by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 11, 2005 | sustainability
Today was a great day on planet why…
After much activity we finally got our first in house cloth bag … yes truly in house.. stitched by our very special kids under the hawk eye of their stitching teacher and printed on in our own in house printing unit…
Yes we have our screens, the lay out was done in our computer centre by our very own Mithu and then the printing was done under the suprevision of Dharmendra who heads our sustainability programme..
The message simply says:
project why children say No to plastic bags, and so do I..
they will soon be on sale and we can even add the company’s name or the buyers name or any other message. the bags are lightweight and can be folded and slipped into pockets or even tucked into the tiniest of bags. we hope they will help in containing the plastic menace that is now taking on alarming proportions.. and will go a long way in giving our special kids they social dignity they deserve
we also hope that all our friends will help us market these in a large way and will also come up with new suggestions to make this a great success
for further information mail shamika at shambakshou@yahoo.co.in
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 11, 2005 | girl child
why am i being worshiped today?
asks a bewildered little girl.. and she has good resaons to pose that question, as on all other 364 days she is never treated like this..
today is ashtami the eight day of Durga Puja.. today the very people who wish for a boy, are willing to abort a female foetus with impunity, curse the existence of their daughters and the burden they are, those very people will seek eight little girls or kanjanks, bring them to their home and treat them like goddesses..
even at project why most of the girls did not come and were seen scurrying from one home to another, to be ‘worshiped’ and feted. but tomorrow will come, a tomorrow when things will go back to normal: the same little girls will once again bear to the burden of being a girl!
It is strange that a land where Godesses are worshiped and prayed to, girls and women find no place… is also one where their very being is a matter of sorrow, where one who does not bear sons is riled , no matter how educated you are… where even law of genetics are reinterpreted..
I was asked by a western friend about the ‘missing girl syndrome‘. I guess the chilling scene of a female newborn being drowned in a vat of milk in the film matrubhoomi has had its impact..
I guess such a reality shocks but then does one think about the other one: the life of the girl child who is never made to forget that she is unwanted.. everyday we see this in subtle forms: she is never given the same care as her male sibling be it food or medical attention; she is rarely taken to the fair or even if she is, only her brother gets the ride or the special treat; she is ladden with housechores at an age where she should be playing with her brother; she is the one whose school fees money is often not found thus leading to her droping out.. she is babli who is left to die as she has a hole in her heart and repairing it would cost money…
and as she grows into becoming a young woman she also becomes the repository of the family’s honour while her brother can go on chasing girls.. she is then married off to someone she has never met, someone who will treat her the same way: as an object to be used, misused and abused..
she will come of her own one day maybe, as a mother in law.. but by that time bitterness and hurt would have taken possession of her, making her the one to accuse her own daughter-in-law of giving birth to a girl child so that the pattern continues with no possible escape..
so now you understand the chilling question of the little girl who wonders why she is being worshiped today…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 8, 2005 | Uncategorized
babli is 9.. she looks 5..
a bright child, she loves studying and being with her class mates.. at first she looks normal till you realise that she is often stands aside while others play.. if you look closely you realise that she breathes with great difficulty..
Babli comes from a very poor family, her father is an aged man who must be twenty year solder than her mom.. he does not work and it is babli’s mother who eeks out a living doing odd jobs..
when we enquired about babli’s health they told us that the doctors had told them at her birth that she had a hole in her heart and would require surgery to live…
babli’s parents were too poor to think of such an option so they took the other one.. that of accepting that she would die…
I have always been amazed at the way project why weaves its magic.. babli was brought to project why by Sitaram, the why-on-wheels man, who had to wait a long time tilll he found the road way to project why and managed to get Raju his son’s open heart surgery done.. and is it again a simple coicidence that Nutan did not need surgery and thus money lies unused at the AIIMS…
So is there an option…other than life for babli..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 7, 2005 | girl child, utpal
When your teen age daughter or mine gets angry, or upset, or has a fight with the family.. she bangs the door of her room, pops up the volume and waits for one of us to come by.. and make things right
when Durga has a fight she leaves home, wanders dark unsafe streets and lands up at the remand home..
Yet they are both children of India, both have parents and families… so why the difference..
Durga is our little mr popples a.ka. Utpal’s half sister..
