A few days back a young friend was sharing his dilemma about shifting homes. He lives in one of the what is known as ‘posh’ colonies of South Delhi and has a floor in one of the stand alone houses which are the hallmark of these colonies. I live in one too. His wife wants to move to a satellite town, in one of the self contained upmarket gated communities. My first reaction was instant horror! I would never give up my rambling and even crumbling home for the most luxurious apartment in a gated colony. Gosh it is like living in a gilded cage. But as the young man started stating his case I realised his wife’s concerns and even understanding them. I still would not move a toe out of my home but then I am an ageing woman with grown up kids and a grandson that lives thousands of miles away. The young woman in question is a mom to young children, one about the age of our resident ‘imp’ at the Yamuna centre.

The young mother’s concerns are many but can be resumed in a single word: safety. The present location of her home is ‘unsafe’ for her children. They have to breathe fumes of the constant traffic; cross busy roads to get to a park to play; drive miles to get to a pool or simply to school. In a gated community all the child needs to do is take a ride in the elevator. The world is literally at her feet.

I could not help but think of my little imp and of her ‘house’. It looks like the one painted by one of her school mates in this picture. Thatched structure as the law does not allow the ‘poor’ a single brick on the flood plain – that is only the prerogative of the rich who can build temples and sky scrapers -! The agricultural labourers who tend to the vegetable fields in the flood plains can only have these flimsy structure where a spark can set a fire and snakes can lurk in the straw of the walls. And when the river is in spate and the fields are flooded the families move on higher grounds tucking whatever they can of their homes under their arm: often the precious blue plastic sheet and a few belongings. The rest has to be procured again when the water recede and the home can be erected till the next rain sweeps it away. I wonder if little Preeti’s mom can have the luxury to worry about the safety of her child. I guess it is better she did not as the dangers that lurk are unimaginable: snakes and bees; contaminated water replete with bacteria of all shades and hues and heavy toxic  metals thrown in the river with alacrity and impunity by the likes of us. The poison seeps into the very ground these children run on. In the case of this mom ignorance is bliss. If she had an iota of knowledge she would take her children and run. But where to?

The family had to ‘run’ from their ancestral homes as not only did they not have any means of sustenance but they had the misfortune of ‘belonging’ to the wrong political party, and I use the verb ‘belong’ with utmost confidence.

Feudalism has not died in India. It has simply changed feathers! Gone are the feudal lords and enter the politician. Just as the erstwhile feudal lord who needed hands to work his land, they too need ‘hands’ to clap at their rallies and shout slogans. The feudal master fed and cared for his brood; the political master hands out a few coins and unlike his predecessor, leaves you in the lurch to fend for yourself and your loved one when the battle is lost. What no one realises is that predators lurk and target those who dared cheer for the opponent. So you run. Just as the families of our Yamuna centre did and you hope the hounds will lose your scent.

You build your life again having only Nature to contend with and you learn to survive again. But your scent never leaves. It is called ‘poverty’. One day it will be picked up again by the new lords who will make you run again. I wonder when the land these brave people till will come into the eyes of the politician-builder duo duly blessed by the bureaucrat ready to do what is needed. So more than the river there is a larger danger looming.

Apologies for this digression. But it has to be said.

Let us get back to the topic: safety of children! How easily we identify the slightest element that may endanger our child but then why do we not have the same attitude to the multitude of children that come our way when we step out of our ‘safe’ homes. Have we ever bothered to give a thought to the dangers they encounter every minute of their tender life. I am talking of the child that knocks at your car window at every street light. Have we ever thought of how she weans her way in the dense traffic? And when she sleeps under a bridge what does she breathe: toxic fumes. I guess you get the idea. The child that works at a tea shop, a brick kiln or even in your neighbour’s home have we ever bothered to look at her the same way as we do when we think of our own.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: the test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

I do not think we fare well as a Nation.

Makes me hang my head in shame.

Kids speak out on religion is a video everyone must see with their heart and imbibe in case one still has an inner child. Kids of all hues were asked a series of questions like what is religion? What is means to you? What is you religion? Do you have friends from other religions and so on? I urge you to take a few minutes and listen to their jaw dropping answers filled with wisdom beyond their age. From “Respect to the Gods” to “To make us less scared” you have it all. And then you will smile at the religions proffered: tamil, marathi, Bhojpuri. They all agree it is man made and ultimately everyone is the same. If there are no religions they all agree that life would be better. Amen!

It is serendipity at work again as if you read my last post, you may recall that Utpal now in his raging teens is hell bent on getting the 1st prize the dorm decoration contest and to that end barring posters and wall clock he bought a small Ganesha and the name of Allah as the room has Hindu and Muslim boys. Yesterday I got a frantic call asking me to buy a cross too as we seem to have a Christian pal too. Needless to say it has been done and waits to be sent to school. This side of Utpal is heartwarming to me as I too was brought up the same way and even at age 63 my temple has deities and representations of all faith. That is the way my parents brought me up. I guess boarding schools are also a great place to learn to be truly secular.

I cannot resist but share a story that happened almost half a century ago. My husband who was in boarding school since age 6 told me that once when he was soccer captain, he discovered to his horror that his shoe laces were misplaced/lost/wet and that he needed something to go in the dared shows. He saw some kind of string hanging in the washroom and without a thought grabbed it and laced his shoes. He discovered later that the string was the sacred thread Parsis wear around their waist. But it was no issue. The string was removed form the shoe and washed and found its way back to the intended waist. Everyone has a good laugh and no one was offended. The two boys in question are still great friends!

Religion at best should be all encompassing and humane. Nothing short of that is worthy of any God we pray to. I was born a Hindu but brought us as a human being and though I prayed at our alter, I also fasted with my Muslim friends; went to Church with My Muslim ones; celebrated the Sabbath with my Jewish ones and argued in a bantering way with my atheist and agnostic ones. That is the way it should be.

This rabid talk of religion jars on the years and make me uncomfortable to say the least if not go ballistic. So when Utpal’s asks for a cross it is music to my ears and balm to my heart. But one quickly wonders how long will it take these kids to be drawn into the vortex of religions that divide, teach to hate and even kill.

For the moment, let me simply enjoy this moment.

Listen to these real children of God

Doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans wrote George MacDonald, and many a times I find myself doing just so. It has been some time now since I have shred my hubris and tried playing God, as we far too often do. I have now reached the point where I accept everything that comes my way as part of His plan and hence no dispute.

It was not always the case, and to reach this point in time that I like calling wisdom, I had to take many blows. You see hubris is a lot like an onion; it comes off layer after layer each one making you shed a few tears.

To illustrate this, let me share a story: Popples (a.k.a Utpal)’s story.

