, that in the ultimate analysis the contenders of reservation are getting a second grade education, admitting that the constitutional right of Indian children to recieve free education is being violated as they are getting an education that is not up to the mark: 33% pass percentage, schools without teachers and so on..
The question is who will have the courage to wring the neck of our hydra headed monster. Severing heads only serves vested interests in all strata of society, the neck lies elsewhere. where no one is willing to look, in two littke words that have proved their mettle: the common school..
Why is no one talking of the common school, something that countries we seek to emulate have always had: schools run by the state where the admission factor is the area you live in.. in Delhi there is a government or municipal school in every posh locality ( 3 are under 5 minutes away from where I sit): spruce it up, create a Indian Education Service on the model of the IAS and put an end to the proliferation of poor quality private schools that have emerged as clones to inaccessible public schools and cater to the desire of poor parents to give their kids the best they can!
I know it is a tall order, and sadly it is the upper end of society that will block it because of age old hang ups and social nonsense: How can my child sit on the same bench as my driver’s kid! Therein lies the real neck of our monster, in our own attitudes, our own fears, our own minds. I was in a common school way back in 1958 in Rabat, Morrocco. My best buddy was Omar, the local butcher’ son and what linked us amd name us bond was that we were both top of the class in studies and mischief! Omar went on to become a film maker..
We need a MK Gandhi or a Patel like politician to have the courage to do what is right for India. Children of India being hit by water canons and police sticks is not what many gave their lives for.. Reservation was instituted to make all children of India equal citizens, not to sear them with life long labels..
How many more reservations will it need to finally seek the neck… come to think of it after higher education, private jobs someone will think of 49% reservation of the India cricket team!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 12, 2006 | girl child, utpal
It will be mother’s day this month .. and everyone will celebrate it..
To me mother’s day has taken a new meaning this year, though I lost my mother almost 16 years ago.. Kamala was a beautiful woman and a woman of spirit.. she chose not to marry till India was independent, no slave child for her said she.. she married when she was 30!
She chose not to reveal she spoke English so that her only child growing so far away from her motherland could speak her mother tongue with ease.
She chose not take any medication and died of cancer in pain but as she said alive, as life for her was the most beautiful gift.
A small town girl who has to go on ‘repeated’ hunger strikes to get her father to accept that she studies she went on to get a PHD from Charles University in Prague.
The daughter of a nationalist whose childhood was spent applying ointment on her father’s band of freedom fighter’s bruised back, she went on the an ambassador’s wife.
A woman who loved her husband so much that she learnt French as a birthday gift for the man who so loved that language.
Yes she was a great woman and worthy of being celebrated..
But it is not this mother who taught me what a mother is.. the true meaning and importance of a mother was taught to me by a little boy who sleeps quietly in my home..
His mother has all the reasons not be loved: she drinks, she beats and hits him, she even entertains other men, lies, steals, forgets to cook, keeps a filthy home and even dropped him in a boiling cauldron… and yet this son never judged ner; he just loved her, forgave her and protected her in whatever way he could..
And when she finally agreed to get help, he let her go without a sigh.. and has had the utmost dignity never to mention her.. for the past three weeks he has been the perfect guest and made himself so small that one does not even know he is in our home, abiding by the ways of a life so different from his, as if we was to the manor born..
Utpal has taught me how important a mother is and how selfless and beautiful is the love a child has for the one that has given him life..
So on this mother’s day the only tribute I can give to motherhood is to secure this child’s future and to give him back a mother worthy of his love, one he can one day be proud of in front of the whole world, one that vindicates his love.. even if that means redefining my life
help me do so…
read more about utpal
where is the soap
as the snake waits in the wings
back to his hole
7 days on a planet
there is fish and rice
games adult play
boman, beauman, superman
rarely is love instant
there are no invitation card
gender bias
smile referred to
all gods angels
braveheart named utpal
when was love logical
games gods play
meri mummy
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 10, 2006 | Uncategorized
What do ritika, soni, champa and umesh have in common. They are all students of our special section; they are all slow learners and live in a world of their own where things are not quite the same as in ours. They take the same auto every morning under the benevolent care of our forbidding looking Radhey Shyam and spend their day at pwhy, away from their sometimes harsh world.
For a few hours they are in a world where they are treated as individuals and valorised. They spend happy moments till it is time for the return journey.
But ritika, champa, soni and umesh also have something else in common, something their simple minds cannot understand: they live under the dread of having their homes destroyed.. all four are residents of the famous ‘transit’ camps where their parents moved almost 20 years ago, a place given to them by the authorities and which they thought belonged to them, now they have been given demolition notices and told that the space is actually a green belt.. they cannot understand all this.. they simply wonder why they were not able to come to the centre yesterday and no one is willing to explain it to them.. they are unable to comprehend why their parents are angrier than usual, why they did not go to work, why everyone sat on the street and shouted.. why there world was suddenly turned upside down.. mom even forgot to cook…
The mayhem around them is incomprehensible, how are they to uncerstand that the voters ID and tax receipts and other such bits of papers that everyone is holding is of no value anymore, how can they realise that what has been home for as long as they remember might vanish.. how can they begin to imagine how difficult days ahead are going to be as irate and defeated parents will vent their frustration of them.. as always
They simply wait for radhey to come and take them away for a few hours
Note: these four children live in the transit camp that faces demolition by the DDA
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 7, 2006 | Uncategorized
remember nandini, the spunky bright village girl.. the one whose heart could not be repaired and whose dreams are in our custody, the class V student who as an infectious smile and an admirable desire to learn.. well she amazed us once again..
nandini wants to be a doctor and wants it bad.. this young girl of 10 was already in class V and doing well when she had to leave school and come to Delhi to tend to her heart.. when the ordeal was over and she was given a go home signal, she came to me and asked me if I would help her study.. I told her that she should go back and send me a detailed break up with supporting documents and a bank account number..