Durga was born of the loveless union of a young girl married off to an older man ; it was later found out he was already married.. The young mother was left alone with a child who from the moment of her birth had become an impediment.. She later found another man who promised to take her away from the dreary small village lost somewhere in Bengal and take her to the big city… but he did not want Durga..
Durga grew up in the care of her granny, a free and rebellious child who never found answers for all the questions that she encountered.. granny loved her in her own way but was too old to instill any discipline or order in Durga’s existence.. sometimes an almost unknown mom use to come, ladden with gifts and stories, but left too soon to answer any of the now disturbing questions..
Two years back she even heard about the terrible accident her half brother had.. but what could she do.. then a few months back, as she entered her 12th year granny died and her uncle brought her to delhi… she met her new ‘dad’ and her little endearing half brother.. and above all city life.. where your world is a tiny airless room..
Gone were the fields where you could run, the small vilage where everyone knew you and you felt safe.. this was a whole new ball game and no one had taught her the rules.. and above she had to get used to mom, who was a far cry from the nice smiling woman who had appeared and dispappeared..
So the battle of wits began: each one tried her best, but so much time had passed.. sometimes there was violence, particularly on nights when dad brought a bottle.. she discovered another side of her mom, one that did not fit any of the images she had conjured till now..
One night the fight was too much to bear and Durga ran away.. the parents too drunk to know what had actuatlly happened did not realise her flight till the next day.. by that time Durga had been found by the police patrol and sent to the remand home for children.. a lovely hurting child who had committed no crime.. she was just trying to cope with life..
The police came, the social workers came, the mother was made to feel guilty.. little Durga felt a misplaced sense of importance and declared she did not want to come home but wanted to go with the ‘ladies’!
Days passed and Durga’s family just got on with the task of existing.. I guess the mom felt that she was safe and anyway the Nirmal Chayya institution was near Tihar jail.. miles away..
I had made a mental note of trying to find out about Durga but I must confess that I did not.. a phone call from a kind hearted social officer jolted me back to reality.. she wanted Jhunnu to come and meet her daughter… I decided to go along because I knew inside me that the mother and daughter had to get reunited..
I will not go into the details of the harrowing experience of dealing with the juvenile justice department and the Children’s court.. but simply say that maybe they should walk urban slum streets and get in touch with the real world.. where children become adults and priorities do not obey the law of western child psychology..
All praise to Sapna and her kind heart as she guided me through this unknown world as she more than anyone else understood that Durga had to be rescued from this place and taken home..
It took all the patience I had to answer the incomprehensible and absurd questions thrown at me by people who did not even bother to look in the eye..
Durga was finally released under my supervision and has come home to her loving family, who maybe does not love the way we would imagine, but nevertheless do!
Now mother and daughter have to make up for lost time under the supervision of Utpal whose joy knows no bounds at being reunited with his sibling…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ” M.K Gandhi
Today is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday… the father of our Nation and the nation will render hommage to him… articles will be published and read, some may go to his samadhi and pray, TV cameras will ensure that everyone is informed..
Personally, I never truly understood Gandhi till very recnetly.. though he was present through out my life in the stories lovingly told by a mother who knew him.. yet as I grew up locked in the selfish state that childhood is, such stories seemed far away..
Years went by and Gandhi remained this elusive romantic notion that had brought us freedom.. but to my rebellious mind it remained confined to the past, having no relevance to my reality..
Yet as I look back, I am convinced that the seed of what I was to ultimately do with my life must have been sown while listening to these very accounts …
It is only very recently, when India came alive for me, as I discovered its true meaning in the eyes of the children of project why that Gandhi’s relevance hit me… As I battled each day with new realities, and failed many a times, a friend showed me the Gandhian way, the one where you looked for alternatives rather than bang against doors that would not open. From that day on, things began to change.
There was ho hard and fast rule, with every challenge had to come a new solution provided you were clear in your mind about the goal you wanted to reach, and sadly, wearing a different garb, the goal reamined the same: free India from the shackles of the new masters that bound her.. intolerance, caste , creed, greed, ignorance…
Every day is a battle renewed, a battle against a new invisble enemy and the wisdom lies in your capacity to find the right weapon… therein lies the wisdom of Gandhi for me..