He entered my life one fine morning when his family moved into the tenement adjoining the one that was our office. The place was so tiny that his mother bathed him out in the open just in front of our entrance. Was it serendipity or Act I of God’s plan that his bathing time coincided with my arrival time. He was just about one. A bonny baby with beautiful eyes and a smile to die for. So every morning I was greeted by that smile and entered my office smiling, my spirits lifted. He was my morning feel good shot. I would pat his head and asked the mom when she would send him to our creche and she would always tell me that she would after his first birthday which was days away. One fine morning it is not a smile that greeted me but a big lock on the tiny door of his house. I felt uneasy and hurried to try and find out what has happened. What I was told made my blood run cold: the little boy had sustained severe burns after ‘falling’ into a boiling wok and was dead. My heart missed a beat. I tried to assuage it by telling myself that a child with third degree burns did not have a great future in a slum and maybe his leaving us was better. The next days were muted. The lock on the door was enough to dampen the mood. I did not realise how much that little smile had meant to me.

Days passed slowly as I learnt to live without my daily smile. One day, it must have been a week or so after the terrible accident, I had barely alighted from my vehicle when a posse of screaming children ran to me each one trying to tell me something. It took me some time but I figured that the smile had not been extinguished and Utpal was home. I rushed to his house and was greeted by a weeping mother, a bundle swathed in bandages, some quite blood, and incoherent words as a paper was thrust towards me. It was a discharge slip that stated that the child was being sent home but the chances of survival were extremely poor. I looked up and was greeted by two trusting eyes that were filled with pain but also though it sounds incredible, hope. I found myself saying: you are going to live baby! I was high on hubris and thought I had all the answers. Foolish me did not realise that the stage had been set by Him.

Was it serendipity again that one of the volunteers working with us was not only a nurse but had worked in a children burns unit in one of the best hospitals in Paris and that Rani my trusted assistant was a nurse’s aid. Utpal never went back to the hospital as we set up one right there in my office. And in no time a huge support network appeared as by magic and the little boy was well on the road to recovery. A friend had suggested animal protein as essential (remember this was 13 years ago) and from that day on fresh chicken soup was made everyday in my home and poured into a black flask that the little fellow learnt to recognise. A cot was set up in my office and that is where he spent the day. Though his milestones were delayed, each time I worried about one, it was crossed in the days to come. In hindsight I should have realised that someone was holding the strings. But then when one is prey to hubris, one is hopelessly blind.

When we discovered that the mother had a drinking problem, one again played God and made plans. First it was to give her a job, then a home and so on. When that did not work we were at it again: rehab for the mom, boarding school for the kid. One even had the audacity to think ahead: after rehab ( of course she would recover) a residential job in the (then mythical) women centre that we would have conjured. And we did. It was a perfect fit: mom had a job and a safe place to stay, child would have a place to spend his holidays. But that was not His plan at all. Mom had a meltdown you see it was not only the bottle as she was diagnosed as being bipolar. So what we had the answer again. A longer rehab and life time medication that of course we would control. But mom ran away and thus began a terrible time when the child began to be used by the parents to access money. But we had a solution to everything we would help the father start business as a carpenter all he needed was tools, some space and a little wood to start et voila! Tools and wood were sold for liquor and we were back to square one, or minus one as the mom started drinking again and did not take her medication. The whole plan to get the family back on track was blown away. I guess that was the time when the layers of hubris began to come off, albeit slowly.

The situation with the parents became untenable and we looked for ways to protect the child from the abuse he was subjected to. It became imperative to get some legal support and a series of events brought us to the Children’s Court where I was ultimately  declared ‘person fit’ to look after Utpal. I again thought that things had fallen in place. But the mom decided to vanish and the trauma was too much for the child. So it was the child psychiatrist, counselling and so on. I slowly began to see what God’s plan was. I had a huge role to play in this child’s destiny, a bigger one that I had anticipated, one that was not in my control. I just had to follow His plans.

Today I realise that this child of God has been sent to test me and divest me of any remnant of hubris that could be still lurking around. Ours is a ’till death do us part’ deal with challenges thrown to test my mettle. I have to do the will of God. There is no time to dispute anything.

The bonny one year old is now a teenager. He is no more the little happy bundle that one carried on one’s hip and who did those endearing things that every one swooned over. He is a 13 year old with is moods and wants. His voice is cracking and a fuzz has appeared on his lips. He is into football and tennis and loves his screen. Now at 63 it is hard to be a mom. You have earned the right to be a granny and granny are meant to spoil silly. But then with him you are also mentor and friend and need to apply brakes when needed. I must say I am terrible at that.

You would not believe what my week end assignment was. Utpal was home for the weekend and declared that he needed things to decorate his dorm as there was a competition for the best dorm. After much deliberation it was decided that we would get a nice clock for the room and posters as that is what he wanted. Posters of Bruce Lee, Ronaldo and Messi! I told you he is a teenager. Anyway I though easy peasy we would go to Archies and find everything. Imagine my dismay when I was told that they did not have posters and that to get posters. We could try the pavements of some popular markets in the evening. Come on there had to be some place where one could find posters. So stubbornly I went to other shops but with no success. I was flummoxed. Did teenagers not stick posters on their walls anymore. Come on old biddy they do but you buy them online. You guessed right: they have been ordered.

This was a taste of what is yet to come. I guess we will have to deal with clothes – already begun – and girls, and love and career choices. Gosh I guess I was done with that. Did I not begin this journey flushed with hubris believing I would write the script. Wrong! It was His script and the day I reached out my hand there was no looking back. I was His will. Now it is to me to be worthy of it.

I feel blessed.

She is 48. She hails from Bihar, a state that sadly connotes poverty and true to that conception she belongs to an extremely poor family. Her husband is a poor Brahmin who survived by being the local priest. His flock belongs to the poorest of the poor. I presume she was married when her sisters on the other side of the fence are still playing with dolls or learning the art of being a teenager in a world replete with gadgets and gizmos. And when they are about to experience their first love, she is already a mother. She soons learns the art of going to sleep hungry or worse lulling her hungry baby to sleep. By the time her rich sister steps out of school she is a master in the art of surviving.

It is not hard to imagine her life. Her village is one of those that get flooded over and over again, when bunds break, or water is released from higher regions, or when the river itself change courses. She would have had to rebuild her life each time to see it washed away again and again. She would have lived through droughts looking at the parched land and the unyielding sun. And yet every year she would have stood in cold water worshipping the same sun in the hope that her family would be provided for. From sunrise to sunset her life would have been dictated by the wants and the needs of her family. She also must have mastered the art of neglecting her health and hiding her pain as there was no place for her ailments in her hard life. A quick and hushed visit to the local shop for a pill prescribed by the shopkeeper to keep the nagging pain away. But for how long.

One day it all became unbearable and the secret had to be shared. There must have been umpteen visits to the local quack, the small town quack, the district hospital. Then the verdict: she had to be taken to Delhi, to the hallowed All India Institute where every needy Indian lands when all else fails.

That is where she lies today stunned and bewildered; unaware of the reality: she has advanced ovarian carcinoma that needs surgery. Her family has been handed an estimate: a whopping 1 lac 50 thousand (150000) Rupees, a sum they have never seen. I guess that even if they sold all their belongings they would not be able to garner the amount.

