I came across this bunch of happy kids right in front of our Okhla centre at Project Why. They were shy at first, but then it took no time for them to smile and perform for the camera. They made faces and giggled, just being kids!

Street children break my heart: the happier they look the more downcast I feel. It is the sight of such children that inspired the setting up of Project Why 16 years ago. Children have a right to their own space and Project Why is just that: a space where children can be children.

You might wonder why these kids are not part of the Project Why family. The answer is simple: our classes are full to capacity though I couldn’t resist asking whether these few kids could be adjusted in our Govindpuri crèche, the only crèche we run.

But what about the others, the ones who are not seen in this picture?

Slum kids live in environments where everything is a danger: from the rabid street dog to the speeding vehicles, from the filthy water discharged by the factory next door into the drain that runs in front of their homes, to the lurking predators in search of little hands to steal, or push drugs. This is one of the reasons we set up the Project Why Okhla centre.

Malnutrition cannot be reversed passed age 5; you cannot enter a school after a certain age; social and other skills are best learnt in the formative years. The list is endless. The child today cannot wait for tomorrow. This is why we at Project Why try and squeeze as many kids as possible, doing away with frills like desks and chairs and opting for the mats where it is easy to pack in a few more.

It takes only 100 Dollars or 7000 Rupees to support a child at Project Why for an entire year.

Would you consider donating 100 Dollars or 7000 Rupees each year to help build these futures? 

Could you give us a Like on the Project Why Facebook Page to help raise the numbers for our future Crowdfunding campaigns?

Or, if you stay in New Delhi, would you consider volunteering at Project Why to teach these kids anything from art, to English or Maths, or any other skill that you can share?

Will you help these kids claim their childhood back?

Is it possible for a child from the slums to shine at an exclusive boarding school?

It sounds like a rude question, but wait till you’ve heard about the Project Why Power Girls.
Meet Meher, Manisha and Babli.

Meher

Meher, who topped her class is a third degree burn survivor born into a very poor family. The fingers in both her hands were fused as a result of her accident, which led to her being abandoned on the streets at the age of three. Project Why found her scavenging in discarded plates strewn next to the local sweetshop. Everyone fell in love with this bright, determined and impish child and her near-say-die attitude. A volunteer present at that time had contacts with doctors and access to funds, and was able to help with reconstructive surgery on Meher’s hands. Once she healed and got back the use of her hands, off she went to boarding school.

Babli

Babli came to Project Why we realised she needed reconstructive cardiac surgery to mend a hole in her heart. A little woman of substance who dreamt big despite being barely able to breathe: Babli wanted to be a ‘police’! A magical network of volunteers and donors helped her to surgery. Upon recovery, she was put to work by her parents, a problem to which Project Why could find the one solution again, like Meher. The boarding school.

Manisha

Manisha was a student of our crèche. She came from a very poor parents. Ragpicking and alcoholism meant they couldn’t give Manisha a good upbringing. One of our donors, having heard about our boarding school programme at the time, wanted to sponsor a little girl. Everyone at Project Why believed Manisha should be the one.

Project Why’s Boarding School Programme symbolises everything Project Why stands for and believes in: every child’s right to quality education in an enabling environment. A proponent of the neighbourhood common school, Project Why believes that children form different social and economic backgrounds should study together, each one learning from the other.

Sending these girls to boarding school ensured just that.

Last week at their school’s Annual Day, Meher, Babli and Manisha, our Power Girls stood 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their respective classes.

For us, it was a dual celebration.

We saw the usual luminaries and guests, the speeches, the cultural programme and everything that happens on such occasions, but also two very special moments: the prize distribution and the dinner.
During these, a bunch of proud parents belonging to the poorest strata of society not only shared the space with the high and mighty but were the parents of three incredible, prize-winning girls.
For that instant, all barriers fell, all lines were obliterated and it did not matter who you were or where you came from. It was magical.

Do you think education should be equal for all children? What would you say to Meher, Babli and Manisha? Would you like to sponsor a child to go to boarding school?

Meher Manisha Babli

To know more about these girls:
Life on a planet is born of woman
A tiny woman of substance
A perfect day
My never fail feel good shot
Huge eyes in a scarred face
The key to her morrows
I am here to stay



Please join Project Why on its Facebook Page. 
You can also follow us on Twitter  
Even the smallest donation makes a difference. Support Project Why here

Anna Ma’am and her boarding school stars: from left to right Manisha, Aditya, Vicky, Utpal and Yash standing: Babli and Nikhil

 The quota debate is back. A statutory government panel has advised enacting legislation that would make it mandatory for private companies to reserve 27% of all jobs for marginalised communities. The quota system is affirmative action to help people from deprived backgrounds and is used in education and government employment. The proposed law aims at extending affirmative action to private businesses, including philanthropic organisations.

But what happens when a young woman whose father is a senior diplomat and who has studied in Ivy League colleges applies for a job under the reserved category?