I will end this by recounting the latest and still nascent foe that is slowly conquering the simple minds of theGiri nagar slum dweller …
For the past few weeks there has been a buzz in the lanes of Giri Nagar.. a new way of making quick money. All you have to do is part with 7200 rupees – yes seven thousand two hundred rupees or two months salary for a project why teacher – and then get some more people to do the same, and lo and behold you will become rich.. everyone is talking about this… some hesitantly, others with bravado.. look at R.. he even has a barnd new yellow motorcycle..
At first I did not pay any heed to this, but when one of my staff members asked me for advise, I decided to find ot more. I fell of my chair as I learnt that the 7200 rs were for purchasing a e- learning programme…
Now I have great respect for e-learning and net based activities but what I ask you is how do you expect Soni a semi-literate slum woman, Radhey Shyam my autorickshaw driver or Ram Prashad, the juice vendor to benefit from the CD rom and access code he gets in return for his precious rupees and moreover how do you imagine him being able to sell the same to more of his peers..
The sad thing is that the desire for quick money aptly fuelled by the excellent marketing ploys, has led to many people falling into the trap, some even borrowing the 7200 rs @ of 10% a month from the local moneylender..
True that the urban poor is a huge market for anyone as is substantiated by the pouches that hang in every tea stall – shampoos, sauces, shaving foams.. and much else – but computer learning for those who can barely pay their children school fees is something beyond comprehension..
We all know that many of the unsupecting buyers will never get any return of this huge investment…just the burden of an unpaid debt
I can understand the need for new and emerging markets, but at this price..
I wonder what Mohandad Karamchand Gandhi would have to say…
I know we have a new battle to win….
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 30, 2005 | Uncategorized
for many months I passed by potty nagar.. a name coined by shamikaa for a cluster of ramshackle jhuggis all five hundred of them, where almost 100 families live in rooms piled on each other with rickery ladders in lieu of staircases..
I have already witten about potty nagar in vankakam or namaste and ladder of hope .
yes I had passed this way many times and yet it is only last month that we decided to start an extension class there..
Two weeks ago, when Shipra took the first class there were a handful of kids, a few days later the little room became too small and another larger one was found.. In two days even this tiny room is full to the brim with scores of little hands handing over their note books, and intense and eager eyes pleading for more..
A palapable desire to learn fills the room.. never mind the heat, never mind the fact that one has barely enough place to sit, the class spills out through the open door and more eyes peer at you from down the road..
The experience is unique and overwhelming as you watch these little kids from many parts of India bonding on this little bit of planet why..where differences are forgotten and set aside..
what an incredible clas this is, a vision of a country rearing to go, impatient to meet its destiny..
What did it take to set this up, one teacher, one room and a bunch of true children of India…
makes you want for more…
Can I have more….
note: there is a flip side to potty nagar! Serious accidents take place on these unsafe ladders. A child of 5 died last year, and the mother of one of our class IX student fell last month on a rainy night and succombed to her wounds.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 30, 2005 | Uncategorized
look at them… they are something these three.. dark glasses and all.. our very own genX..
this morning I decided to take a class.. and as we sat I realised that all was not quite as it should be.. most of the bacchas slumped and it took me some time to get everyone to sit up, as I barked instructions the way my pilates instructor does…
After some time and oodles of effort everyone did sit up, though most of them looked terribly ill at ease.. then it was question time and again I was faced with lymphatic kids and barely audible voices..
I decided that we would liven up the class and asked everyone to stand up and tell me what they had done this morning.. from the time they woke up to the time they reached project why..
Himraj started telling his tale and I was horrified to hear that all he had eaten in the morning was a cup of tea.. he revealed that he had had roti and potatoes at dinner, was carrying no lunch and would eat the small amount of free lunch that the municipal corporation doled out at 1pm!
As the class progressed I realised that barring a few kids who had eaten a resonable meal before coming, most of the students, all growing class IV and V boys had had a cup of tea with a rusk or a ‘fan‘, a sliver of bad quality puff pastry…needless to say that those who had eaten well had stay-at-home moms!
In urban slums, when both parents work to earn the elusive rupees, this si what happens to children.. in the village food is plenty even if you are poor: some vegetables do grow in the yard, and mom makes healthy rotis with the cereal of the region, the goat gives a little milk and some local fruit does grow, the water is clean and you run in the open breathing fresh air… and above all there are no rusks or ‘fans‘ as often there are no shops close by…
I am appaled at the poor posture of children in urban India.. where babies cannot crawl as there is no space, where fresh air is non-existent in the little holes you call home..
