Many have been wondering why I do am not writing as regularly as I did before and I think that I owe all an answer. First and foremost let me let the proverbial cat out of the bag. For the past months I have been writing my next book which is the project why story and gave decided of late to hurry it up a little and hence have been neglecting the blog. Mea Culpa. In my defence I can only say that though the heart is still young the body has aged and thugs cannot perform as efficiently as earlier. I really think that the project why story is one that needs to be told as it is in many ways the story of India viewed through a unique prism and seen with ones heart. Much of the story lies in the recesses of my memory and need to be ferreted out before synapses snap.

But that is  not the sole reason for my silence. As it is revealing time, I guess I need to share a rather covert tactic I have devised to ensure that my incredible team and support team take on the reporting role I have held till date. This tactic is borrowed from Randy Pausch head fake tactic, which is a way of getting people to move in another direction surreptitiously. I would urge you to read Pausch’s Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon, delivered shortly before he passed away. It is most touching and ends with these words: So today’s talk was about my childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and some lessonslearned. But did you figure out the head fake?It’s not about how to achieve yourdreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take careof itself. The dreams will come to you.Have you figured out the second head fake? The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids. So maybe my silence is the head fake that will bring my team to begin writing about project why. I can feel that we are at take off point and wait with bated breath for the first salvo.

Even though I have been absent from project why and that too for a well thought of reason where my gamble has paid handsomely, I share each and every heart beat of the project and am privy to all its trials and tribulations. You see seeing with your heart is nothing short of magical.

I miss early days when I spent time at the project but I know that every parent has to accept that the child will fly the coop and cop me on which teenager likes to be watched by his/her parents and project why is 14! I will simply watch from the wings to make sure that I am there when needed.

Serendipity is the occurrence of event by chance and in a happy way and synchronicity is the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear related but have no real causal connection. So says the dictionary. Life is full of both, but we often fail to make the connections. I am in the midst of reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande a book that has been heralded as life changing. That the subject matter is death should not deter you in any way; it is a moving and humane and urges you to aspire not for a good death but a good life lived to the very last in dignity and joy. As I read the pages, a host of memories long forgotten come back and took on a new meaning. I could now understand my mother’s obsessive and sometimes childlike desire to not live where she not able to walk to the bathroom and wash her own undergarments. It was her choice. Just as refusing treatment for her advanced cancer was her choice. I must admit rather sheepishly today that pa and I did resent it though our love for her was so strong that it transcended logic. Kamala knew that if she took one step in the direction of conventional medicine it would be a free fall and strip her of her dignity. For her pain was acceptable, loss of dignity was not and she died on her own terms with a smile on her face. So remember this if any loved one makes a choice that does not seem right to you; he or she has the right to make that choice. Atul Gawande puts in words what we all refuse to accept: the obsession medical fraternity has to prolong life at all costs is more for us then for the elder we subject to it. I do not think any one in our right state of mind would want life at all costs. I for one have stated in no uncertain terms that I do not wish to be put on life support.

When mama was detected with cancer, though the word C was never mentioned in our home, she told us in no uncertain terms that had I been younger she may have considered medical support but she felt she was ready to go on her terms as she had seen me married, played with her grandchildren and wanted her husband to send her off. That was her choice and we agreed to play along. There was no place for logic or reason. It was all a matter of seeing with ones heart.

I still do not know where I stand but Gawande’s book made me aware of how serendipitous Project Why was for me personally. He argues that the quality of life in our twilight years greatly depends on our sense of purpose and usefulness. He recounts how Dr Bill Thomas decided to bring ‘life’ into a nursing facility for sever lay disabled elderly residents: he simply brought in plants, animals and children and everything changed! The residents who earlier had no ‘reason’ to love for suddenly felt ‘responsible’ for the plant in their room or animal on their floor and played with the staff children when they visited. The results were for all to see: the number of prescriptions diminished and so did the cost. I was reminded of the Little Prince and his rose: he has to go back to his planet because he is responsible for his rose.

Project Why saw the life of day when I was touching half a century and somewhat lost. The children had grown, the parents had moved on and life seemed without purpose. Enter Manu and with him countless children that still colour my day and whose dreams are in my custody. And if God remains on board then this will remain true all the way till the end. This I realise today is the greatest gift of all and I am humbled and deeply grateful.