In our own experience when Project Why took the decision to source all of our staff from within the community we never gave a thought to affirmative action or quotas; we were looking at skills and talent.  We have never regretted this choice. They have walked the extra mile and proved their worth. All our teachers needed was the opportunity; they did the rest. Project Why’s achievements are proof of that.

Is affirmative action that same as sourcing from the community?

When Project WHY decided to send eight extremely deprived children to a English medium boarding school; that was a form of affirmative action.  However, we did not throw them into the lion’s den. We rented a flat and kept them with us for one year. We registered them in an English medium pre-school where they learned basic English. At the flat we gave them the skills they would need: eating on a dining table with cutlery, sleeping alone in a bed, manners, using a bathroom and so on. And, in order to make sure they would not feel alienated we also introduced them to all that a boarding school kid would love: pizza, hamburgers, GI Joes, Barbies and what not.

When the day came, these little souls walked into their new world confident and sure of themselves. Today they are admired for who they have become; they are at the top of their classes, excel in sports, and love creative activities. There has been no looking back. Their caste and class does not matter anymore.

Was affirmative action the right choice for us to make?

Will the quota system really support those in need?

Will the quotas create a larger divide?

What are your thoughts on the quota issue? Should there be affirmative action beyond education?

Please join Project Why on its Facebook Page. 
You can also follow us on Twitter  
Even the smallest donation makes a difference. Support Project Why here

Recently, Project Why received a donation from a school in broken cartons and torn plastic bags.

We received books with pages missing, copybooks with not a single blank page, and unwearable clothes. The clothes were not washed let alone ironed and some were torn.

Students had been asked to donate what they didn’t use anymore: school books, bags and clothes gone too small. The children gave abundantly, because children are generous by nature, a feature that needs to be fostered by positive example.

Our questions can be very simple: should this have happened?

Did the school staff and the parents step back to imagine how a child receiving these would feel?

This was an opportunity the parents and the school could have used to demonstrate to their children how an act of charity should be made. What is certain is that charity is a two way street. When you give something you also need to give a bit of yourself. The children from both sides lost an opportunity to experience giving and generosity.

If all the clothes were wearable and folded, all the books and notebooks usable and intact, the cartons taped and the bags sealed, what would the children at that school have learnt? Was this a missed opportunity here to educate our children, on both sides of the divide?

Do you have any ideas about how this could be done? How do you teach compassion to your kids? How did your parents teach you?  Share your stories and comments.

Please join Project Why on its Facebook Page. 
You can also follow us on Twitter  
Even the smallest donation makes a difference. Support Project Why here

The past days have seen many Indian dreams smothered before time.

Three young girls ended their lives by jumping in a well. A young Dalit scholar ended his life in the hope of rekindling his battle. These lives were sacrificed at the altar of our indifference to the plight of those who live on the other side of the fence we  call the ‘poor.’ These include the economically, socially and otherwise challenged or those who we feel are different from us. You simply do not see, hear or speak about them.

To be merely acknowledged they have to scream themselves hoarse till the day they realise that nothing falls on deaf ears and they need to take the ultimate step to tell us they exist.

Rohith the young scholar and Saranya (18), Priyanka (18) and Monisha (19) did just that. They had enough of screaming. They hoped their deaths would talk in their place. They left suicide letters to convey what they could not in their lifetime.

What were they asking for: teachers to teach them, humane living conditions and to be treated as students and not slaves. Rohith in his last heart-rending letter simply states: my birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness, the unappreciated child from my past.

Nothing can help shed the cloak of poverty that sticks to you by virtue of your birth. The young girls paid a humongous fee to fulfill their dreams in the hope that money could buy them the freedom to aspire to better morrows, but that was not enough.

Rohith was born in the wrong caste. Does a child ask to be born in a particular family? Aren’t all children conceived and born the same way? So why these labels that stick to you before you utter your first cry, labels that never leave you no matter how hard you try to escape them?

To know of the plight young students of the wrong caste suffer and  read this  article. Students from Dalit and other backward communities have a raw deal. They have to survive in an environment where they are always considered inferior. Anything they do is viewed with suspicion by the elite class and the administration. They live with a Damocles sword hanging on their heads. One research student complained about the fact that she doesn’t even have a chair and is often locked out of the lab. And that is not all, should these students raise their voices or complain, they could even be labelled terrorists! On a daily basis they suffer barbs and snide remarks. Never ending. Relentless.

A young Dalit student says it all when she recounts an incident when a fellow student told her: “But you don’t look like an SC, you don’t dress like an SC!” On that day she was wearing a Nike T shirt. Brands are the prerogative of the upper lot; reserved categories are branded at birth for life.

When I look back at my early years I realise that never did my parents make me feel that I was in anyway different from those who lived with us be they family or staff. They were like me; individual human beings.