Is this the eldorado people seek? Maybe time has come for a reverse migration.. teach the children that the future lies in carrying back their newly acquired skills to the village where they come from..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 26, 2005 | Uncategorized
one-rupee-a-day was an intuitive thought that had come to my mind way back in 1998 when project why was a tiny embryon… it seemed to be such a perfect solution.. was not India rich in mumbers.. and a rupee was something easily spared..
like all intuitive thoughts it got pushed back in the face of raised eyebrows, puzzled looks and amused smiles.. copious advise about the ways of goodBiz was proferred: donations, funding organisations, fund raising extravaganza, charity sales and much else.. and the greenhorn that iI was had no option than to take the well trodden path.. somewhat ill at ease I must admit.. to my mind this did not gel with what I had stood for and certainly not with India..
the one-rupee-day kept coming back with obsessive regularity… but I paid all the dues to the goodBiz world, and did the rounds of all that was suggested, and to be honest many options worked and pushed project why into a comfort zone bringing success, kuddos, praise and even recognition..
but the goodBiz had its own hidden rules, one of them being its fleeting nature.. come on ms.B no one does this forever, you must change with times and adapt to the flavour of the day.. now that was not acceptable.. education is life long and not transitory and one does not leave people midway, one empowers them to carry on… and the solutions offered did not work..
reality hit us as we were pushed out of our comfort zone, more than once and each time the one rupee leit motiv sprung back to life. It seemed to have all the answers to problems. If education was perennial then the funding option we sought had to be one that any Indian could participate in and any Indian could steer..
So if we stand by what we set out to do: establish a model that can reach every child and be steered by its own, then all resources have to come from within. Five years of goodBizMessing had finally taught us that we needed to go all out and make the one-rupee-option a success, beating all odds..
But nothing would have prepared us for what was to ensue: a new discovery of India which no one could have imagined.
We launched a multi-pronged appeal to a wide audience: netizens, people from all walks of life through brochures, personal meetings, telephone calls.. and with the replies and reactions a new map of India came alive.
Indians living away from their mother land, be it students or professionals, reacted with overwhelming spontaneity and unadulterated love for their motherland. Individual responses and collective efforts saw the light and bore fruit at breathtaking speed.. needless to say most of them had never seen project why… There was profuse support from unknwon people across India, more so from the southern and western states… the community and weaker sections of society did come forward with suggestions and contributions..
We started feeling elated… come on India numbered one billion hearts, now finding 4000 should be easy..
But it was not so as we were to realise once again.. the cynics appeared with their unbelievable tales.. India’s capital once again took the lead of this tragic Act of the play.. what amazed us the most was the fact that people who had seen project why did not find it in them to write a cheque for 360 rs.. let alone get us contributions from friends.. everything possible was said to deter us, the trophy going to an upmarket restaurant owner who felt that adding one rupee to a bill may lead him to a litigation ten years hence..
Does one give up… the answer is No.. the cynicism is so deep that it has to be set right… if the goodBiz is in such a mess then why should a child in need of help pay the price… it is for us to reinvent ourselves and wipe out misconceptions..
As I look at this new map of India, where the common denominator is its heart and ability to feel compassion for the other, I see boundaries extending way beyond its geographical entity… and if the little hearts are few within its own land then somewhere someone has gone wrong..
The one-rupee-a-day has to work… to set matters right and the last shred of doubt I had was wiped away this morning as I flipped through a magazine which had an article on the children dying of malnutrition in Maharashtra with a photograph of a baby whose ribs you could count but whose eyes still help hope..
No you do not give up on planet India..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 25, 2005 | Uncategorized
woke this morning , sat at my computer, browsed the usual sites..
as i opened this blog, my heart missed a beat as I saw something I had missed till date: on the right hand three little words – home sweet home -.. and a clock ticking backwards
I was overwhelmed as I imagined this child of India, one of its very best, longing for the day she will be home…
Sitting in the land of the plenty, the american dream that so many aspire to, she longs for the sounds and smells that filled her childhood, the warmth of the land that gave her life, the safety of the place she belongs to..
I imagined how long time must seem to her till the morning dawns when she sits on that plane that will bring her to home sweet home.. in 31 days.. 4 hours…. 32 minutes..
