by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 5, 2005 | utpal
Look at poor yash… now did anybody ask him what he felt before smearing his face with talcum powder…
we adults seem to forget that children, even tiny ones, have egos, self -esteem, likes and dislikes and that even if we are bigger that does not mean we have the right to do what ever takes our fancy…
and not only did they smear his face, but then laughed at him and took his picture for all to see..
Adults often do this, and somewhere , without even realising it they create little hurts that one day turn into complex behavioural problems..
But that it not where it ends, there is much worse.. a pattern that is visble everywhere irerspective of class, creed or even nationality.. we were witness to one such incident last week when our darling Utpal was beaten black and blue by his mother, for no fault of his, but simply to vent her anger towards someone else.. and everyone watched stunned and silent at motherhood at its worst..
We forget that little children are fragile and tender and need to be loved and nurtured not beaten and hurt… the scars remain for ever…
Children are our responsibility as we hold their futire in our hands.. why do we often forget this simple truth
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 5, 2005 | Uncategorized
n’s article is out. it was published today in the Asian Age .
It was great that it appeared on teacher’s day when all roles were reversed.
We sat down to read it with some of the kids and imagine Vicky’s pride when he heard the opening words “ Vicky Kumar, 12, is concerned about the water problem plaguing the capital“. and then the ones that sounded like music to my ears: “Vicky, who hails from Saharsa in Bihar, wants to become a scientist when he grows up. “I would like to go back to my village and set up a water plant there,” he says with a glint of optimism in his eyes.”
It was nice to see an article that went to the core of what we believe in and talked about the importance of making good citizens, and of revalorising going back to one’s home.
The children were thrilled and you could see pride in their eyes as they poured over the newspaper trying to read the sometimes difficult words and asking for explanations…
I watched them and wondered whether we had finally found the right road… to the future
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 29, 2005 | Uncategorized
There is something about India that never ceases to amaze me and that is her ability to contradict everything negative that you may think about her.
She does play games with you, wears you down, makes you angry or even sad, but then when you are just about to lose all hope and give up, she makes up for everything..
At pwhy we have never been media savvy, and most of what has been written about us has been either by friends or by accident. We have had our share of request for telephone intreviews politely rejected as we felt that someone in Delhi could make the effort to come and see us; we have seen copies of what was written by someone dear, lifted time and again sometimes without even a mention of the source; we have had journos come in a hurry for token visits and photographers that never had the time to go beyond our front door..
when a young journo from a leading newspaper called on a sunday afternoon wanting to write about us I must confess I had thought that it would be another journo in a hurry who would appear for a fleeting moment.. well that was not so.
N came on time and gave us the feeling that he had all the time in the world for us.. he interacted with the children and even saw them present a project, he chatted with the staff , shared lunch with us and came and saw our okhla project too..
for all of us it was special as we felt that someone was looking at our work and giving it due respect… and we were touched..
N is a journo with his heart in the right place, and I just wish it stays that way..
Project why wishes him all the success possible
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 29, 2005 | Uncategorized
asiya and fatima, the two year old twins sleep reaching out to each other for comfort… while rabiya takes a much needed break.. like any mom would.. only rabiya is four, just two years older than the siblings she looks after with great care and maturity..
rabiya is not an exception.. she is almost the rule in urban India’s slums!
on my way to project why I often drive past what we sometimes refer to as ‘potty nager’. It is a rickety camp known as sudhar camp and is home to migrants from as far as Karnataka, or Tamil Nadu.. most of the women work as part time household help, and the men as security guards; the place is crwaling with toddlers who can be often seen easing themsleves on the road as the only bathrooms are a set of public conveniences where a rupee needs to be paid! As many of our children from the creche have moved to the primary section I thought it would be a good idea to get some of the kids from this camp.