The most significant lesson my parents could conjure to ensure that this was seared on my soul was a yearly ritual I performed after Diwali prayer. Once the prayer over my father would ask me to go and touch the feet of everyone elder than me in the house. When you are five or six or even ten that literally means everyone: my parents of course, any guests present and the entire staff. In my case it often also meant people of different faiths and nationalities.

With this masterstroke they had shattered all barriers!

The way some people treat those who work for them sometimes defies comprehension.  What is sad is that this sets the tone for children forever. Children follow their role models.

Education can be the answer provided it remains on a level playing ground. Schools should remove all barriers, make all labels irrelevant except for those you earn by your deeds in school.

But today we have schools for the rich and schools for the poor and if that is not enough the Government’s Education Policy compels the schools for the rich to ‘reserve’ 25% seats for the poor. The new policy still on the anvil furthers this by decreeing that schools for the rich should take schools for the poor under their wings. Far from an even playing field. What is sad is that it seems that it seems that the Government seems to have chosen this way.

Should education be privatized at all? If we were to follow the true spirit of the Constitutional Right to Quality Education then the best approach would be good quality neighbourhood schools where children from diverse social backgrounds could learn together to learn, be, do and live with others, in the words of Jacques Delors.. This would allow children to break all barriers and bond with children of all caste, creed, and social profile.

But that is not the case as we have seen, and children from so called lower classes and castes – have to run the race of life with a label stuck to their foreheads that grows larger as the forehead grows. What is frightening is that the labels have insidiously taken on many hues: clothing, language, demeanour and so on, hence the remark: you don’t look like a ..! We have let the schism percolate to every walk of life.

It need not be so.

I talk from experience as more than 5 years ago I sent a bunch of deprived children of diverge castes and creeds to an upmarket boarding school. These kids have not only done exceedingly well in all fields, many topping their classes, but have managed to shed the labels they were born with and create their own. Imagine what India would be if we could do that for all kids.

My staff has a large number of people from ‘these’ castes and from top to bottom. I employed them for their ability and skills. I did not know what caste they belonged to and did not care.

One my senior staff members shared the plight of his community : his village is a few kilometres from India’s capital but till date no person from his community can ride a bicycle in front of the house of a higher caste person, or smoke in front of them. And that is not all.

At weddings, all music and bands have to be played outside the village. When the marriage party enters the village it has to do so silently. Even their right to celebrate has been taken away.

But on the other hand it does not take much to change things.

When we began Project Why, I was insistent on the staff eating lunch together, a lunch that would be cooked in-house and served by teachers according to a schedule. I must admit that in the beginning when ‘certain’ teachers served ‘others’ did not eat. I watched in silence, not reacting. I simply ensured that I ate everyday notwithstanding ‘who’ served. I cannot tell you how long it took but the day came when everyone was eating no matter who served and not only that but everyone even began inviting each other to their homes!

Being an example is the best way to teach. This is the role parents and teacher should play but unfortunately do not any more. It is imperative to fill in this space and education alone can do that. There must have been a reason for Jacques Delors to expand the definition of education and include ‘learning to be’ and more so ‘learning to live with others’.

It is time we taught our children the Art of Living with Others.

Do we want our children to be branded by birth? Shouldn’t every child have the right to create her of his own label and wear it with pride? Have you seen examples of such inequity around you? Share your stories in the comments!

Please join Project Why on its Facebook Page
You can also follow us on Twitter  
Even the smallest donation makes a difference. Support Project Why here

In another corner of the same city others are busy piling on layer after layer and complaining about the weather while sipping hot coffee or downing a shot of spirit. It should be said here that the hot tea and wood once given by the State Government to night shelters has been stopped. Perplexing as is it not the same Government who had promised to provide shelter to all homeless persons when it first came into power? Barely two years ago they had come up almost overnight with makeshift shelters across the city and had even talked of converting buses into night shelters. I had been quick to express my support urging one and all to do so. I was naive. I had forgotten that power corrupts in more ways than one. It demands you to give up the ability to see with your heart.

It took exactly two years to forget all promises. Even the cup of tea was taken away.

Some statistics now. In the 69th year of our Independence 8 people die of cold every day in the capital city. 164 have died this winter and with the cold wave raging there will be many more. The city has only 180 shelters some tents or portacabins. All together they can at best accommodate 10000 persons. There are at least 300 000 homeless in Delhi. You do the maths.

Many have to face the ‘sleep mafia‘ that controls where and for how long you sleep,  at a hefty cost of course. In a land where the State has abdicated its duty to provide the basic survival amenities to its poor, mafias walk in to fill the gap where needed and sleep is one such area. So quilts and space are up for takes to the best bidder. And as this new business grows, the state seems to withdraw further and further. Is poverty becoming the latest entrant in the business world. Who knows.