There is something about India.. pity some of us do not see it
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 23, 2005 | Uncategorized
scene one: somewhere in the US a bunch of young bright young indian students are busy preparing for the draw of two to tango.
Two to tango was the name they gave the raffle they set to garner funds for project why after reading about our work. Sonal, Vel, Sneha after much thought and debate decided on a 2 dollars raffle with a 100 dollars price with a target of 1000 dollars. Vel, the young man in a hurry decided to match everyone who gave 8 dollars or the equivalent of the yearly donation for our one-rupee-a-day programme. Enthusiastic and moving mails dropped in my mailbox informing me of the progress or seeking an immediate answer to some query. My heart filled with pride as I saw the names appearing one after the other bringing a glimpse of lovely Indians kids with a heart that beat for their motherland and its lesser kids… and somehow I felt vindicated
scene two: a phone call from a young university student from Delhi’s top college informs us to come and collect the receipt book we had given her as it was over.. wow 100 donors.. not bad..
later the same day: two crestfallen kids, rani and shamika, hand over the duly completed receipt book and a plastic bag with 50 one rupee coins.
An extreme sadness fills me… how come none of them thought that something was amiss: one rupee is less than the cost of the paper the receipt is printed on.. forget about thinking of what a rupee given this way can do.. even a beggar throws it back at you
Have our kids lost their heart or their capacity to feel for others so imbibed are they in their cynicism.. Does it take leaving one’s homeland to discover that her future is ours too…
Where have we gone wrong..
Note: I have never met vel, sneha or sonal; the other kid is a friend’s daughter!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 23, 2005 | Uncategorized
An incident occured today that set me on a strain of thoughts about matters that one often brushes away with great words…
It began with a call from an acquaintance who runs an upmarket nursery school with her mother a lucrative entreprise where fees rose from 300 rupees a couple of years ago to a mind boggling 1200 at present..
She wanted some help so I decided to drop by.. we chatted for a while.. and she told me how the numbers of students had dwindled with all big public schools having opened their own nursery section.. after the customary cup of sweet and weak coffee she asked me if I would do her a favour.. could I take the grandson of Saroj, the almost instututional ayah of the school, in project why… he is two and a half..
I said I would and got up to take leave… a worried Saroj walked with me to my waiting three wheeler and told me that the child had been in a creche till date, but had walked out of it and got lost.. she wanted a safe place… I told her to bring the child..
As I drove away , it suddenly struck me that the child could have easily been taken into the little school was it not for what I call the invisible but impregnable walls (IIV) that surround us, though many are blissfully unaware of their existence..
How could little Monu or Vijay or Abdul rub shoulders with the upmarket bacchas.. it would have cost the mother-daughter duo to have Saroj bring the little one.. knowing them, he would have sat quietly and imbibed everything around him.. but that would have meant crossing the IIV a line that could beat any LOCs…
Never mind if Monu or Abdul or Priya were born in free India and enjoy the same rights that their peers from across the border… never mind if their mummies would work extra hours making ‘pieces’ for the local exporter and pay the 1200 rs. Some do pay upto 600 to the english medium school aptly called Mother Kesari or Budding Flowers where no one speaks english..
And if a Monu or Abdul or Priya’s mummy did gather the courage of crossing the II wall clutching her purse with the fee amount, dressed in her party best: she would be shunted away by a clone of our erstwhile Saroj..
It is all a matter of invisible and impregnable walls…
I know for one that Saroj will henceforth not do it…
How do we get the mother daughter duo to change…
You guess right.. i have something in my mind…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 22, 2005 | Uncategorized
Class is over.. the climb down the rickety ladder will take them back to their day-to-day existence .. but today has been different.. the children have stars in their eyes..
no metaphor here..
Today’s class was about the earth, and the plantets, and the milky away all brought alive by Sophie who ascended these very steps globe and laptop in hand to open a new world to these little kids.
Time stood still in this tiny, airless room where it is almost difficult to breathe, as twenty pairs of eager eyes crowded around the screen. The excitement was palpable.. the mood serious.. just as it should be in any place of learning…
So what if it is a tiny room up a rickety ladder.. a little effort makes it a ladder of hope
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 16, 2005 | Uncategorized
a mail dropped by in mailbox this morning. it was from someone i did not know..