He has four degrees but works as a garbage collector screamed the headline of a news item. This is the story of a man born on the wrong side of the fence who thought that education could free him of his shackles. So he set down to get educated and acquired a  B Com, BA in journalism, MA in Globalisation and Labour, Masters in Social Work and is currently pursuing M Phil at the reputed Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He holds on to Ambedkar’s words: If you study you will grow but as he says people still do not accept him. The burning and frantic desire to learn was kindled when as he says: “I got down into a drain on my first day of work. For days after that, the smell didn’t leave my mind. I walked through water with dead animals. That’s when I decided I had to study and get out of this vicious cycle“. Study he did but nine years later he does what his family has done for ages: scavenging. He got his father’s job in the Municipal Corporation. All his degrees acquired at an incredible price remained futile and useless in his bid to break his birth cycle.

That manual scavenging still exists in our country with over 180 000 manual scavengers as per the sock-economic census is a blot on our society and should make us hang our heads in shame. This in spite of an Act passed in 2013. That it took us 66 years to promulgate an Act banning manual scavenging is a matter or further shame and leaves me speechless. That it does not disturb each one of us leaves me outraged. What kind of freedom have we crafted for ourselves where aberrations exist and society is inured and mute.

This person has more degrees than many of us and is still shackled by his origin. Our heartless society and insensitive rulers use social evils with impunity to further their agendas, but remain unmoved by the reality on the ground. They pass laws amidst much fanfare but never ensure that it is respected. We have laws on child labour, domestic violence, child abuse, rape etc but these often remain on paper, just laws that you can quote in your manifesto and election campaigns and wear on your lapel to look good. And it is not just laws. We have a plethora of programmes and schemes aimed at bettering the plight of the poor but these to only fulfil their covert agendas of lining wily pockets. Poverty makes good business sense when your conscience as gone AWOL.

The poor are peddled dreams one of them being education as a panacea to all evils. Educate your kids and all will be well. We too do just that and even give ourselves a pat in the pack when our kids pass their Boards and register for a degree. But reading the above news item saps the wind from our sails making us wonder whether we are on the right course.

The children in the picture above belong to our Yamuna Centre. Their parents are agricultural landless labourers and in the light of the story no degree can free them.

How can this be? And who is to blame?

Laws are toothless and useless. There seems to be no political will; the administration does not care and civil society remains mute and compassionless.

Where there should be outrage, there is just silence.

And yet I cannot give up. I know that education alone can help these children and others like them change their morrows.

We need to hear stories like these in the hope that someone will HEAR and do something, even if the something is simply to reach out to one underprivileged child and teach her.

We have our share of success stories, of pwhy kids who have broken the vicious cycle of their birth and are blossoming. True they are tiny drops in the ocean but change will happen one child at a time. If you change the life of one child, you have made a difference.

I do not know at what age I had my first party, the one where you incited boys too! Though I am a child of the sixties and a rebellious one for that, my rather older  and a tad traditional doting parents did not quite warm up to the idea and I must have been in my late teens when I was finally allowed to have a party at home. As far as I remember my girls had their first part when they entered their teens. Yesterday Utpal had his ‘first’ party and sleepover. Actually it turned out to be in two parts as the boys arrived late and the sole girl had to leave early. Believe it or not, the one who enjoyed the experience the most was yours truly! Organising parties for my girls was always trying as most of them happened when we were in Prague or Paris and with scant help at home  from the planning to executing via shopping and cleaning was on my to do list. Not so this time as I sat back and enjoyed it all.

For the past week, my house has been in party mode. When Utpal asked me some time back if we could invite few pals for lunch during his summer back, I not only agreed but was thrilled as in his earlier school he had made no friends. What I told him was that he was the one who had to plan and execute everything menu, shopping, picking up and activities. My little man took it all in his stride. First he needed to confirm it all so my phone was requested many time and rang many times for him. Then as a great organiser he got a diary and made a menu with Shamika’s help then found out all that was needed to be bought and went on many shopping expeditions. Finally the day dawned and he was up early, all dressed up and his room was spick and span. Oops I forgot to share that during the week he had made many plans on paper on how he would set up his room. There were many discussion sessions with Shamika who was the ideal mentor for the occasion.

Utpa, is a perfect host and has always been so. I can never forget how I was invited to tea almost 10 years ago by him 10 years ago! So this time too Utpal behaved impeccably even pulling the dining room chair for his lady friend whom he seems to have a crush on, and making sure everyone ate and drank to their hearts’ content. After dropping the young girl it was all boys but I was pleasantly surprised to see how well behaved everyone. There was not a sound as they all played and chatted in his room.

The lunch turned into a sleepover as 3 boys stayed back and once again they were a dream to have as guests.

Actually I always said: Utpal is to the manor born!

Today we run a small project for them and they are the most eager learners what can ever find. If you ask them what they like best pat comes the answer in unison: STUDY! If you prod a little more you may hear ‘cricket’ but that is all. As they do not go to school, we run a proper school like activity with a warm midday meal and subject classes including art. Were hope to add more extra curricular activities and sports! Given a little help I am sure that each one of them has to potential to become every and any thing.

But this may not happen as the powers that be in their extreme wisdom are on the verge of amending the child labour law to legitimise use of children under 14 years as labour in family enterprises and though they add after school and during vacation we all know which way these caveats will go. Anyway, what about kids like these who do not go to school. With one stroke of the pen they are condemned to the family enterprise: agricultural labourer! Voila. End of dreams. So who says the cast system  is dead. I has had just been  surreptitiously reinvented, repackaged and ready to be marketed. Father cobbler: son cobbler. Daughter married to cobbler. And so on.

I am sick and tired of the empty and supposedly politically correct ramblings that purport to end social ills; the pro poor discourses, the Messiah like pandering. No one is interested in the ending poverty. Why should they. It is such a great political platform with innumerable causes to espouse. Deprived of the  poor how would politic as we know it survive. Gosh where would they find an alternative were every child educated and empowered. I get reminded of the Little Riding Hood where the wolf would say to defend such an abhorring amendment: to better manipulate my child.

I would like to meet the individuals who actually came up with these amendments. How can any right minded human being can accept to see any child under 14 work and forget the family enterprise as in this case it is not a swanky one. The family businesses we are talking for can be just about anything from domestic work to begging with everything else along the way.

And yet these kids who are condemned to grow vegetables could be anything they want with just a little help from society. But therein lies the problem. Over the past decades I have witnessed the degradation of a society that once was caring with values and morals to one that has lost its heart totally. Come on let us look at ourselves. We drive past a beggar child without getting outraged. We see a child toiling in  a friend’s home without batting an eyelid. We see statistics of children dying in thousands every day and do not get disturbed. I could go on and on. The reason is they are NOT our kids, they are someone else’s kids. They belong to another planet. Now the government you get is a reflection of the society. So if we do not care, why should they.

I wonder what and whose interest this proposed amendment serves. I guess we all know.

It is time each one of us went looking for the heart we have conveniently lost or sacrificed to the alter of some supposed Good that we all should be ashamed of.