We all need a purpose in life and whereas once life expectancy was shorter and not prolonged by medicine with contented itself to a palliative role, today the spectre of death in a brightly lit ICU where the concept of time is warped and where machines taken the role of the body is very real. In the name of love we subject our helpless loved ones to a terrible ordeal.

Gawande recalls how death once happened in the comfort of the home, with some medical care, where one was surrounded by familiar objects and those one loved. Today there are scant famous last words or simple farewells, be it just holding hands. The whole art of dying has been rewritten in language that is sadly inhumane. No priest or chants but the whirring of a ventilator or the bleeping of a heart monitor. How lonely death has become.

I was blessed again to have bid farewell to my parents at home and on their won terms. I heard their last words and could say good bye in what was home, giving them their final sip of water and chanting the prayers that they had so lovingly taught me.

Mama and I Algeria 1966

Mama 

Tonight of all nights the heady smell of the jasmine papa planted for you is redolent of memories of you, and it should be so as tomorrow is your birthday. You would have been 97, but you left 24 years ago, at the age of 72, barely 10 years older than I am today. We were only blessed with 38 years of togetherness, but how magical and fulfilling they were, only you and I know. I cannot begin to fathom who was the  winner in this incredible relationship: you who had accepted the life of an old maid rather than give birth to a slave child or I who was given the gift of a freedom you fought for in a silent but poignant way. All I can say is that my life is replete with memories of you, each laced with your special brand of love.

As every year I ferreted through boxes of pictures to find the ‘right’ picture and this year I chose one of the two of us in Algeria when I must have been 14 or so. The reason is that today I heard that a young girl who celebrates her birthday tomorrow and is very dear to my heart was slapped by her mother for a trivial reason, a typical example of mothers who take out their frustrations on their children. Sadly it happens far too often in slums in India where women are given a raw deal even after seven decades of freedom. This young girl celebrates her 14th birthday tomorrow. I held her in my arms when she was 2 days old.

I remember you telling me about the beatings you got from your young mother whose brand of parenthood was  to beat the eldest child, you, and you would then take care of your siblings. I am not one to judge my Nani as I know how much you loved her and how you never seemed to hold any grudge against her. The only thing that you told me was that you had sworn never to raise your hand against your child and you never did. I do not even remember you scolding me, that was left to Papa! My earliest memory of you is that of a friend I could share any and everything with, and we did, didn’t we. You set the bar of motherhood incredibly high. I was never able to meet it, however hard I tried. 

In all my years with you, I always felt that you placed my on a pedestal just like in the picture. For you motherhood was to place your child on your shoulders so that she could see further than you and aim at the stars. If you could, you would have plucked the moon and laid it on my lap.

But that is not all. Mama, you wove a fascinating web of lessons each wise and humane that I am still unravelling today. Your legacy is daunting and even though I try hard, I do not feel I have been able to come up to your expectations. I hope that you will guide me and steer me in the right direction so that I can fulfil your dreams.

I miss you Mama

Anou

Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yusufzai have won the Nobel Prize for Peace. It is a victory for all the children who are denied their very basic rights, children who have no voice, children who are used and abused, children whose rights are hijacked with impunity. It is truly celebration time for all those, who like us at Project Why believe that every child has the right to a childhood, a right to go to school, to play and laugh and a right to dream. We have strived for the past 3 decades to ensure that the children who walk into the doors of Project Why dare to dream.

The two laureates are crusaders who are fighting to end child labour and trafficking in any form and ensure that every girl goes to school. The reason we need to celebrate is that with the Nobel Prize, these issues have come out of the closet and are now centre stage. We cannot shy away from them even if we want to and that is cause to celebrate. The office of Bachpan Bachao Andolan is close to ours and I have been an admirer of what they stand for. Kailash Satyarthi is someone I hold in high esteem, and yes I am one of the few of have followed his crusade! I guess most of us Indians must have wondered who this Nobel Laureate was and Auntie Google must have been very busy indeed. It is a matter of shame that we Indians are not aware of those who fight for children and even our State who revels in handing out civilian honours to movie and sports stars, rarely does it for the quiet and committed workers who shun publicity. And tough Malala is known to one and all courtesy the media, Kailash Satyarthi remained unknown till the Nobel prize lights were directed to him.