It began woth the words: “I’ve heard a lot about you from A. I’m skeptical, as always, about all good things. And yet, I wish I could meet you and be involved in what you are doing.”
Many questions came to my mind, but what disturbed me the most was the way in which mistrust had permeated our lives with consequences that one is even aware of…
Nutan had a debilitating cardiac problem. She needed medical care and in all likelihood complex surgery. The family was told to arrange for 110 000 rupees before investigation would start. Now Nutan hails from Bihar and is one of the poorest of the poor, but there was no other way: It seemed that earlier many patients had left without paying bills so no one was to be trusted! Today we were told that Nutan may not need surgery and will soon be reunited with her children… Just imagine what would have happened had the money not been found…
One of the main obstacles that lie in our efforts to garner funds for project why, is the mistrust people feel towards charitable organisations, and their unwillingness bordering refusal, to give us the now almost elusive one rupee and thus the chance to prove our worthiness. Now imagine if we had not shown trust when Nutan, or Arun or Raju or all those who came to us and turned them away..
It seems that a world in a hurry to accede to material things draws comfort from applying labels to everything, not finding time to view each case seperately, and making up its own mind.
I would like to share a simple secret with them, the one given to a mythical little prince by a simple fox: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The Little Prince, Antoine de St Exupery.
Maybe we should learn all over again to look with our hearts..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 15, 2005 | Uncategorized
Jeetu is not yet 5.. but he has experienced in his short life more than many would imagine.. He came to us two years ago.. a frail child with huge sad eyes who clung to a man that we thought was his grandfather..
We learnt that it was actually Jeetu’s dad and that his mom had died of TB a few months back.. We took Jeetu on, and helped his father set up a small vegetable cart.. all seemed well.. or so we thought..
Jeetu was a quiet, withdrawn child in desperate need of love and care. Slowly we saw the first smile, and the first friend and we felt relieved.. then slowly there were changes: a belligerent behavior, a new found hostility, then bruises and to our horror we discovered that the father had hit the bottle.. and was hitting the child!
We tried to intervene… threats, pleading.. nothing worked..everynight the man came back drunk and took out all his frustration on the poor motherless child..
A few days back we were told that the old man had got remarried.. our reaction went from dismay to alarm to relief as we thought that the presence of a woman would maybe help the situation.. we just hoped for the best.. maybe the old man’s violence towards his child was an unexpressed sexual need… we kept our fingers crossed…
But there was more to come…
Yesterday Jeetu did not come to the centre. The previous evening his father had been taken to the police station as it appeared that the woman had been bought for five thousand rupees and had made a complaint following a fight…
We hope that the matter is solved amicably, as otherwise Jeetu’s father may find himself in prison and Jeetu in a state run institution..
Another why… but where is the answer…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 13, 2005 | Uncategorized
Some of you know her, some of you have read about her.. she is real and she is Preeti.. the one whose granny wants us to give her rat poison, the childwoman the family wants to wish away.. she is also the one that eats insects because she is micro-nutrient deficient!
Her dream: to be a mother..
Like all special and blessed children, she has a lot of love to give, only no one to give it to…if you come by do not be syrprised if she hugs you tight…
Preeti was born in a land where a girl is rarely truly desired, and a disabled one finds her way at the end of the line.. be it food or medecines.. she never gets her share… yet children like her bear no malice at all…
As I sat wondering how project why would survive, and whether all this endless struggle was worth it , Shamikaa stomped in.. holding what looked like a crumbled piece of newspaper: almost incoherent in her speech she opened it and therein lay a few grains of rice held together by some brown gooey stuff… it took me some time to understand that this was what Preeti’s family had sent as her lunch…
I was speechless as one emotion after the other took hold of me… anger, sadness, shock .. hurt. And in that moment I realised that I had to continue to fight for project why’s survival if it was only to ensure that for a few hours a day Preeti was surrounded by love and care and was treated like a human being… with dignity and respect..