Last Seema went to survey the place. the story she had to tell was chilling: in the day sudhar camp is almost like a neverland, as most of its inhabitants are children.. with a few elders hanging around quite unconcerned.. many of the children came to meet her, ready to listen to waht they had to say. Many were quite excited about going to ‘school’ but it did not take long for them to tell Seema that they could not as they had to look after their siblings. seema told me that it was then that she realised that something was not quite right: every child – and they were between 3 and 5 – was carrying a younger child in his arms.. and what was difficult to believe and heart rendering was that they did it with a sense of responsibility that could match that of any adult..
Seema came back crestfallen and perplexed as to what could be done in to answer the tiny voices who were all saying: I want to go to school but who would take care of my sibling…
i am still trying to answer that question…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 25, 2005 | Uncategorized
last week I decided to take a class..
this decision was prompted by the constant complaints of some of the primary teachers who felt the kids were getting difficult to handle…some not doing their work and disturbing others..
as all the advise meted had not worked, I thought best to see things for myself..
I asked for the rowdiest class.. I was given the boys of class IV and V…
when the teachers asked me what I was planning to teach, I simply answered that I would let the children guide me…
we decided to sit outside on the floor, in a circle and as I looked around I saw lovely eager faces with big eyes staring at me..
I decided to ‘take it from the top’ and ask them simply why they were studying… they all looked bewildered, not knowing what to say…. the teachers were as amazed as the kids. I repeated my question gently addressing myself to one child, then the other, and then the next.. after some prompting I got my first answer: to change things in the world… to have a better future said the next.. to gain knowledge said the third…
stereotypes that no one really undesrtood. so we sat and talked about education and the different subjects studied and picked up social studies… for my little pals social studies meant learning from the book..
we sat and talked about why we should learn about our social system, about laws and rights and duties; how they could change our lives and help change the world or better our future..
at the end of the hour, the little ones were asking for more.. somehow in their minds boring subjects had acquired a new meaning: hindi or english would help word petitions, maths would help calculate losses, and civics would tell us how we could play a role in building our land.. redressing wrongs.. remaking te world..
actually what i was witnessing was the making of true citizen India!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 24, 2005 | Uncategorized
Look at the picture.. what do you see?
three little girls playing, the way all children that age should, three children savouring what is know as the best part of one’s life: early childhood, when others take care of your creature comforts and everyday needs, when you do not have an ounce of worry or concern…
oops I forgot to tell you this scene is from an urban slum in India… so let me reinterpret it for you..
Rabia and her twin sisters Asiya and Fatima live in a fifth floor hovel in a slum in Delhi.. They have an elder sister and no brother. When they came into the world there was no joy or happiness but they were meant to feel a burden from the moment they saw the light of day. Their father drives an auto ricshaw, their mother takes on needle work for greedy exporters who pay her a pittance, the house is unkept and unclean..the girls uncared for..
The twins now two cannot walk or even stand, they do not talk or even smile. All the medical tests done were negative, the verdict brutal: lack of love; suffer from extreme neglect.
When little Fatima is upset it is not her moma she runs to for comfort, but elder sister Rabia, barely four, as you can see in the picture. And the little four year old surrogate mother does her best to wipe off the hurt…
Now look at the picture again, do you see what I see….
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 22, 2005 | Uncategorized
till we can get a picture of the young couple, this is what a bonboniere looks like
“Barbara and me will get married next September 24th and we decided to donate to you the money we were to spend to buy bonbonnieres”
I have never met Barbara or Massimo, they are friends of a friend’s daughter …
I first googled to find out what bonbonieres were: bonbonieres are pretty little souvenirs that are handed out to each person attending a wedding in Italy as a traditional wedding favour.
Now this wedding will not have the traditional bonbonieres that guests normally carry back as a souvenir.. but there is something that they will carry back, something many will remain unaware of, something intangible .. something they would have help create: bonds of love and friendship between two young people starting their life together and children who strive for a better one… and the world will have become that little bit smaller..
Is it the magic of project why at work once again..?