We are nothing in comparison to BBA whose work is stellar, but we too work with children who may have been forced into child labour were we not there. Many of you know how tough it is for us at project why to keep our head above water, come to think of it seven as I write these words, I am facing the daunting challenge of having to make up for the loss in funding we are facing since last month: 100 000 whopping rupees. In times like these, I feel let down by my own people who have never felt the need of reaching out to us and helping our lovely kids. This is when Satyarthi’s words “If not now, then when? If not you, then who?” come to mind and one feels the need to scream them out loud and clear.

I have always held that children cannot wait for the right time, the right place, the right decision and its implementation, the right law and its promulgation and so on. By the time the rights whatever happens, millions of kids would have missed the boat. We need to help them NOW and if it is not we who do it, then WHO? I hope you get what I am trying to convey.

But then this elusive US has never really learnt to look with its heart, more so at children who remain invisible. Come on! How many times have you felt the urge to help a beggar child or at least asked yourself why this child is begging? How many times have you chided your friend, acquaintance, neighbour who employs a child as a house servant? How many times have you asked yourself why as child is working when he or she should be in school? I leave you to answer. Did you know that three quarters of domestic workers in India are believed to be between the ages of 12 and 16 and 90% of them are girls. The Indian government’s 2001 census says 12.6 million minors between the age of 5 and 14 are in the workforce.

Time and again a horror story about someone ill-treating a maid comes out and we make the appropriate noises but then we forget the whole matter, just as the press does. Do we need the press to  realise that all is not well with the children of India.

We need to do some serious soul searching. I do hope the Nobel glare shakes our collective conscience from its inertia.

“If not now, then when? If not you, then who?” Kailash Satyarthi Nobel Peace Prize 2004

The photo ops were many as India launched its Swach Bharat or Clean India mission. Everyone who was anyone wielded a broom on October 2nd 2014. Millions even took a pledge. The mission comes at a whopping price: lacs of crores rupees. Our tech savvy PW even initiated a challenge that roped in celebrities of all shades and hues: each one was to get 9 more people and so on. From sanitation for all to clean drinking water; from littering to garbage disposal the task is daunting. That it is needed is unquestionable. But many questions do come to mind.

First and foremost why did it take us as a nation almost 7 decades to realise we needed a clean India. And why have all the previous efforts failed. Unless we answer these questions, we will not be able to ensure its success. What first comes to mind is why we as individuals have failed to keep our surroundings clean. We do pride ourselves as a civilisation that promotes cleanliness above all else, but having baths everyday does not ensure a clean land.

To my mind, the main problem is our social structure that assigns the task of ‘cleaning’ and particularly toilets to one group of persons who it is believed are ‘born’ to do so. I get enraged when I see people unwilling to pick up a piece of garbage themselves. They would rather wait in the dirt for the right person to appear than clean the mess themselves. As long as this remains our attitude, things cannot change. After the launch of the said mission at India Gate, one would have hoped that those present – be it school children or VIPs – would not leave litter behind. But that was not the case, they place was left littered with water bottles and discarded copies of the pledge and as is always the case in India, the cleaners came by afterwards and did the job.

These people sadly do not always work in ideal conditions. The picture above shows how a clogged drain is unclogged in India. Maybe the need of the hour would be to provide protective gear to ALL those who have to handle garbage or dirt of any kind. My heart goes out to the rag pickers, often children whose hands and feet get cut because we have placed broken glass or open blades in our daily garbage. I wonder how many of the photo op subject would have agreed to plunge their bare body in the drain in the picture. I guess were that to be necessary than as was done in Slumdog Millionaire, the pit would have been filled with chocolate or peanut butter and the said VIP would have then agreed to descend in the ‘dirt’ and have his picture taken.

As long as casteism is the order of the day, things cannot change. We will always look over our shoulder for the right person to come and clean our mess. But things are not sacrosanct. I remember my mother meeting a cleaner of Indian Origin and of a higher caste in a Heathrow bathroom. She was quick to admit sheepishly that she would NEVER tell her family back home about the nature of our work. That is who and what we are and unless we change this attitude, we will never have a clean India.