And if that was not enough, my heart missed a beat when I heard that Preeti had been very uspet when she was told to give the packet away.. remember it was the lunch her mother had given…
On more why had to be answered…
Note: project why gives lunch to the special children, but we feel that parents need to assume their reponsibilities and hence ask them to pack a meal.. neddless to say it is often far from ideal!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 9, 2005 | Uncategorized
it was a big day for me… as today for the very first time i saw the light at the end of the tunnel…
or to to use the terminology of the hour..the first step towards project why’s disinvestement was taken..
yes disinvestment is what it should be called… as the dream I set out to fulfill more than 5 years ago was that of an empowered community taking care of all the needs of its less privileged children.. where the steering would be transferred to ‘investors’… investors in time, skills and one day if all is well, in funds too!
it has been a long journey, with many step backwards.. with its share of dejection and angst.. yet with every step taken I could see the transition gently set in: two new centres set up and manned independently, a secondary section that will soon be flying on its own wings, a cyber cafe taking shape.. then why was today different..
well simply because for the very first time a TV crew came and did a shoot as I watched in the wings.. I did not even have to speak on camera.. shamika and rani did the task.. with the children speaking of their projects and dreams..
I could see project why stand on its own.. I could not but go back to the day when every journo’s visit brought panic and nervousness.. today there was no diplomat daughter walking the slums, no personality cult.. today was about empowerment and water issues, about education and aspirations, about dreams yet to be fulfilled, about tomorrows yet to be conquered.. today was about India and its people…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 8, 2005 | Uncategorized
pNagar.. as we call it.. could be Tnagar in chennai!
Sudhar Camp is waht it is known as.. a tiny slum tucked away behind the electricity department somewhere in Kalkaji, in the south of India’s capital city.. 500 families living in precarious box like hutments where rooms are piled over one another.. a little like the houses children make with their wooden or plastic blocks.. to get to to a higher floor there are wobbly ladders… each family has an average of four children, most under the age of 10…
on one side there are tiny tea shps where you find freshly fried smosas, on the other side the aroma of filter kaphi and sambar greets you.. there is the south indian temple and the north indian temple… families from Bihar and UP live next to families from Tamil Nadu.. there exsits an invisible divide..in almost everything
in a tiny room on a first floor is project why’s latest avatar where south meets north under the the guidance of a lady from the east– yes shipra comes from bengal.. and all laugh and learn in perfect harmony…
Look at the picture? can you guess which smile is north indian and which one from the south.. they are all children of India who will not only learn the proverbial 3Rs but also about each other and maybe next time you come by a little Sudha from Sivan in Bihar will greet you with a cheerful ‘Vannakam“!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 6, 2005 | girl child
dear child…
they said you would see the light on September 3rd..
September 3rd passed and so did the 4th, and the 5th.. On September 6th your mother was in pain and everyone thought the day had come for you to land in this world..
your family had waited for you, your mama had carried you with love and great dignity, your papa never showed his feelings but believe me he wanted you so much, your little sister waited for her baby.. and your aunt did everything she could to make your entry into this world the best posible.. and there were many of us who already loved you…
I must confess that many wanted you to be a boy… some said it loud and clear, others in muted ways.. to many, little girls are a burden… in a society where there is less and less respect for women people have forgotten that we women are the life bearers… some of us wanted you to be a girl, your mama for one, maybe she knew you were just that…
You grew up inside your mama’s womb and met all the appointments with the doctor who pronounced you fit and healthy.. then child what made you decide not to keep your tryst with our world, what is it that led you to give up life itself… without even ‘tasting’ it..
Maybe we forget that from the comfort and safety of ones’ mother’s womb, a child sees and hears and understands.. perhaps it is what you saw that made you refuse life itself.. the lack of respect for each other, the fights, the anger, the unfairness, the tears, … and quite frankly child, somewhere I understand you… maybe you heard even those who wanted you to be a girl say that they wished you were a boy finding all kind of reasons to explain that…they forgot that it is nature who decides, nature that has to make up for all the little girls that were done away with… and you too were a little girl, nothing could change that..
Perhaps you also knew that the moment you would enter our world, you would lose your independance and freedom to decide, and that you would have to abide by laws made by a society ruled by men and that your life would never be your own…
Who are you: a statistic in the records of the hospital, a pain in the heart of many that will slowly fade away, a regret, a topic of discussions with its share of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’… I do not know..
To me you are the little girl who refused to be born in a world that she felt was not worthy of her… a child who took her one and only independant decision..
And we abide by it…
Bless you, wherever you are…
Kiran’s little sister, Rani’s little niece was still born on September 6th 2005…