Mom! What a wondrous word and more than a word a fuzzy feeling no matter which language or abbreviation you use. Mom is the place real or virtual you seek when you are hurt or in need of comfort. It is the one you call when is despair or the one you remember in your happy moments. It is the lap you run to when your graze your knee and the arms you seek when life does not treat you kind. Mom is where you feel safe. I became a Mom at 23 and then again at 29. I thought that would be it. Two beautiful girls! What more could you wish. But I was in for a surprise or should I say many as when I decided to give life to another family, I never thought I would become Mom again. The family I am referring to is Project Why!

Over the years my Mom persona has acquired many children some quite grown up. I must say that I love them all unconditionally just as a Mom should. But there is one little chap who landed in my lap 12 years ago scalded and moribund and walked into my heart in a space I was totally at a loss to define. I was 50 when he was born. As he slowly healed from his terrible wounds and caught up with all his milestones he decided to call me Maam’ji when he learnt to talk and it worked as Mam’ji could be anything as it defied age-based  and non-conventional relationships. I forgot to mention that in my opinion, the heart of a Mom is expendable and fits anyone who needs love.

We carried on for 12 years through all the problems and challenges and met them head on and with success though there were some that were really scary. To the question: who is she to you? the answer always was Maam’ji.

But then a few days ago Maam’ji fell short as the child, now a teenager was faced with a difficult decision and choice and the need of a safe haven was critical. The young boy changed his answer to the question:who is she to you? Without batting an eyelid he said: Mom.

This happened in a rather austere environment where I could neither jump up and hug him, nor allow tears of joy to shed. I just held on to the moment in my heart.

So here I am, Mom again. With it comes the job description. Come to think of it there is none. You just have to conjure one as you go along. No second chances, just one and you better get it right. Children do not come with an instruction book.

Am off to making mine!

Yesterday the recluse was forced out of her hole. It happened like this. Some people were meant to visit the women centre and Yamuna Project to initiate an adult literacy programme that would be taught by our senior students. They were to swing by place first and I blissfully thought that we would have a chat and a cuppa and I would then send them with Dharmendra and would crawl back in my hole. However things did not happen the way I had planned as the gentlemen in question practically dragged me out. Before I quite knew what was happening, I was squeezed in the back seat of a car and we took off. The traffic being light we were soon at the Yamuna Project. It was rather crowded as it was also the first PTM day. I headed straight for the kids and was again amazed at the palpable energy that emanated from them. They were all keen to show me their work. Copybooks were thrust my way with complicated sums solved correctly. I decided to have some fun and told them I was very bad in maths and needed them to teach me. They first looked a little perplexed but when I told them i had forgotten my table barring 2 and 5, they all decided to test my knowledge with the table of 7. I pretended to falter after 3×7 and they were amused as they recited the table and watched me dutifully repeat it. It was a unique experience with these free spirited kids who have no issue in handling any situation even that of an old biddy who decides she wants a math lesson. You want a math lesson, well you get one.

From maths we went on to the subject of teaching moms and all the kids were ticked pick at the thought of they teaching their moms. I wish the serious posse that accompanied me had realised how this could be a great project, but as all people tied to organisations and their protocols did not warm up to my idea as they had specific requirements. I wish programmes were flexible. Imagine these kids turning teachers. How empowered they would feel. Never mind the staid programmes I would conjure my own and put it to test. The few moms that were present were also quite kicked at the idea. It can only be a win win one!

It was soon time to leave and I realised a tad sheepishly I good I felt outside my hole in the company of these incredible kids. Must air the old biddy more often.

We then went to the women centre where five of our class X kids were waiting for instructions about the adult literacy programme. I was still in my happy bubble and let the adults talk. I think some programme was initiated. While the parleys were on I feasted my eyes on my class X kids who had all passed their Boards and was filled with immense pride, more so because these incredible kids were spending their vacation working at project why! Some were helping Meher do her homework. Others were teaching the weaker primary kids and our in-house artist Aman is the Art teacher of the Yamuna Project and even plans to continue teaching after school reopens.

I was truly on cloud none, my batteries recharged and ready to take on the world.

It was really the feel good shot I needed. 

You can’t regulate child labour; you can’t regulate slavery. Somethings are just wrong wrote Michael Moore. And yet our Government has ‘tweaked’ the child labour law and now children under 14 can ‘work’ in family enterprises and the entertainment industry! To give itself good conscience the said Government proffers some weak caveats: provided the work is not hazardous; provided it is after school etc. I wonder what made these amendment necessary. Child labour of any kind is wrong and exploitative and a law such as this one is open to all kind of misinterpretations. Actually it simply legalises what has been happening and will make interventions to stop child labour quasi impossible. A child working in a tea shop will be termed as ‘family’, more so in a land where the definition of family is boundless. The child who may have been ‘sold’ or brought from the village as cheap labour, will now become family.

What is nothing short of abhorrent is that this law applies only to the poor; to the very children who need to be freed of all shackles that hijack their childhood. But now, with he stroke of a pen, the morrows of millions of children have been shattered. The surreptitious message that is being sent is: the farmer’s on will remain a farmer, the cobbler’s son a cobbler and so on. An image such as this one will be ‘legal’ as evidently these children’s parents must be construction worker which can now be termed ‘family business’. Yes I know there is the ‘hazardous’ caveat but then who decides what is hazardous work. I remember once seeing a three year old left by her mother in front a stove where milk was boiling. I guess the mother had instructed the child to watch the milk. What would the child have done had the milk boiled before the mother came back. The chances of the child sustaining burns were real, all it would have taken is some cat to topple the stove. And yet according to the new amendment the child was helping the mother in her domestic chores.

It is already a herculean task to implement the Right to Education Act and ensure that children go to school and stay in school till they are 14. The fact that it was ‘illegal’ not to send children to school was some sort of deterrent that we could brandish to parents to compel them to send their children to school. Now it will be difficult to counter the ‘family enterprise’ clause. Let me ask you a question. What  do your children do on any given day. I guess a generic answer would be: they go to school, study, play, watch TV, play games etc. Then they also go on vacation, sometimes to exotic locales and attend birthday parties and so much more. Now if we are all protected by the same Constitution then why does this not apply to ALL children and if there is a disparity then why is not the duty of the state to ensure that all children enjoy the same rights. Why are poor children pushed to working after school and during vacations as is stipulated by the new amendment. Do poor kids not have the right to downtime?

It said the amendment seeks to strike a balance between the need for education for a child and the reality of the socio-economic conditions. Now to my mind a socio-economic scenario that finds it acceptable for tiny hands to break stone, make match sticks or bangles – and yes these are kosher family enterprises – is skewed and needs to be changes. Such an absurd law seeks to perpetuate outdated and inhuman mores that have no place in a self respecting society. Every child needs to be given an enabling environment where she or he can grow and acquire new skills and options. You cannot condemn her or him to the plight of its parents. This amendment bangs all doors shut in the face of poor children.

A politician asked to defend this amendment during a debate yesterday came up with an absurd comment. She said that it would help discover talent. She was alluding to the ‘entertainment’ clause of the amendment that now allows children to participate in talent shows. But should not creative subjects like music and dance be part of the school curriculum and talent discovered within the safety of a well run school? And we are not talking of song and dance here, we are talking of stone breaking and carpet weaving in dark airless spaces.