I wonder whether anyone of us has tried to imagine what life for a homeless looks like. We look forward to returning home and almost take it for granted. Home means a warm meal, a warm bed, warm water at the flick of a switch, smiles and stories shared around a hot cuppa. The homeless, after toiling the whole day, has to figure out where he will sleep. He may need to count his money and decide between a hot meal and a warm quilt. It is easier when he is alone, but what about families who are homeless, small babies, aged parents. I cannot begin to imagine what they go through night after night.

Seems like we have lost our ability to feel the pain of the other as these people are not invisible. Peer out of your car window when you drive back from your next party, you will see them on the road, near over bridges or at construction sites.

That the homeless should be compelled to warm themselves at funeral pyres is a shocking but real reflection of who we have become as a society. Need I say more.

Last week a prominent TV channel aired a kind of curtain raiser to the draft that is one is told to be unveiled soon. The Drafting Committee is headed by a retired and respected bureaucrat. He candidly shared some of the salient features of the NEP. I must say there was nothing earth shattering. Actually much of it felt sated an jaded. As a man becoming his age the Chairman of the Drafting Committee talked with a certain nostalgia of values and stories heard at Grandma’s knee but even Super Granny is no match to You Tube and its pals. We all agree we need to reinstate values and teach ethics and so on but all this has to be version Century 21! And therein lies the trick.

What truly saddened and shocked me was the suggestion that Public (private + rich) Schools should take on the task of ‘helping’ Government (poor) schools. To me this sole statement was enough to realise that once again we had headed the wrong way.

Seems like we as a nation and a society thrive on division. Division creates barriers. Barriers are never good. More so in education as to my mind education is the sole path to transformation. Education has to offer a level playing field. The moment you advocate one kind of  school helping another the battle is lost. We have enough division lines be they religion, caste, social background and so on. School could and should be the space where all these are obliterated. Looks like this education policy has not had the courage to do so. Our children have lost the battle. They will have again have to wait long years. I wait for the day when India will have a common neighbourhood school for everyone to walk to. Am I waiting for Godot?

During the show what transpired was a sense of confusion mostly due in my opinion to the overload of suggestions and submissions that the Committee had received and that they probably felt needed to be looked at. Now you will agree that there are many stakeholders in Education and each will view the problem from their perspective. To give you a small example we at pwhy have to battle with parents who ask us to ‘beat’ their children if they do not do what is asked of them. It is an extreme example but I guess you get the point.

For the policy makers it looks good to have mass participation and probably is also a sound election ploy. Everyone from village to state is involved. The question that needs to be asked is whether each of them have the interests of children at heart and the ability to view the problem in its entirety. I would tend to say no.

The question is not as overwhelming as it seems. Sometimes one simply needs to look at already existing policies and tweak them according to the needs to the day.

I have always been terribly impressed by the FOUR PILLARS OF LEARNING enunciated in 1996 by Jacques Delors namely : Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together, and Learning to Be. A sound education policy would be one that adapts these Pillars to the reality of the day and gives them equal space at all levels of education from pre school to higher education. This comprehensive education does not stop at imparting knowledge and skills but goes a step further to integrating them within the society in which the child has to live and not forgetting to development of the child itself.

Education today cannot be viewed in isolation. More so when families are losing the role they once played. Today school plays an important role in forming the child as a person and a citizen. Moreover education today has to keep up with the other sources wherein the child accesses knowledge – the Internet for example – and be in a position to steer the child in the right direction. Today it is no more EITHER OR but how to combine the two in the best manner possible. It is a huge challenge but one we must take had on for the sake of our children.

I agree that values learnt and Nana’s knee were invaluable but today these are passé. Simply reintroducing moral studies with the stories we learnt from would be laughable. What is needed is a huge makeover and coming up with stories that would talk to today’s children. 

When I look at the books the children study from, and believe you me I have done so umpteen times when I wear the Maam’ji cap and help with Popples’s homework, I wonder how they can hold the interest of the net savvy kids of today. Books need to be rewritten but by people who understand children and accept who they have become. Someone needs have the courage of spring cleaning all lessons. Do our kids really need to learn tables till 20 now that we have the decimal system? A good way would be to assess what we actually remember and use and what we have forgotten. In some countries calculators are now accepted in examinations, maybe we should do that. An error in calculation is no reflection of a child’s intelligence.

When I sat for my IAS examination,  I had a job and was a young mom. I was willing to study subjects and comprehend them but was aghast to know that I was expected to learn a plethora of statistics for the viva voce. These were annual production stats that lost their relevance when they year ended. There was no way I would do this. Needless to say many told me that I would never make it. The day dawned and after a few niceties the Chairman of the Interview Board, without looking up asked me what the steel production of India was and I simply answered that I did not know. He asked a few more questions and got the same answer. He finally looked up and asked in an irritated tone what did I know. I looked straight into his eyes and answered him that I knew the names of all the yearly publications that carried this information and would as a responsible officer ensure that these were available in my office. A huge laughter across the room told me that I had succeeded.