In free India, everyone should have equal opportunities and no one need be branded by birth. Those who belong to what we call the lower’ castes want out of this stranglehold and have aspirations and dreams for their children, and they should as they too are protected by our Constitution. Laws and punishment will not bring the change we seek. It is mindset that have to be changed. We have to change our habits and ways: spitting pan, throwing wrappers, chucking plates and cups anywhere and so on. But we also need to change our attitude and accept to clean anything, even a toilet.

I have had several occasions where I have been compelled to lead a toilet cleaning campaign often in conference centres and other institutions. Now my team comprised of well educated youngsters of hallowed caste and class. I could see resentment on their faces when they realised I was about to embark on a loo sprucing mission. That is not what they had signed for. But I must admit that each and every time it took only a few moments before everyone hitched their saris or rolled their sleeves and took to the task. All I needed to do was start scrubbing the filthiest loo. Even today I have no qualms undertaking any cleanliness campaign as I will not sit in a filthy place. At project why every staff cleans the classroom and toilet they work in.

Traditions and mores have to change with time and though we need to keep the good ones, we also need to have the courage to cast away those that have gone obsolete or are impediments to our development.

I will urge all to give some thought to what I have said and to lend your voice to the people who still clean our filth in inhuman conditions.

The last few days have been rather euphoric with all the hype given to the Prime Minister’s visit to the USA and his pitch for INDIA. I guess we all got a bit taken in and felt that things would change on the round in no time. It was indeed heartwarming to hear the PM talking of sanitation, poverty removal and imparting of skills to the young. The elation was short lived though as a snippet of information given to me by one of my staff made for a rude awakening. The children of our Govindpuri centre simply shared a piece of information of their daily school life probably unaware of the effect it would have on me. Hold your breath! In this new India that is being feted with super zeal, class VIII children of a Government school located in upmarket South Delhi are being taught four subjects by guess who: their physical education teacher better known as the PT Master.

This may sound like a light hearted piece of information but to me it is nothing short of scary. If good education can change a life for the better, we all know what no or poor education can do. I will not dwell on that. The fact is that in overcrowded classes, where a period is 35 minutes and with a Gym Instructor teaching all true subjects, your chances of breaking barriers and ceilings is minute. Thus the prospect of a child studying in such circumstances being able to get a school leaving certificate with sufficient marks and thus aspire to the skills mentioned by our PM is close to nil. Unless something is done for such children NOW, they are certain to miss the boat altogether and condemned to the same plight as their parents. What is sad is, that it is not the fault of the parents who took the decision to come to the city for their children’s future, but of the powers that be who have allowed state run schools to come to this. What is baffling is that there is no dearth of potential teachers in our country so why does a gym teacher have to teach the 3Rs is beyond comprehension, unless of course it is part of some wily agenda we are not privy to.

When I heard our brand new PM talk sanitation and other such matters,one felt a ray of hope, but though one does not want to join the rank of naysayers who find fault in everything, it is a sad reality that many change will come too late for many children of India, as children cannot wait for change to happen.

Hearing the PM and his plans for India, one may have thought that NGOs like ours would soon be redundant and would have to either close their doors or reinvent themselves, but that is not so. As long as classes are overcrowded and teachers few; as long as state run schools do not become centres of excellence, we are needed to provide the bridge they need to cross to better morrows.

In life, I believe that what makes you a better person is to be honest enough to alter your opinion when needed and have the courage to share your changed views with others. It does not demean you in anyway; on the contrary it makes you a better person. A few years ago, I would have bet my bottom dollar that I would never see the day where I voted for the one who is our Prime Minister, and yet I did. At that time it may have been thought that, for anyone whose heart beat for India and who carried  a legacy in the shape of her father’s last words: Do not loose faith in India, could not have voted for the party she had always supported. So the vote could have been a TINA (There Is No Alternative) one! Maybe it was, but the disenchantment with the Party I had supported for so long, had let India down in too many ways. The India my mother fought for was not safe in their hands.

Perhaps, had I not decided to walk the road less travelled in the summer of 1998 and remained shut within the four walls of my home as I had for six long years, I would remained ‘faithful’ to the Party that bore the name of the one that had brought us freedom. But that was not to be. With every minute I spent in the dusty lanes of Delhi’s slums, I realised how the people of India had been let down. And one did not have to be a rocket scientist to realise who had let them down. Be it water, sanitation, electricity, schools, hospitals, roads, you name it, nothing had percolated to the millions who remained faceless and voiceless. What was visible was the exponential increase in the amounts diverted in scam a after scam. What was unbearable was that  things seem to be worse for the poor. The figure that made my blood run cold was the one of the children dying from malnutrition: 5000. Any self respecting State would have done something but everyone seemed jaded. I could not extend my support to  such people anymore.