Another defence, this time by the labour minister, said that this was a good way for children to strike a balance between the need for education for a child and the reality of the socio-economic conditions. What the hell does that mean! That society has to remain frozen as it is, with the poor remaining poor and even poorer and the rich richer! I am flabbergasted so say the least. Here we are at project why celebrating when the child of a vegetable vendor completes her studies and gets a job in a bank and lurking around the corner is a law that would make it legal for her to sell vegetables when she finishes  school and in the scorching sun during her summer break. Which ever way I look at this amendment, I cannot find ONE tiny point to defend it, more so when all political parties want us to believe that they are the Messiahs of the poor and down trodden.

Till a few months ago these adorable kids had never seen a book or held a pencil. Their parents are agricultural labour who grow vegetables on the bank of the Yamuna on land that belongs to landlords of the nearby Khader village. Till a few months ago they were working in the family business. Then arrived a teacher who decided to educate these children and give them a better start. Last month Project Why ‘adopted’ these kids and our main mission was to see how to mainstream them, a tough call as these kids have no civic identity. They simply do not exist. Earlier the teacher only taught them for an hour or so in the middle of the day. We decided to create a school like environment and teach them from 9 am to 3 pm with a midday meal. We were aware of the fact that these little hands were part of the said socio-economic conditions and provided added and needed labour. We were confident that with the laws on our side – Right to Education and Minimum Age for child labour – we had enough to  convince the parents to send the children to the project from 9 to 3! Ah ha! Now with the new amendment should parliament pass sit – everything changes and we will be on shaky grounds.

The state does not have the resources to ensure that every child is in school. This is evident in the number of children we see working around us. And unlike my Yamuna kids who are invisible, the little kid who begs at the red light or the one who pushes a cart in the heat are VISIBLE. So before amending laws that would make these images legal provided they happen after school, would it not be better to first launch a campaign that pushes all kids into schools.

And I would like to ask the learned heads who conjured this inane amendment whether they would agree to their children working in their business after school giving up their homework time, play time, park time, siesta time, tennis classes, swim at the club and whatever else our kids under 14 do today! So a law that does not make sense and is highly unacceptable for YOUR kid cannot and should not be acceptable for any kid born in this country.

This may look like a very mediocre and even gauche piece of art. And yet for me it is priceless; more so because it landed in my life at the end of a tedious and annoying day.  Let me tell you why. True this piece or art, as art it is, looks like a banal copy of an illustration in a school book sone by a child and it is. But this is probably the first time this child was give crayons and a pice of paper to draw.

Yesterday the children of our Yamuna Centre had their first ART class and their teacher was none other than our own Aman, s student of our women centre who is an excellent artists and who was sent to Art classes by Project Why! As it is still early days, our resources are few but the heart is there. For  more than an hour these children who have never been to school and whose world fits in a fist took their first step on the creativity trail. They were enthralled and a tad bewildered. As children of agricultural labour, their life is limited to helping their parents as soon as they are able to do so. For some months now they have been studying a little but never have they been given the freedom to express themselves.

The child who  drew this picture lives in a thatched hut and has never seen a house like this one. Come to think of it many Indian kids have not seen a house like this one, with a chimney but you will find them draw them with alacrity as we still have illustrations that reek of colonial times. What is impressive is their ability to copy respecting proportions. The little lad who drew the boat ha need seen the sea; true he lives on the banks of the river, but a river that spews toxic foams and has grey waters. He may live his entire life without see in an ocean but he drew one with flair!

Every alternate day, the Yamuna Project children will have Art classes and I intend to ask Aman to let their imagination run, to give them the freedom to splash colours on paper as their heart desires. I will also ask him to let them draw what they see, the fields they grew up in, the vegetables they know from seed to fruit, something city kids do not.

The picture you see is one of our new ‘classroom’ in the Yamuna Project. Classroom is a misnomer even by our standards. Actually this space was a shed made for two jersey cows who have now gone to greener pastures. If you look carefully you will see that the walls are thatched and the floor terribly uneven and uncomfortable to sit on even with a mat. When we adopted this project, the first thing that came to mind was to try and level the floor by cementing it. It seemed reasonable. Ah Ha! But that is not the reality. We were quickly informed that getting even a brick in this place was illegal as this was hold your breath: the flood plain! You were only allowed to build with thatch and mud. Seems politically and ecologically correct and one would no have said anything if the ‘law’ applied to one and all. But that is not the case. The Akshardhama Temple and Commonwealth Games village are built on the flood plain of this very river, albeit on the there bank. So how does one circumvent laws. Simply by being rich and well connected. If you are poor it is thatch and thatch only.

All the children live in thatched structures where sizzling and freezing winds blow with alacrity. Only a plastic sheet protects from perpendicular rain, if the winds blow the thatched walls are no protection.

This is yet again another India Story where the laws are different for the rich and the poor. Actually one should say the laws are for the poor, the rich manage to circumvent it or pay their way through.

There is an amendment to an existing law on child labour which will, if passed, allow children to work in family enterprises to get an entrepreneurial spirit. These are not my words but those of a Minister in the Government. You need not be a rocket scientist to figure which children the law will affect. Not yours or mine but the million of children who are trafficked to provide cheap labour. What entrepreneurial spirit do you learn when you break bricks with your are parents who are bonded labour, fetch and carry with your construction labour parents or beg with your beggar parents. And then every industry that employs children can be tagged: family business be it carpet making, match stick making and eve housework! Maids do bring their daughters to ‘help’! The children it will not affect are ours as I do not see anyone ’employing’ ones kid in the family business.

No school for the rich runs in 2 shifts as it is well known and documented that children learn best in the morning hours yet boys from humbler homes go to school at 1pm in Government run schools. In spite of large tracts of land that could double or even triple the existing capacity, Government schools are still run in one storey tin roofed shacks. Who cares about poor kids. There is no need to give them an enabling environment to grow. They have no voice and nobody to take up the cudgels for them.  They will learn on uneven grounds and sizzling temperatures. That is the price to pay if you are poor.

The day may come where the not-one-brick rule will be broken with impunity and the vegetable fields will become a gated community for the rich and famous. Mark my words, it is only a matter of time.

And as none of the above affects us, except if you should chose to purchase a flat when they happen, we will keep shut. Our kids go to school in the morning, they sit in comfortable chairs and even an air conditioned classroom and they will learn the entrepreneurial spirit in some Ivy college in the US!