Education is meant to build confidence in every child. That confidence is what will make her walk the right path even if she has to walk it alone. 

Light up a Child’s Smile is a new campaign launched by the Mamagoto restaurants across India. This wonderful venture is the result of  serendipitous synchronicity. Yesterday when I received the long anticipated call tell me that WE WERE LIVE, my thoughts travelled back to where it all began almost a year and a half ago.

A dear friend and mentor told me recently that the universe always conspires to fulfil your dreams even if we mere mortals give up on them too easily. What you ask with your heart is always granted, even if you may have forgotten your prayer.

From the very outset my dream was to create a large and varied donor base who would give tiny amounts to make our work possible be it the one-rupee-a-day campaign that we launched long ago or  the various attempts at getting restaurants owners to add a tiny rupee to their bill. In the later case I remember being gobsmacked when the owner of a chain of restaurants asked me in all seriousness what he would do if five years down the line someone objected to the rupee parted with and pressed charges. Needless to say I was speechless. Come one ONE RUPEE or 0.015 cents. There are better ways to refuse Dear Sir! I can look at it with humour today but it was not the case on that fateful day. Were you to take out a rupee from a beggar’s bowl it would not make a difference. But my marketing skills were poor I guess.

In the same line we decided to hold a raffle where the prizes were: a meeting with a top star, a colour TV and so on and I managed to get an entry to my Alma Mater’s fair hoping to sell tickets by the dozen. We did not even sell one dozen. We were no match to the Tarot card reader at the next table.

We did have our share of silver linings; they came from over the seas!

We managed to secure some regular donors and even sunk into a comfort zone till we were rudely jolted out of it and run helter skelter.

The Universe on the other hand does not move post haste and also does not forget the messages it receives. It also operates in its inimitable manner we humble humans call synchronicity. A little before we received the news of a large regular donor backing out, the Heavens had begun setting the stage. Mid last year I came to know about the raw food diet and wanted to learn more. An email, a phone call and a meeting was all it took to establish a bond with a wonderful human being who felt like a soul sister. A few months later she even managed to get the recluse into a party outfit and come to dinner. Serendipity found me seated next to a young man who I learnt owned chain of restaurants. I almost fell of my chair when he told me that a good fund raising way was to add a fixed amount to bills! And his idea was TEN not ONE Rupee! Time stood still for a instant. I was hearing myself in an earlier avatar.

I had forgotten about this option but the Universe had not!

It took a few months to set it all up. But we are in business now.

A new world has opened up to Project Why.

For me meeting this wonderful young man who has a heart as big as the Universe is precious. It validates my belief in human kind. Everyone has a good heart; they have simply forgotten how to use it. It is time we helped them do so.

I recently read the review of a children’s book titled The Avrah Stories by Abu Abraham. What caught my eye and I guess my heart was the closing line of the review: and he teaches his little readers a lesson that you are never too young to learn: the importance of empathy. I have been trying to get my hands on a copy of the book but with no success till now. What truly grabbled me was the word ’empathy’ one that is sadly missing from the lexicon of too many of us, young and not so young.

Of all the definitions of the word EMPATHY the one I like best is this one: to ability to step into the shoes of another person, aiming to understand their feelings and perspectives, and to use that understanding to guide our actions, not to be confused  with pity or kindness. Empathy has to be nurtured throughout life, more so when we find ourselves in the face of adversity. But the seeds have to be sown in tender minds something that sadly does not happen anymore.

When I look back at my own life I am surprised at the fact that I cannot remember my first lesson in empathy though I remember feeling empathy when I was tiny, maybe 3 or so. Even today I feel tugs at my heart when I remember hazily the man and his dancing bear that my nana had called to entertain me. It was not the bear and his antics that I saw, but the thin man in a threadbare shirt in the freezing cold. I had surreptitiously walked into his shoes. The show ended when my tears compelled my grandparents to find the man and give him an coat. I on the other hand carried that ‘ability’ and fine tuned it over the years.

So where do these lessons come from and why have we lost them?

It has now been scientifically proved that we are not only homo sapiens but also homo empaticus who have the ability for cooperation and mutual aid. Roman Krznaric feels that empathy can be cultivated throughout our lives and use it to transform society, something I totally agree with. Highly empathetic  people have habits that they cultivate like: curiosity about strangers, challenging prejudices and discovering commonalities, trying on someone else’s life, listening hard and opening up, developing imagination and inspiring social change. I am humbled to see that these are pretty much habits I follow.

But to get to this point in life I have to thank many masters: my parents who led by example, the stories I heard at their knees, the innumerable amount of books I read and still read, the true life inspiring accounts I was told, the movies that made me cry, the undying belief that one could learn till one’s last breath and from any one no matter how humble, the gentle and correct admonishing by elders and teachers and so much more. From the look of it these are simple pursuits and occurrences and should be part of any child’s life.