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 20, 2005 | Uncategorized
Jonathan Blake Wade
1950 – 2005
If ever there was a man who epitomized all that project why stands for it would be Jon..
A human being par excellence..
A man who was first a man, before being white, or brown, british, or indian..
He transcended the usual tags and definitions, and refused to be locked in the little boxes of religion, country, race, colour and all that divides…
Born british he chose to be an Indian and imbibed in every pore the essence of India at its best..
Son of a pastor he chose to follow a universal religion that encompassed nothing short of the greatest..
If ever there was a friend that gave friendship its true meaning it was Jon…
Always present when needed, he knew the art of tiptoeing away when the task was done..
Generous to a fault with his time, his patience and his love, Jon found a special place in the hearts of everyone who met him, albeit for an instant..
If ever there was a man who embodied all that project why stands for and strives to impart, it was Jon..
A man who stood by his convictions and his beliefs and never gave in to the flavour of the moment..
A man who had the guts to walk the right path, even if it was the more difficult one..
A man who displayed courage and fortitude in the face of any obtsacle and always found the right solution…
A man who was simply ‘ a man’ !
The children and staff of project why mourn the loss of Jonathan Blake Wade who for the past five years was on its Board of Directors
New Delhi August 20th, 2005
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 17, 2005 | Uncategorized
the door bell rang and for once it was not the impatient courier man, but Ram Lakhan, our good old postman!
Strange it had been a long time since one had seen him. I had almost forgotten the days when one waited for the postman at given times, .. how he had been part of so many memories, happy ones and sad ones.. but then with the advent of emailing and courier services, Ram Lakhan had faded away like so many good things..
But today there he was, looking older and greyer, but still smiling as he shouted: ‘money order didi’!
I walked towards the gate as he fished the money order out of his wizened bag, and looked bewildered at the one hundred rupee note he held out. On the form, was a hand written message form an unknown person hailing from Pune that simply said: a small contribution for the work you are doing…
I was moved beyond words as, with a shaky hand and clouded eyes, I signed the receipt. To me in this slightly crumpled note lay the heart of India. Who was this unknown indian who had read about our work and thought it valuable enough to deserve his trust and this note.
I held on to it for a long time… feeling humbled and elated .. feeling I had finally found the way home…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 14, 2005 | Uncategorized
In many parts of our country and in many lands across our planet, shoes are left outside the homes.. a custom that makes a lot of sense which ever way you look at it
if one were to take the image a little further, one could also think of it as a way to leave problems and tensions that are part of our ‘outside’ world, before we enter the haven of our homes..
On the tiny planet we have conjured and called why a lot of shoes have to be left at the treshold.. and they are those that we have been made to wear because of our own ignorance, our inability to look with our hearts, our short sightedness..
They are the shoes that divide us and marginalise some of us, the ones that we often wear without realising or comprehending: they have names yes, names we often see on news headlines whenever ugly incidents occur: caste, religion, gender, colour, race….
At project why, these are left outside with the hope that one day we will forget to wear them, the day we will be truly ‘educated’… and hence trule independant.
Happy Independence Day!
August 15th 2005
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 13, 2005 | girl child, lohars, manu
project why.. where children dare to dream..
were the words that came instinctively to my mind when I designed the first project why brochure. they have remained there, unnoticed… but somehow quietly guiding us in our task…
when our friends from Japan decided to celebrate the Tanabata festival at project why, even though it was a bit delayed, we were thrilled, as this was a great step in our ‘exchange’ programme with Japan.