I was taken aback this morning when I opened my mailbox to see a mail with the subject being: child labour. Imagine my absolute horror when I opened it and saw a petition to ask the Government to drop a proposed amendment to the child labour laws that would allow children below 14 to work in what they call ‘family enterprises’! It took me some time to process what I was seeing. I then searched the net to find out more and fell on an article very aptly titled: The Modi Government Is About to Make Child Labour Legal Again, And Has a Horrifying Reason To Justify It. I must confess that the rather toxic cocktail of heat+fever+work+IPL has impaired my access to news as news time is also cricket match time. I still do not know how I missed this one as I usually have a sound ear where children are concerned. Anyway before my rant and raves let me bring you to date with the intent of this horrific proposal. If the amendment is not shot down and I hope you will all join in helping doing so, then the hard work done in the field of child labour, work that has even been hailed by the Nobel Committee, is about to go down the drain as according to the amendment children under 14 till now protected by the existing law, will be allowed to work in ‘family enterprises’! And before you say anything let me enlighten you to the fact that ‘family enterprises’ include carpet-weaving, beedi-rolling, gem-polishing, lock-making and matchbox-making. And if that was not all, family enterprises also apply to entertainment and sports. The existing law + the Right to Education Act had entailed a drop in child labour from 12.6 million in 2001 to 4.3 million in 2014. Now, if we do not SCREAM and stop this aberration the figure will take quantum leaps. The girl child who is already deprived as is evident in the 64 against 82% literacy, will be kept home for housework and denied her right to education.

I can barely hold my rants but the article quoted above has some more horrendous justifications to this retrograde and inhuman amendment. According to the skewed rationale of our honourable minister of labour this will give kids an entrepreneurial spirit. But as the article caustically remarks not every tea vendor goes on to become PM. And come on the term: family enterprise is opened to every interpretation under the sun. Wily entrepreneurs will walk the whole nine yards to traffic children as cheap labour. A child activist painted the grim picture of what awaits children were this amendment passed: “All our campaigns to end bonded child labour, starting from the 1980s, will go up in smoke. Schools will be emptied out and poor children in states such as Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh will be back to working in sheds and makeshift factories that will all go by the nomenclature of family enterprises. The worst-hit will be the children of Dalits, Muslims, tribal families and those belonging to marginalised communities.”

I need to take a deep breath.

All the work we have done comes undone. True the laws were not implemented but for those of us who found our voice and indignation of a child working and reported the employer will now have no law to back us. This thoughtless amendment makes beggar children, dancing children, children working in tea shops and sweatshops legal as all these can be termed ‘family enterprises”.

The children in this picture also will be deemed legal as their families are construction labour. More pennies in the pockets of the contractor who can get them cheap. The list is endless, each more nightmarish than the other as by one stroke of the pen the state will legalise all forms of child labour. So hold on, are these not the children who also have a right to education till age 14? Then how does the equation work? It does not for me as  am one of those who believe that children should have a right to be educated all the way and even 14 is too young for them to work.

Children need to be nurtured, cared for, loved and educated. They have the rift to learn, to play, to laugh and even to do mischief. Any self respecting society should ensure that. Children working is a shameful blot on any society worth its salt. I cannot begin to fathom how such an amendment has even been thought of.

Made in India takes on a whole new meaning; this one is nothing short of unpalatable.

Let us for once raise our frozen and mute voices and ensure that this does not happen.

 If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice wrote the German Mystic Meister Eckhart. It is almost frightening to see how easily we ‘rush’ to pray when faced with adversity often not quite knowing what to pray for and ask for the first thing that comes to our mind  guided by our hearts and not our reason, and though I am the one who has always propounded the importance of looking with your heart, I have learnt the hard way that when ‘seeking’ you must let the heart take a back seat and bring out reason. I remember praying hard for my father to ‘live’ after his brutal and barbaric surgery till the day when I saw his pain and suffering and the emptiness of his life with mama gone and we on the verge of leaving for Paris. In the state he was, there was no way he would resume a normal life: the surgeons had ensured that. So why was I praying for him to live. I reworded my prayer making only one option possible. I asked for either restoration of his perfect health or his release. He passed away 20 minutes later, having asked for his glasses to look at the picture of his wife that hung on the opposite wall. A smile touched his lips before he  exhaled his least breath.

That day I had found the exact wording for my prayer but you often never do.

Normally one remembers God and prays in time of strife and trouble, when our pet hubris fails us and a rude shock brings us to earth. Then one hurriedly conjures a prayer and sends it out. Far too often it is not the right one. Last week a dear friend and my staunchest supporter was in town and talked about the elusive pot of gold that someone has ‘promised’ to give us next year to build our sustainability programme. Neither of us truly believe in it as the same person held out one such pot some years ago and never gave it. But what came out of our little chat was also the danger of having too many strings attached to the pot, strings that may go against the spirit of project why we so cherish. So do you pray for the pot? For the pot without strings? For sustainability? The list is endless and the prayer loses its value.

Prayer has to be humbling. I remember the days when Ranjan was fading away and I was totally lost, my hubris trampled upon and all my carefully nurtured cartesian options an abysmal failure. Along the way I did pray and even held religious ceremonies meant to ward off bad times. But it is only when I reached the point of accepting to crawl on a filthy path to the sanctum sanctorum of a Goddess were she to grant me his health, that doors opened one after the other. I guess sometimes God does test you in his or her own inimitable way. I of course kept my side of the deal!

I did not turn the picture on its head; this is the way Agastya posed!

But there is another way to pray and get what you want without asking. That is to turn the whole matter of praying on its head. Do not ask for anything, just be grateful for everything you have been given and leave the rest to the One upstairs who knows better. That is the true meaning of Eckhart’s words: If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice. We so often forget and take for granted the things we have been given with such magnanimity! If we did find that minute minute to say Thank You, the rest would follow. And if ask you must, leave it to children, God listens to them. 

The new project that was inaugurated last week has been christened! It’s Godfather is none other than our staunchest supporter and the name he chose was: The Yamuna Project. I am so glad he did as I got a bit lost and over the top with options like: ‘in the fields’ or ‘by the riverside’! Today was a special day as thanks to a wonderful soul who truly sees with his heart: the Yamuna Project children had their first lunch. This person  I must ask him whether I can use his name – has promised a hot lunch six days a week for these lovely kids. On the menu today was kidney beans curry, potato and cauliflower curry, rice and chapatis. The food was delicious as was duly reported to me by Xavier who had a bite, and he is a connoisseur of Indian food.

So this little project that landed in our arms thanks to our kind landlord is well on its way and I hope that many will support it. These children are undoubtedly from the end of spectrum. They do not even exist on paper. They world is limited to a 1 km radius.

 I can keep saying that I will not increase the size of pwhy; someone else decides its destiny. The location of this project is idyllic if you set aside the stark reality that surrounds it. You lunch under a tree, in the midst of green fields, with a breeze flowing from the river and the chirping of birds. It is the best al fresco dining experience. I hope I will be able to spend some time there.

But I had to give it a miss today as we had some visitors and potential donors coming to see Okhla. They were extremely kind and very appreciative of our work and wanted to help but there was a catch: they belonged to an organisation that has its set of rules and specific areas where they can help and sadly as always we were not a perfect match.