Sadly that is not the case. Today children have parents who do not have time to tell stories, the box does that! Books mean school books and thus boring and a chore. Adults do not seem to care. Movies are violent and devoid of meaning, songs have no poetry, moral studies is passé and off the school curriculum and so on. There is no one to hold your hand when you stumble, no words to assuage your hurt, no one to set you back on course. You are at the mercy of a world where screens tell stories and search engines are your mentors. And this comes at a huge price one being  abdicating your right to imagine and hence your curiosity.

The palette on offer is limited, the people that can help non existent, lessons to be learnt AWOL, how can empathy be fuelled. At best is lies dormant waiting for the miracle that could rekindle it.  In the meantime the world has turned into a terrifying place where aberrations are no more exceptions but the rule.

As I write these words what stares at me is the frightening reality that we have no resources to carry on for long. Shut the door would be what most would suggest, and they do I tell you, some adding in good measure you have done enough! How do I tell them that it is in these times of strife that all the little and bigger faces of my project why family come to the fore and urge me to carry on. I can feel the hopes and see the dreams they dared to hold on to because we were there.

The problem is that most of those I approach I have shut their empathy and lost the key. True it appears at times propelled by a horrifying incident but soon slinks back into some tiny recess of the mind.

I have often asked myself what would get people to get out of their comfort zone and scream. It does not seem the be the rape of baby, the brutalising of a woman, the burning of a human being because you do not like what you think he ate, the killing of another because he read something you did not approve and so on. Each should rekindle our empathy but it does not. That is what we have become. I guess we are not even home sapiens: wise person. No wise person would allow any such aberrations in the society he called his own. And yet we live in one quite comfortably.

I am on a hunt, a hunt for EMPATHY.

“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

 William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

Today let us talk miracles. Yes about these ‘occurrences’ that happen everyday should you allow yourself to look with your heart. The reason I feel the need to do so is because lately I seem to have been the one who relied too much on my eyes. It seems a human failure to rush to the dark side when faced with adversity. All lessons seems forgotten even the one learnt at a father’s knee when things were bad and the loving parent told you about the big picture that one could never see in its totality. It is sad that all it takes is a small hiccough to wipe away wisdom.

As I browsed project why pictures yesterday – something I often do when I need a lift – I stumbled upon this picture of Manu and Father Xmas. It took me back several years to the time when a young passionate German volunteer decided to be Santa for our kids. Seeing Manu and Santa together was nothing short of an epiphany as I suddenly realised that Manu was my very own Santa who had come into my life one fine morning with an invisible bag of miracles he handed out when the moment was ripe, and this year after year till the day when five years ago he left us quietly. His time had come. But had mine? True I knew that the only way to repay the debt I owed him was to carry on, but here again I relied on my eyes forgetting the heart.

The last year has been a merciless one. Few know how difficult it has been to keep our doors open but closing was no option and we soldiered on as every time we reached the brink, someone threw us a plank! How did I not realise that it was yet another miracle from Manu’s invisible bag. All it took was to open the eyes of my heart.

The past few months have been filled with Angels and Miracles. True they did not having wings and did not descend from the heavens above, but came in different shapes and sizes and from across continents. I thank them all from the depth of my now wide open heart. I feel humbled and blessed.

Yes miracles happen everyday. They are the hands that reach out to you when the need arises, the mark sheet held with pride, the hug you never asked for and the selfie taken with someone now as tall as you but that once was a little scalded bundle swathed in bandages his eyes filled with pain. Who says miracles do not exist; look with your heart and you will be amazed.

Merry Xmas

Don’t lose faith in India were the dying words of my father who left me twenty three years ago. He died a few days before the destruction of the Babri Masjid. I am glad he did.

Over the years I have held on to the words of a father I adored in spite of all adversities and because I knew he was always right. Was he not the one who explained life’s bad times to a child with his big picture theory where bad moments were simply the dark blotches in a large and beautiful canvass. With are limited vision we only saw them. Happiness lay in your ability to imagine the full-blown image. So I held on to that image in spite of stark realities of children dying of malnutrition, of rapes and abuse, of hunger and cold. I held on to the invisible colours whilst trying to address what disturbed me to the best of my ability and finding my little patches of light and sticking them on the dark spots. These little sparks were in the shape of a child’s trusting smile, of a report card handed with pride, of a box of sweets in celebration of a new job. I must say I found them in ample measure and they helped me soldier on.

A day or so ago a furore took over the social and regular media. A celebrity shared his concern about tolerance and his fear of bringing up his kids in India. Frankly I feel that too much has come out of his remark and become fodder for political agendas as is always the case. Come on, even I have said in the privacy of my room that Delhi has become unlivable with its pollution and  but that does not mean I am packing my bags.