Recent scams, rapes of women and children, lawlessness and the abysmal condition of the poor made you want to hang your head in shame. The fact that sixty years were not enough to provide drinking water, three meals a day and a roof on every ones head was a cause of immense pain. And the question that haunted me mercilessly was how had we come to that.

The past decade was probably the darkest. India needed to regain its pride and place in the world. Somehow our new PM seemed to be the right person and any respecting Indian had to give him a chance. I did as many others.

I am not a cynic and understand that no one can conjure miracles. His detractors can split hair and find fault in any and every thing. Those with a modicum of wisdom know that he needs time. But one began hearing the right things: sanitation, housing, jobs. I guess this sounds strange for a country who has been independent for many decades, but is the reality, a reality we need to address and not shy away from. It was music to my ears to hear our PM talk about these issues at the UNGA and also when he addressed young people at central park.

But the biggest gift Prime Minister Modi has given to the voiceless children of India, is to dare to dream, and deem big. Till now everyone believed that the hallowed portals of high positions were only for those who spoke the coloniser language to perfection and had studies in ivy or similar institutions. Mr Modi has changed all that. Today any child can aspire to become PM.

For me his speech at central park, delivered in good but accented English, freed millions of Indian kids from the stranglehold of the Queens language and opened new avenues for them. What a gift. I hope it will motivate our project why children to aspire to greater heights.

Our new PM had rekindled a sense of nationalism in each one of us as was amply proved by the ovation and chants he received in New York.

If he delivers his promise of sanitation, drinking water, housing and I hope education to every one in the country he would have done more than all his lofty predecessors.

Once again, I am proud to be Indian.

The controversy or should I say controversies over Teacher’s Day 2014 has filled me with sadness and even a sense of hopelessness and that for more reasons than one. September 5th is Dr Radhakrishnan’s birth anniversary and he is the one who wanted it celebrated as Teacher’s Day. He himself was a teacher in the true sense of the word. I had the honour and privilege of having been blessed by him at my birth. Dr Radhakrishnan was on an official visit to Prague in April 1952 and he heard of the birth of an Indian child he insisted he had to meet mer even if it threw the protocol haywire. He even named me Anuradha. I think my mother had other names like Mandakini in mind but both my parents accepted his suggestion with joy. I met him subsequently a few times and he never failed to impress me by his gentle and erudite ways. Today, I am sure he must be feeling some hurt at all this drama around a day that should be celebrated with dignity and decorum.

But though September 5th still has to dawn, the controversies are in full swing: be it the renaming or attempt to as Guru Utsav or the row about whether the Prime Minister’s address to the children is compulsory or voluntary. And in the case of the later, would the ‘voluntary’ entail any detrimental action. The problem is that the timing of said speech does not coincide with regular school timings, something that has far more consequences than what one can imagine. And then of course will the market meet the demand on said day: I mean TV sets, set top boxes, etc. And what about the funds required: who will foot the bill. It is really sad that a day made to remember a great and humane personality and celebrate teachers has come to this. Whether you call it Teacher or Guru, Day or Utsav, what difference  does it make. What is important is to express gratitude to those who have taught you.

In India today, a country whose constitution has adopted a Right to Education for every child born within its boundaries, I feel that Teacher’s Day has to also ‘remember’ all the children who do not have teachers, not because of any personal choice, but because we as a society, a State, a Government have not been able to ensure sufficient schools for each and every child and not been able to contain aberrations such as child labour, begging etc. I believe this day to be the one where we commit ourselves to ensuring that these lacunas and make it possible for every child to be visible and have the right to have a teacher.

However let us get back to the famous speech. As a child I would be very excited to have the Prime Minister address me! Wow! In times where children have no role models, no people to emulate, no hero barring Bollywood ones, a connect between the head of the Government and a school kid is far more important that one can imagine and again I would like to reiterate how sad I feel about the controversies and the attempt by politicians to hijack a sacrosanct day. How I wish it could have been better organised.