They very kindly offered to give a ‘scholarship’ to one child per class. This once again brought to the fore my reluctance and I must say that of my team too, to the idea of singling out one child. In my humble and responsible opinion sponsorships are not ideal for the beneficiary though rewarding to the donor. I let my team battle it out and decided to spend some time with the secondary kids. On the spur of the moment I asked them how they felt about one kid being singled out and the concerted reaction was a big NO! I told them that to me each one of them was excellent in his or her own way and thus deserved the best. If one was good in her or his studies, then the other was good in drawing, singing or sports, and what about the one who was always willing to help. It was the right time to talk about the danger of dividing, be it a class, a family or society. That was the first step to its destruction. The children agreed and many gave their opinion. It was a rewarding experience.

Donors often do not understand the finer points and even dangers of what to them is a gesture of kindness. Wanting to reward one child entails many possible scenarios. First of all in our case as pwhy is free it would be difficult to put a ‘tag’ on the cost of a child. At best a school bag, some clothes, books…a treat! But then ask yourself how the other children would feel. And ultimately the beneficiary may find herself isolated by her peer group. But that is not all. Should we accept the offer we would have a posse of angry mothers at our doorstep the next morning asking why their kid was not given the bag etc. And then in a jiffy all that ails India would spew out: caste, religion, state of origin, you name it.

Till date I have been blessed by donors who have trusted me implicitly and in some cases even convinced their Board of Directors to bend rules as they felt that the money given was always used with utmost honesty. They have never questioned my decisions but lauded them. And that is the way I want it to remain as that is the spirit of project why, one that I have kept alive with utmost love.

So instead of helping one child per class, it would be so much better and wiser to sponsor the salary of one teacher: that would mean helping 40 kids! But then in the lexicon of organised donor agencies, the word salary is anathema. Never mind if the teacher in question comes from the same social strata as the children she teaches and her salary keeps her kitchen fire going.

Giving has to be for the right reasons. There are many quotes on ‘giving’ but the one that has always touched me is Jack London’s: A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

Normally I have no problem in writing about any and everything that comes my way. But yesterday for the very first time I was overwhelmed by a surge of emotions that I was unable to process, let alone put down in writing. It is now time to share this unique experience and I hope that my words will do justice to story I am about to tell. When faced with a succession of intense feelings, it is sometimes wiser to take a deep breath and reign in the desire to follow your heart to let reason speak. So let me narrate things as they happened. A few days ago Dharmendra told me about a man who was teaching some children in the proximity of our women centre and needed some support. This had been told to him by our landlord who owns some tracts of agricultural land on the bank of the river and the children in question were the kids of the people who tended to his land on a contractual basis. This was all double Dutch to me as till date I was not aware of the existence of the rural side of the very city I lived in. My first reaction was to say the least not very enthusiastic as keeping pwhy on course was enough of a challenge and the thought of a new item in our budget was anathema. But Dharmendra is not one to give up and if anyone sees with his heart deeper than me, it is him. In his gentle voice he persisted adding that the landlord was willing to give us space and that the cost would be minimal. He requested me to at least come and meet the kids.

I guess he knows me better than I now myself.

I agreed to do so, and as we had three volunteers who had come for Rani’s marriage, I thought it would be a great idea that they to came and ‘met the kids!’ We decided to do so yesterday morning. Before I go any further, I need to share a thought that has haunted me time and again. I have often asked myself the one ‘why’ that has been never shared with others but maybe time has come to do so. That why is simply: why me! Or in other words why was I destined to take the longer road. I know I have come up with a range of clichéd answers that range from the famous paying back a debt to answering the whys that came my way, but deep in my heart I have always felt that someone somewhere held all the strings. I was just an instrument. In recent times, when the weight of the morrows gets heavier to bear, I have also asked myself whether I had reached the end of the road. So I must confess yesterday’s visit did have a tinge of misplaced duty and a slight lack of early days brio. The one surprise that did put a smile on my face was the fact that the husband accepted Dharmendra’s invitation to be one of the party.

We drove from the women centre towards the riverbank, first on a reasonably good road and then turned onto a bumpy one that led us straight to the fields. After a short while all we saw were tracts of vegetable patches dotted by a few thatched dwellings. The buzz of the city had vanished though it was but a short distance away. We stopped near a cluster of such dwellings, and behind one of them, under a beautiful tree and next to a well sat a group of children between the ages of 4 and 14. They all had books and copy books in front of them. A middle aged gentleman nudged them to wish us and they did, albeit hesitantly. The gentleman was their teacher. For an instant time stopped and my heart missed a beat as I felt a huge sense of belonging. It felt like coming home. The teacher asked the children to introduce themselves and show us their work and we were all impressed by their well kept copy books, neat handwriting and shy pride as they showed us what they had achieved. Slowly the story unfolded, another story of India, one that could have remained untold.

These children had never been to school and the work we saw was the fruit of two years of unstinted effort by one man. This man was a government school teacher who left his job because of the uncaring attitude of his colleagues and their lack of desire to teach. He decided to do something meaningful. Belonging to the same district as the one these children belong to, he knew of their existence and the plight of the agricultural labour who had left their villages in search of a better life. They had finally settled in this area where they tended to the land of rich landlords to whom they paid a yearly sum. They grew vegetables, the very ones that reach our doorstep. The children helped in the fields and never went to school. Our caring teacher decided to change things and teach these kids. To ensure that their education was validated, he registered them in a school in a village in the adjoining state and worked out a system by which they would get their certificates. The system worked spot on. The teacher took some money from the parents and met his added needs by taking tuitions classes in the evening. In a span of two years he had ‘mainstreamed’ these kids.

I listened bewildered and humbled as he told his tale. My eyes smarted and my throat constricted but I held my tears. As I heard the man speak my father’s dying words : Don’t lose faith in India, came to my mind. The man telling his story in a soft voice spelt: HOPE. The children and their pristine copy  books filled with beautiful writing were a stark reminder of how we had failed them and how worthy they were of our care and attention.

As far as I know, these kids do not exist. Their parents have no papers, they are not registered in any school, they do not appear on any enumeration list, they are invisible. They read about the metro but have never seen one, let alone ride one though a metro station is being build a short distance away. They have read about India Gate but have never seen it. They read about wild animals but have never been to the zoo. Their world is limited to a radius of one kilometre. It ends at the shadowy figures of the tall buildings of Noida seen in the mist. Every year, when the rains come, their homes get flooded and they move to the top of the embankment waiting for the waters to recede. They spend their day playing or working in the fields where extra pairs of hands are welcome, even if they are tiny. They look at you bewildered when you ask them what they like doing. Come on! There is only one answer: studying! And when you prod a little and ask them what they like eating some may come up with the name of a sweet. So you wreck your brain and look for the question that would result in an answer that would make them seem better than you and the penny drops: what grows in your field? And pat come the answer: tomatoes, gourds, aubergines, beans…. So you tell them that you have never seen them in the field but only in shops and they laugh wholeheartedly like only children can. And for that tiny moment you forget that these are invisible children no one cares for. Then the anger, the rage, the feeling of helplessness! What can you do to change things. And your mind runs wild: a bus trip, a metro ride, a visit to the zoo! Perhaps. But what you need is to change their lives, to bring them into the light, to give them their usurped rights.