Nauko and her formidable gang of lovely ladies came with huge bamboo stems and every child wrote his or her wish on a little piece of colourful paper that would be tied on the stems…
I decided to give a set to the special section.. and they too wrote their wishes :
Umesh, our spastic child who can barely walk wants to fly an areoplane,
Preeti who is not loved by anyone wants to be a mother
Soni who is always in love wants to dance with Salman Khan
Anurag locked in his autism wants to drive a car
Shalini our down syndrome girl wants to be a doctor
Pinki who has severe retardation wants to be a police woman
Ruchi who suffers from a severe nervous condition wants to be a teacher
Manu, yes our very own Manu wants to be a monitor
Rajni our lohar mental retarded child simply wants to eat delicious food ..
Read these dreams again as they are a true reflection of the lonely lives of these kids.
yes they have dreams, the very children we feel uncomfortable with, the children that are cast aside by their own family, those who do not even get proper food let alone love.. they have dreams..
In the five years that project why has been in existence, this is the first time I felt I had achieved something… yes planet why is a place where all children can dare to dream..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 4, 2005 | Uncategorized
let me tell you a tale.
once upon not so long ago there lay an unused palace in south delhi district.. it had been a labour court, but then as it lost occupants and soul, it lay empty sometimes utilised for noisy and messy marriage functions that left their plastic scars..
occupants of a strange planet called why did try to get it to live again and wrote numerous petitions suggesting it become a place for children and elders and find its soul again..
one day there was flurry and activity and buckets of paints, and grass and flowers: time for a great makeover and the once cast aside lady became almost a beauty…
cars rolled by and many queens and kings came to the second coming of age ball.. then big hoardings appeared bearing the little red ribbon that names today’s dreaded scare and tiny letters spelt out the wonderland that was to enfold..
even planet why was happy, something was in the offing..
but great locks and iron gates were set up, no one knew what happened there..
then one fine morning, actually it was today, a kind hearted lady who lives near there stopped us and with great angst told us that all was not well behind the iron bars, that old deranged women and hurting people were beaten with sticks and blows.. that something needed to be done.. it was not a land of love and care..
the words on the board did mention the old and the ailing and many souls of lesser gods..
what was happening..
was that the plight of the ones that even families hoped to wish away, those like our darling Preeti who ate flies and insects to fgeed a starving body till one day someone in her own family would lock her in the place where they fed you blows!
insects and blows are lesser children’s woes.
all is not well in the state of….
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
he who plants a tree, plants a hope
said Lucy Larcom (1824 – 1893)..never were words written as true as in the case of Preeti and our new aloe vera project…
Stop a moment to look at Preeti’s smile before your read on…
Preeti is 19 though she looks 12.. she suffers from a mental retardation that no one ever bothered to assess and by the time she came to us it was far too late to do anything concrete..
Preeti is not a pretty child and in her home no one loves her. Her grandmother has even told us to ‘give her a rat poison’ on more than one occasions and not as a joke. If her family could wish her away, they would…
Pretty has never been fed and has a severe micro nutrient deficiency which translates in her eating flies and insects.. which makes her the butt of nasty and snide remarks..
But Preeti is an endearing child if you are willing to stop and look at her with love. In spite of her very limited abilities she loves to help in any chore she can and one of her favourite activity is gardening.
When our friend DV suggested that we start an aloe vera project we had no hesitation is giving it to our special section under the stewartship of their educator Virinder.
The children are now busy planting aloe vera saplings into tiny pots, preparing charts and other material explaining the vertues of aloe vera and the advantage of having a plant in every home. They have collected empty containers of aloe vera based products and highlighted the exhorbitant cost of each of them and are now preparing a little presentation for our annual day that will be held on August 13th. They will on that day launch the sale of their saplings at rs 10/- a pot and who knows our littel aloevera fairies may turn into business ladies!
And maybe, just maybe, Preeti would gain a little place in the heart of her family when she comes back with first earnings…
so as Lucy larcom said
He who plants a tree –
Plants hope. . .
He who plants a tree –
Plants joy. . .
He who plants a tree –
Plants youth. . .
He who plants a tree –
Plants love. . .