I was born a Hindu by virtue I guess of both my parents being Hindus. But I chose to be a Hindu through a personal journey orchestrated by my mother with inputs from my father too. I was unwavering in my faith for a long time, but the emergence of a new form of ‘hinduism’ in the past years has sometimes made me question my own religion and has needed me to dig deep in my past to renew my faith.

Being Hindu is again in the news with sparring going on on the use of Hindi and Hindu.’ leaving me a tad flummoxed. First of all I think someone should come forward, by someone I mean an eminent religious or spiritual personality and put an end to this Hindu business. Hindus are those who love in Hindustan, a name that find its roots in the river Indus. The religion we follow when we call ourselves ‘hindus’ should be, in my humble opinion, called Vedism from the Vedas the precepts of which are the tenets of our religion. Maybe that would solve issues.

Today I simply want to share why I embraced Hinduism with pride. I grew up in different parts of the planet and always in countries with a different faith: Muslim, Christian, Buddhist but never Hindu. Hence all my friends belonged to diverse religions. On the other hand, my mother who was not into ritualism, mutated into this uber ritual persona and celebrated every festival following all the rites to the T. Come Diwali, Holi, Janmashtami, Shivratri and all else our home was transformed and I was guided through every step of the ritual of the day. Yummy sweets and food was cooked and in her inimitable style which would have made Socrates proud, Mama never said anything but waited for the questions to come from me and answered them to the best of her ability, keeping in mind the age I was and always adding some stories and tales. The one thing I remember of all these celebrations was that everyone in the home participated, irrespective of their creed. At the end of each puja I was asked to touch the feet of everyone elder to me and seek blessings. That included the staff! So festivals were a happy time and the stories of each fascinating to a little girl.

But that is not what endeared me to my religion. What really made me want to be Hindu was how I perceived its relation to other faiths and for that I have to thank my wonderful parents. Whenever I asked them if I could: go to church with my Christian friends; fast on the first day of the Ramadan with my Muslim friends or partake of a sabbath meal with my Jewish friends, go to the Pagoda with my Buddhist friends the answer was always the same: yes as long as my presence was accepted by my friends and their families. Needless to say it was always a yes. Those were days before extremism had raised its ugly head. Hence to me, a religion that accepted all other religions and houses of God was the best I could get.

And that was not all, you could chose a God to pray to and you had so many to chose from. As a child I ‘chose’ Ganesh! And if I needed more proof, I remember how upset I was when my father cut my holiday in Mauritius because his spiritual leader who was in London wanted to give me a mantra. As a rebellious teenager I entered the sancto sanctorum of the Ramakrishna Mission in London with a frown on my face. Swami Gananandha sat me down and told me he knew that I did not want to be there and that I had come against my will. I looked sheepish but nodded my head, I guess I knew you did not lie in the house of God. But being who I am I told him that I would not chant the mantra. he smiled and told me that it was OK, I could forget about it, but he would still give it to me in case I ever needed it. I did forget about it for a long time, but at a time of extreme need it flashed through my mind and brought me the solace I needed. I chant it every day.

We have a small prayer corner in the house. There always has been a prayer corner in any house I have lived in, even if it was just a shelf in the cupboard. Anyone and everyone is welcome to pray there. The little alter has many idols but if you look carefully it also has a cross, a Virgin Mary and the name of Allah, all gifted to me by dear souls. Every Diwali we are joined by the pwhy volunteers that happen to be here and they too pray with us. In the picture you can see Alan, our beloved magician, who is from the UK and lives in New Zealand. I do not know who will be with us this year but the more the merrier!

That is what Hinduism is to me. A religion that encompasses all others and accepts them with love. And that is the faith I will always follow.

You would have to be a total hermit to not have heard about the ice bucket challenge, an initiative of of the ALS, an organisation promoting awareness about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The challenge is to pour a bucket of ice over yourself or pay 100$ and then go on to nominate 5 people to do the same. The challenge went viral and the association has raised millions of dollars. Good for them. I wish I could come up with a challenge that would raise the money I need to secure project why’s morrows. Am still waiting for that epiphany.