These are children of India, remember! The ones who are protected by rights, the ones for whom programmes are made ad nauseum and never truly implemented. But then how can you get rights when you do not exist. As their teacher told us with extreme wisdom, these children live the same life as children centuries ago, tilling the alluvial plain and moving to the banks when their homes are flooded to move back again and again and again. Nothing changes nor has changed.

We will do whatever we can. These are just a handful of children whose parents did agree to send them to school for two hours and even pay the small amount the teacher sought. But there are hundreds and hundreds of such children that dot the riverside. Some parents prefer spending the extra coins on hooch; others feel education is useless and a waste of valuable time.

The space we have been given is a cowshed that once housed two jersey cows owned by our landlord. They have found better pastures. The shed will now house the new project why outreach that I feel like calling ‘project why in the fields’. It will house the dreams and aspirations of these very very special children, dreams that have been entrusted to us.  We will do our best but the questions remain and the anger too. Is this the India the likes of my mama fought for? Is being in power sine-qua-non to losing your values and the ability to see with your heart? When will India be truly free!

It all started with the question why me? Because there is no option. Because it is His will! Call it serendipity but two cameos gave credence to my thoughts. The first was that my husband was not only there with me but was moved enough to spend time listening to a little girl read him a lesson in English. Ranjan is not an expressive man and in all these years he has rarely, if ever connected with children even  on the rare occasions he visited project why. But here he was gently encouraging the little girl. Needless to say, I was floored. And if that was not the wink from the Gods I sought, I got another in the garb of a wonderful soul who is willing to provide these children with a healthy lunch and also give them all the resources they need!

Need I say more?

Just a small point that needs to be made as the country debates the land acquisition bill and the farmers’ rights. The labour that till the land and have to pay a substantially large amount of money to the landlord, irrespective of what they make, irrespective of their loss due to the vagaries of weather are not the ones that receive the compensation given by the State. This goes to the one who ‘owns’ the land.

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light wrote Norman Rice. Around the ides of March 2003, I did dare do so. It was not a little hand but two beautiful eyes that defied all the burns and bandages and met mine. It was love at first sight, a love that has withstood a decade and a half beating all odds.

The reason I remembered this quote today is because someone shared a story with me, one that may not have a happy ending as the odds are against it. It is the tale of two boys whose father was murdered and whose mother was found to be part of the conspiracy and jailed. Some family friend decided, for reasons better known to him, to sponsor a sound education for the boys. A gesture to be lauded if it had been taken to its logical end but for some reason the hand once held out has been withdrawn leaving the young boys in the lurch. It seems that the decision is final though I pray for a miracle.

I wonder what made that family friend commit to help the boys and ‘dare’ to reach out his hand into the darkness of the two little children? Was it the ‘right’ thing to do at that moment? Was it to get the kudos of the entourage? Was it momentary hubris that dwindled when realisation dawned? realisation that the commitment was long term and a tad expensive. Who knows. The reality is that the had that reached out that fateful day to pull these gentle souls into the light is now the hand that will push them back into darkness. It is not easy to walk the talk.

When Utpal walked into my heart, I knew it was till death do us part. At that moment it all seemed so simple. We would nurse the child back to health and ensure that his family was cared for. Another case of hubris! We humans like playing God never realising that it is He and not us who pens the script. The plan that I made went crashing in no time and I could hear the Gods laughing. They had other plans.

As time went by, the script unfolded and obstacles appeared at every corner, but then when you reach out your hand you have no option but to hold on to it and never let go. Utpal and I have weathered many storms and know that there are more to come. This middle age love is put to the test time and again in  unimaginable ways but is also incredibly rewarding.

The child is now a teenager and new challenges are in sight. We will meet them head on. At this moment the critical issue is how to style the hair so that the scars are concealed. This led us to the hair stylist yesterday and we found a solution. The lad went back to school with a smile and a bottle of hair gel that the kind school has allowed him to use. You see when the wind blows then his scars are for all to see, even the girls! I can see what awaits me.

Rani got married yesterday and before I go any further this is not a picture from her wedding! So as I was saying Rani got married yesterday and needless to say I was there. But as is the hallmark of all Indian weddings, I barely got to see her though we did manage a few stolen moments while she was made to wait in what at best would be called a store room, for her entry on stage. Indian weddings are really a play in many acts where scripts always go awry and time goes AWOL. If things had gone on schedule then I would have been part of at last some of the ceremonies though I knew I would not have lasted till the wee hours of the day. It was all meant to ‘end’ by 3 am though as I was informed this morning, it was far from over at 3am!

The venue was tastefully decorated and everything seemed on cue till the marriage party arrived and plans went out of control. When I left, Rani was in the middle of a never ending photo shoot when every one wants to be snapped with the new couple. I was not even able to spot her on the stage! But I had seen her in her bridal gear and she looked beautiful though not quite the young woman I know. I guess she will be back to normal in a few days. I look forward to that moment.

But this post is about something quite different. For me yesterday was truly a wedding to remember for a totally different reason. Under the bright lights of this unique play one could imbibe the essence of a decade and a half of Project Why in the most wondrous manner. Come to think about it, I first met Rani and seeded Project Why almost exactly 15 years ago in the summer of 2000. And yesterday I had a panoramic view of the years gone by as I sat and watched the show unfold. Wherever I looked I saw Project Why. All the children dancing to the blaring songs where born in front of me and many were project why students. Most of the staff was present and came to greet me with heartwarming smiles. They looked incredibly beautiful in their bright clothes. Some were Project Why alumni and I could not help the feeling of pride that engulfed me. They all came to greet my husband whom many did not know and I found myself telling their stories which were nothing short of remarkable. It was a unique moment as rarely does one get the occasion to be able to have everyone together in one place when one can truly realise what a journey it has been. It was a pure delight to spend some time with them and share some good moments. Of course I could not escape the many: Can I take a pic with you Ma’am! I was more than happy to oblige and amused at how everyone had a smart phone and was far more savvy than I. Were these really the same people that I had practically pulled out from oblivion?

But that was not all as the Project Why family crosses all barriers. It was such joy to see that two of our die hard and committed volunteers had flown across continents to come to the marriage. They made the event that much more special and gave substance to the spirit of Project Why. We were also privileged to have two of our very committed local expat supporters who found time in their busy schedule and shared this moment with us. I am deeply indebted to them and touched beyond words.

How does one explain the feeling of seeing someone you held in your arms as a new born stand in front of you as a feisty and spirited teenager? How do you find the words to express the emotion that fills you as you introduce one of your computer teachers who once came walking on his hands in the hope that someone would understand his fascination for computers? I could go on and on as everyone in that room has a story waiting to be told.

You just sit and look at all these lives you have changed, at all these women who would have remained housewives but are today in the business of changing lives. Has Project Why been in some way a dream weaver? Maybe we are, and maybe that is the measure of our success as was amply evident in yesterday’s marriage celebration.

It was a celebration of belief and determination; a celebration of the power of seeing with your heart, a celebration of the indubitable reality that no life is futile, that no dream is impossible and that miracles happen everyday!

I feel so blessed!