Gifts that grow are best
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
it was a special day at project why…
we had a special guest, one that has been a friend even before he saw our world or met any one of us.
rabin came all the way from chennai and spent the whole day with us.
his smile won eveyone over and the magic of project why worked once again as rabin became part of everything that was happening as if he were one of us.
he watched the reherseals for the forthcoming annual day, met all those he had touched with his cyberLove, neha and little aditya, met the angry and misguided young teenagers of okhla, and the odd couple who are parents to little yash.
the day went by, a normal one for project why but i guess a special one for rabin as he got a live show of what till then had been a reality perceived through words and snapshots, and a far cry from the cool air conditioned and organised world of a state-of-the-art bank!
a very special moment was when rabin met nutan. i cannot even begin to imagine the multitude of feelings and emotions that filled that instant..
if one had looked with one’s heart, what filled that tiny room was hope..
will the world look the same to you rabin!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 29, 2005 | Uncategorized
As Nutan’s story unfolds, India comes to light, with its hard realities and softer truths. Nutan is 30 and is suffering from a severe heart malfunction.
Years of ignorance laced with neglect, years of living the life of a woman in a society where women are lesser beings, of bearing four children with little or no help, of malnutrition and hard work have taken their toll on a frail body, where a heart was made to work twice as much because of a probable congenital defect.
When the body could not carry on, when the lungs hungry for oxygen started giving up Nutan was taken to the district headquarters of Purnea, in Bihar. There a doctor who braved the odds and dangers of life in this dificult state to bring a healing touch to those in need, diagnosed Nutan’s ailment and gave her the best possible advise: take a train to Delhi, to the AIIMS for immediate heart surgery.
The year was 2003.
Nutan then fell prey to the half baked knowledge of probale well wishers who scared her so much that she refused the treatment needed and pushed her all ready tired body to the very last.
Then two years later, when even living became difficult, she finally took the train. The verdict was simple: immediate surgery; the cost was staggering for a family who had already sold or mortgaged everything it possessed.
Ayan, a doctor friend from John Hopkins saw Nutan and confirmed what we all knew. I asked her what would have happened if Nutan had been born to a rich family. The answer was staggering: the pediatrician would have detected the heart murmur at birth and the corrective surgery would have taken place by the time she was 3. And anyway, had Nutan had proper medical check up during her pergnancy, the murmur would have been heard. And then the inevitable question, what if nothing was done, the answer was a quiet: 2 years at the most.
What conclusion to draw in this tale of missed murmurs?
The one missed at birth, the one missed four times and then the unexpected one from a kind doctor in a state everyone has given up on..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 27, 2005 | Uncategorized
Nutan a mother of four was diagnosed having a severe cardiac malfunction in a district hospital in Bihar and advised immediate corrective surgery. Doctors were optimist.
That was two years ago…
For two years, Nutan suffered, her condition deteriorating day by day. You may think that the surgery was delayed for want of funds.. well not quite
Nutan became an unsuspecting victim of what one could call enlightend ignorance. In her small village in the back of beyond of what is now known as the most backward state in India, this broken woman was fed on horrific tales of what a heart surgery was. In betwen bouts of severe and almost unberable pain, she heard bribes of conversation that described her body being torn apart and mutilated by city doctors and leading to a possible death.
Slowly a deep seated fright took hold of her pain ridden mind and she simply refused to be taken to the city and thus shut out the one option that could save her life.
It took two years of withering away, of bearing excruating pain, of witnessing her body slowly giving up for Nutan to accept to come to Delhi.
Nutan can barely walk, actually she can barely breathe. She is now undergoing the pre-op tests at the cardio-thoracic centre of AIIMS. We hope we can raise the money required and above all use our sources to get a date for the surgery and see this mom back on the road to recovery.
But Nutan’s case is not unique. How many people fall victim to ignorance, or what is worse half-baked knowledge.