As luck would have it, I visited the Yamuna Project yesterday and spent some time with the kids. If there was any iota of a doubt about my faith in India, it was set to permanent rest as I laid my eyes on little Priya. She is the youngest of the brood and was the reason we started a class for tiny tots as she would come everyday with a copybook and claim her place in the sun. Take a moment and look at the picture. Her eyes reflect unending dreams that she may still not be aware of but that we can easily unravel. Her smile is infectious and her determination incomparable as she leads leads her class in English counting. She is confident and striking. But look at her hair. They seem streaked. But that is not because of some costly hair treatment but because of her severe lack of protein. Priya, like all her classmates is under nourished, something we are trying to counter on a war footing as past a certain age, the damage is irreversible.

That is not all. Priya and her friends do not exist as they do not have birth certificates or appear on any enumeration. They are invisible. And yet these kids are the brightest you can find, each displaying a insatiable hunger to learn and learn more, knowing intuitively that this could be the door for their dreams to be unleashed, dreams they carry in their eyes, dreams they have entrusted to us, dreams that give meaning to the my father’s words: don’t lose faith in India.

How can one faith lose faith in India as long as little Priya has dreams in her eyes.

I for one, can’t.

I am still stunned! It has been almost six hours since a phone call from my daughter informed me of the terrorist attacks on Paris. I am still trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps writing the thoughts that are choking me will help assuage the turmoil. As I hear the news, read the headlines and see the disturbing pictures my mind travels to and fro. Is it really Paris? The Paris I have loved from the time I mouthed my first logical babble. How can I forget the fact that one of the first songs I sang was Josephine Baker’s J’ai deux amours:

which would translate as:

It is Diwali time. A time to rejoice and be merry. It is also that moment in the year when Hindus pray Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth beseeching her to grace their homes. This is a ritual taught to me by my mother and one have followed over the years diligently. But never has it held as much meaning as this Diwali when I stare at empty coffers wondering how I will be able to keep these kids smiling tomorrow and the day after.

In the past we at project why have been close to the brink but were always saved in the nick of time and once again I was hoping for just that. But it has not happened.

I have left no stone unturned in my quest for support. Many things are on the anvil but may take some time. Many promises were made but still not fulfilled. I of course will not give up. How can I?

But today I know that I need divine intervention and that is why this Diwali a very special prayer will be murmured to Goddess Lakshmi. It will be a prayer mouthed by an ageing woman chosen to craft the morrows of thousands of kids who needs help to fulfil her mission. Will it be heard?

Henry Brooks Adams wrote: “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops“. This is something we seem to have forgotten. Yet this is so true!

I understand the third National Education Policy (NEP) is about to be drafted. It’s mandate is to: assess the status of the present education scenario, review the impact of the 1986 policy and the amended education policy of 1992, assimilate the feedback based on grassroot-level consultations and draft a new one keeping in mind the changed social, economic and technological context. Perfect on paper and in spirit but what frightens me is the news that the Draft will be ready by the end of the year – December -. The Committee is still being finalised. This post was not meant to be a ranting on yet another policy whose fate one can easily guess. India is replete of good intentions, perfects pieces of legislature, super sounding schemes and social programmes. The problem lies in their implementation. If I was ever given a chance to do something for the country I would first an foremost ensure that all existing projects run. Pipe dream of course!

For the last few days or more I have been meaning to write about the question du jour : tolerance; about crimes against children; about the rising graph of crime in general; about tens of thousands of people applying for a handful of jobs and so on. Perhaps I should write about all of them together as whichever way you look at the problems, there is only one true answer: education.

What the child learns will affect his life. As Jacques brazen wrote: “In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years“. The seed planted within the home and in school will take time to grow and bloom. It is time we looked at things in a proper perspective.

The new draft policy has a huge task before it: reviewing impacts of past policies, assimilating feed back from the grassroots and keeping in mind the changed social, economic and technological context. From that they need to distill what will be the seen that will be planted in future generations.

A daunting task to say the least.

I have been an insider in the matter for the past 15 years. I remember the day when a young class VIII student came to me with her English school book and asked to underline. It took some patient prompting to understand what it was all about: in the English class the teacher barely read the text (in the occurrence an extract from Wilde’s Happy Prince), proffered a short summary in Hindi and proceeded to tell the children to underline the relevant portion question wise. In the tests and exams the kids simply had to mug up the underlined portion and regurgitate it as best they could. No wonder the young girl was lost. No one had told her what to underline.

You may think that 15 years or so down the line things have changed. Yes they have but not for the better. Actually the scenario has worsened. In state run schools, classrooms designed for 50 kids have over 100 packed into them. Now even Wonder Teacher cannot do much when a period is just 35 minutes.

There are so many things that need to be addressed but if there is one thing children do not have is TIME. So whereas policies are welcome, I feel that the need of the hour is immediate remedial measures.