I was delighted when I got a neat enveloppe with a beautifully written letter, bills and other receipts as well as a photocopy of a post office account in her name. The cost details are available at this page and we hope that we will be able to raise the funds needed.
At a time when one is always complaining about the conditions of education in india, it is important to place on record the fact that this little school in a small towm in much maligned Bihar, is imparting the kind of education one would like to see elsewhere in India.
We hope nandini becomes a doctor, we have no doubt she will be a caring one.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 6, 2006 | common school, lohars
One was born in a place that has acquired a generic name in north india – madrassi – and the others were born on a polluted road side waiting for unfulfilled promises of an uncaring administration.. one traces its ancestry to one of the 12 rishis, the others to the lost battle of haldighat and hurriedly taken wows that made them nomads.. and yet in the scorching heat of last week they met… part of an hidden agenda, one that has not been worded or scripted but kept as a close guarded secret..
pwhy has been built on many dreams, some visible and some not quite so. if pwhy began with the determination of giving all children a safe environment to acquire a meaningful education and skills, it also has a flip side, one that addresses itself to the other side of the spectrum: the big children who have already obtained it.
The stubborn refusal to accept any funding that looked impersonal, the obsessive campaign for the yet elusive 1 rupee a day , the endless hours pecking at a computer keyboard were all part of the jealously guarded hidden agenda: that of making the two ends of the spectrum meet and not only get to lknow each other but learn from each other..
Over the past months the toiling hours have paid of and many beautiful connections made and last week when K who works for a software giant in the land of the chosen (or so it is said) spent time with little lohar kids, I am sure he learnt many lessons: that you could learn in scorching heat and breathing fumes, that you could smile and be happy even if you had nothing.
For me India will only change when the twain meet and connect, be it in on the school benches of the elusive common school, or as it happened, through bonds created through invisible networks..
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 5, 2006 | Uncategorized
A friend and supporter sent a mail with these words: “Are you dreaming to hopefully build a concrete school in the area for such kids one day..”.
This is a question that has come our way many a times… and that is why I thought that it needed to be adressed and answered as best as possible.
Yes, we dream and we dream big.. and we have also sometimes wished for a building, particularly when the heat is unbearable or the rain floods our ad hoc space, or the cold turns us all blue and we have to jump before starting class.. and it is also true that we have now got a small building where our babies and special kids are housed and safe.. but that is where we stop..
When pwhy began, we always saw it as something the community could replicate and that is why we drew our human resources from within even if it meant that we fell out of the net of a myriad funding agencies as we had untrained teachers.. that is also why in the six years of our existence we have taught in reclaimed pig styes and garbage dumps, on the road side, between houses, in airless jhuggis and open parks.. erecting classrooms in a jiffy when we were pushed around and bulldozed, wearing down our detractors. Bamboo poles and plastic sheets were all that was needed.. the idea being to show that to teach children one needed the will to do so, the rest was there if one looked for it.. it also meant that no matter where slums were relocated, classroom activities could be recreated without problems as all resources were right there..
Yes we dream but our dream is to be able to reach out to as many children as possible, and on the way give more jobs to people who have none.. and thus our magic formula remains the same: 2 shifts = 50 x 2 kid + 2 teachers @ 10K per month and it is a succesful one as proved by the school results. There are over 1.7 million kids who run the risk of dropping out.. and that is what should remain our objective if we are to be true to our mission… so the answer is no we do not dream of a building.. we do not have the time to as at every moment children are growing and mising the one chance they may still have…
So when the heat gets unberable, as it was today, we just hold on to our dream and then somehow a cool wind blows our woes away
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 3, 2006 | Uncategorized
You think you have seen it all and that you are immune to heart wrenching situations.. well beware that is not the way life is..
Utpal has now been a resident of my home fro over 2 weeks, he adjusted like a fish in water and laughs, plays, eats, sleeps and plays.. true you wonder what goes on in his little heart.. but you ensure not to mention certain words.. like mummy.. and keep your fingers crossed.. even though you try not to, you indulge him a little, and get amazed at his resilience and spirit..
So nothing prepared me for the words Utpal said to an unknown shopkeeper as he looked at some toys – meri mummy nahin hai – I do not have a mother.
My heart missed a beat, I wanted to hug him and say soothingv words, but I watched him with moist eyes respecting the dignity of the moment.. resolving with renewed determination to give him back a mummy healed, and one he can be proud of..
Mom’s are precious and you can only have one.. that is what Utpal teaches me everyday!