Education then takes on a whole new meaning, a far cry for multiplication tables and historical dates…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 25, 2005 | Uncategorized
as children we have all dreamt of what we would want to be when we grow up… i remember wanting to be an air hostess, a nuclear scientist, an astronaut and god knows what else..
even slum kids have dreams: they often want to be teachers, doctors.. even actors.. and sometimes they even say ‘we want to be like you’.
the young boy in the picture is Sanju. His father ran away with another woman. Sanju has two younger sisters. Deepa the middle one has been sent to the village. Manju, two and half, comes to our creche. Sanju’s mom cleans homes and leaves at 6 am returning late in the evening, leaving Sanju is charge of getting little Manju to school.
Sanju is an angry young man who does not know how to handle his feelings. He used to come to project why but was a difficult child to control. He stopped coming and hangs around in the street in spite of our best effort. In the afternoon he does go to school but that also is not regular. And in the evening he often has to bear the frustration of a tired mother, who often hears complaints about her neglected kids.
This morning I spent time talking to him, wanting to know how I could get him to come back and study. In the course of our little chat, I asked him what he wanted to become when he grew up. After some thought he mumbled ‘mend chains‘. I was perplexed and asked him to explain. He did: Sanju wants to become a zip-repair man (there is one who roams giri nagar repairing people’s broken zips)!
I was filled with immense sadness faced with this child and his tiny dream, his one life ambition. I just sat long after he left lost in my own thoughts. How could the life of a man who wandered through streets holding a few zips and lugging a shoulder bag become the ideal of a smiling boy. At an age where one can dare dream of the impossible, what makes a child stop at something so insignificant.. how suffocating and sad must his life be… what did he see in this man who goes around shouting in the street hoping for someone to call him so that he could earn a few rupees… was it escape from the life of a surrogate parent when one wants to jump and play with others, or from the embarassment of having a little sister clinging to you..
Sanju has to be given back his childhood and te right to dream big, but how?
that is the question.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 24, 2005 | Uncategorized
I did not get to see matrubhoomi, young Manish Jha’s much acclaimed film…
I left for chennai the week of its release and thought I would see it on my return.
matrubhhomi did not run for a second week in India’s capital city. it got good reviews and was awarded in cities such as Venice, Kozlin, Thessaloniki and Florence, but it was wished away in our own delhi… though it ran for a second week in chennai
wonder why…
is it just too close to reality… everyday infant girls are done away with, women raped even pregnant ones, striking gender imbalance figures are published by disturbing NGO’s..
this is just one side of reality.
there is a subtler side, one we do not see unless we look. we are faced with this alarming reality with obsessive regularity in our day-to-day work at projectwhy.
little girls are not given the same food as their brothers, they are never taken to the doctor at the right time, their vaccination schedule is not followed. it does not end there. at every occasion possible they are reminded that they are girls and this a burden to their families and by extension to society itself.
their school fees are not paid in time, school books not bought and their desire to study twharted and even sneered at by their male peers. and it goes on endlessly… without respite the same way as the endless abuse in Kalki’s body in matrubhoomi… as they are married at an age when they should still be playing with dolls and become mother as a time when their bodies have still not finished growing
Jha’s film should be viewed as being in a much larger context: girls have to be protected and cared for, nature has to be left alone and not tampered with..
i sometimes wonder at the need of education in its present avatar and I mean education for every child be it rich or poor. multiplication tables and spelling of never comprehended words, or rote learning of civic rights and historical dates with the sole purpose of getting as close as possible to the imposible 100 mark is not going to bring about the changes we need to usher.
maybe our policy framers should think of reviewing the course content rather than splitting hair over trivia. children should be made aware of their role in society, their duty as citizens to bring about change, they should me aware of the problems lurking at every corner and been shown the way to address them.
it is not impossible neither is it difficult; it just necessitates the will to do so.. just as we should not as a city have turned away from going and seeing matrubhoomi!
Note: According to the latest government data on births, the number of females per males at birth in Punjab was 775 to 1,000