First and foremost we need to address the learning process and ensure that children understand what they are being taught. That of course touches upon the quality of the teacher issue and again that is another ball game.

Is there a magic formula that may help kids in school today as those are the ones I feel for the most. Let me tell you why. What most do not realise is that children today, rich or poor, have been invaded by an insidious source of information that is flooding them with data: IT. Every one possesses or has access to a smartphone. The problem is that there is no one to hold their hand through the assault and help them process the information. With hormones raging this is a true recipe for disaster: teenage pregnancies to eve teasing.

The one solution one could apply asap is access to mentors in schools of all hues. This does not need to wait for new policies to be executed. It does not require training of zillions of teachers either. What you need is identify people who could reach out to these kids. The ideal would be counsellors but to me a simple mom, a concerned soul or a gentle grandpa with the right approach could be just as good.

The children need to feel cared for and loved. That is one battle won. They need to be appreciated and valorised. Second battle. They need to feel that there is someone they can share everything with and not be chastised but guided. They need hear about positive things. These kids have no role models at all. We have to craft some for them.

The other need of the hour is the immediate introduction of sex education from an early age. There is no option and it is time we realised that. Beating around the bush will not help. There is no place for detractors.

Pipe dream again? I pray not.

‘Don’t lose faith in India’ were the dying words of my father when he breathed his last almost a quarter century ago. He was 80+. He was the descendant of an indentured labourer who had left his home land in the late XIX century. The reasons for his departure are as picturesque as your imagination would let you believe. Whatever they be, they compelled a man to leave everything and accept being enslaved and bear a number. His was 354495. He managed to secure his freedom and build life once again with determination and success. I am proof of that. Forgive this aside but it needed to be said.

Papa died a few days before the demolition of the Babri Masjid. I am grateful for that small mercy as it would  have broken his heart and maybe who knows shaken his faith, the very faith that I consider a legacy. Had I remained ensconced in my comfortable, ordinary and insipid life, it perhaps would have been easier to hold on to that faith, but I chose to walk the untrodden path that questioned that faith far too many times and needed me to hold on to it drawing on shreds of logic and passion.  But hold on I did as I could not forget the sacrifices my parents made for the country they loved unquestionably. My mom was even willing to sacrifice motherhood to the alter of freedom. She chose to give me life in a free India thus making its freedom sine qua non to my very essence.

I grew up on foreign shores but the love for India was lovingly woven into the fabric of my heart and soul by my two love stricken parents. The image of India that is seared in my heart is one of a land of tolerance, understanding and humanity. My parents never failed to teach me to respect the culture and values of the countries I grew up in and to me Indianness meant all embracing. I was proud of my heritage.

For the past years I have slowly had my faith put to the test. I  held on to it. When the going was too tough I shut my eyes and remembered my parents or looked deep into the eyes of a very deprived kid and knew I had to carry on just for that child.

We humans are strange bods! We have the capability of getting inured to things and even stop seeing them. I guess that happened to me too as I saw a beggar child, read about a rape or a killing and turned to my fragile coping strategies. But recent events have shook me to the core, as all the values that made India what she is, seem to have been hijacked and are being mercilessly destroyed.

Where is my tolerant land?

Today you are killed because someone suspects you of eating something that ‘their’ faith finds offensive. Today a baby can be burnt alive because someone in her family did not do something another asked him to do before she was even born. You can have your face blackened for reading the wrong book, seeing the wrong film; you can be harassed for the clothes you wear, the drink you consume, the game you watch and so on. Intolerance is the flavour of the day and you better get used to it. Your life has been hijacked.

So where to you go to keep the wavering flame of your faith alive? The usual coping strategies seem to be floundering. New ones need to be sought if you do not want to live your life in fear. One option is to be fatalist and we Indians are privileged as we have karma to explain what cannot be. But what is the karma of a two year old that is brutally gang raped? Another option is to hope that someone among those who steer the country will intervene and say: ENOUGH but sadly that too seems to be a chimera.

You look helpless and almost hopeless for some ray of hope as you surreptitiously find yourself reading what you wrote twice over lest it upsets someone, something you never did before in a land where freedom was your right. Alas today freedom takes on a whole new meaning with far too many caveats. You want to scream, to rant, to rave, to shout: STOP.

We are tired of the intolerance we see. We are fed up of the political games that surround every occurrence and never address the situation. After seven decades of Independence there are still 5000 children who die every day for want of clean water and adequate food, child labour and abuse flourishes, women are still second class citizens and millions are deprived of basic dignity.

But what I would want to say to those who hold us to ransom today is that you cannot kill the spirit of India. What your aberrations are doing is waking up the deadened consciences of far too many who cannot keep mute anymore. There is an anger slowly brewing, an anger that is breaking the seemingly impregnable walls of comfort and finding its voice.

India is a blessed land. Let us not for get that, and yes Papa, I for one will not lose faith in India till my last breath.