The reason for this blog is not to criticise; neither it is a case of ‘grapes are sour’. It is just a gentle reminder, particularly to those of us who live in country’s like India, of the value or water and thus the famed ice bucket that is water in another from. Water is a precious resource that we take for granted until its scarcity hits us. Remember how irate you feel when the tap runs dry as someone forgot to switch on the pump or because of an electricity outage. At most, when there is a water crisis, we have the means to ‘buy’ water from a tanker and use it with alacrity and impunity till the need of another tanker. But that is just one tiny side of the story.

The picture you see is a picture taken by one of our Okhla kids. It is a picture taken in his ‘home’. This is all the water a family of 5 has for a day and that too if someone got up in time, at some unearthly hour, to go to the municipal tap/tanker, fight her/his way and fill as much as possible. This will be used to bathe, clean, cook and drink! And this is the daily routine of most families living in slums. You can see in the picture that one cannot vouch for the quality of the water.

Women have to walk miles and miles in certain states to get access to water and that too is limited to the amount they can carry. Imagine how much energy is spent each and every day. Our project why girls start getting fidgety around 3.45 pm as water comes at 4pm and they have to fill it before the tap runs dry and hour later. Sometimes the queue is too long and they are unable to get their water, that means a sure trashing when they get home.

We have got so used to opening a tap and getting water that we cannot imagine life without it and often do not think at it as the most valuable resource in the world and our critical lifeline. Just imagine if water was taken away from your life for a day, week, month? And yet we waste it every moment of the day. Do you realise that to live you need water first and foremost and then food, the two things we waste with abandon. You would agree that marbled homes, and costly jewellery and outrageously priced cars cannot replace the simple H2O.

But that is not all. Not having access to clean drinking water is the cause of the death of 5000 children a day. It is also the cause of malnourished children, malnourished adults who then tend to catch infections as their immunity is extremely low. Most diseases are water borne, and some can even be fatal.

Lack of water has under consequences. Most of the community toilets and toilets in schools have to be locked up because of lack of water to keep them operational and clean. With no toilet facility in schools, girls often drop out, more so after reaching puberty. Adults have no option than defecate in the open and the risk of illnesses grows by quantum leaps as human faeces carries many diseases. Adequate toilets with proper disposal could end this aberration. And yet in a city like ours we still waste water every second of every hour.

So a challenge like the ice bucket challenge seems absurd in a country where there are still millions who do not have access to clean drinking water. The fact that many of our country mates joined the challenge compelled me to write this blog in order to highlight a reality we all seem to have forgotten: that water is more precious than anything else in the world and it is time we stopped wasting it.

This picture must have been taken sometime in the summer of 1999. The location: the Bhatti Kurd village located near the Bhatti Mines. I had forgotten its existence and was reminded of it last week when reading an article on the very same village. The article begins with the chilling words: most girls in Bhatti Village have never been to school. My memory got a huge jolt as I time travelled 14 years back and recalled our tryst with this very village. This was way before project why as you all know it existed; not even in an embryonic state. At that time, pwhy was still searching its identity and had a multitude of activities mostly related to nutrition. As I have said time and again, the sight of a child begging had and remains unbearable and makes me feel angry, sad and helpless at the same time. That is why one of the very first avatars of project why was a programme aimed at urging the people of Delhi to stop giving money to beggar children and give nutritional cookies instead. The idea was to give every car owner a smart box that would contain 50 cookies and have a tie up with petrol pumps where people could ‘refill’ their boxes. The cost 100 rupees for 50 cookies! The idea was to stop mafias from using children as children would not get money.  For me it was a win win situation. I was really naive.

Then came the version 2 whereby we found children in organisations and distributed them these nutritive biscuits which had been specially designed and contained the required daily vitamin and mineral needs. An organisation ran a programme for the Bhatti Mine children and we began distributing them cookies and also a frothy chilled drink called Ice Cream Wash. This was obtained from ice cream factories and was a kind of milk shake that was the result of washing a machine with high pressure potable water before changing flavours. We collected the same in large igloos and every kid bought a glass from home and got its share. Needless to say the kids loved it and so did we as the distribution was accompanied by games and dancing!

It was heartbreaking to read the article as it took me back 15 years in a time warp. It was as if I was reading an piece written in 1999. After 15 years the only thing that seems to have changed is the age of the children. The village still has no amenities: roads, schools, dispensaries, a waste disposal system and even sufficient drinking water.

I sat for a long time lost in my thoughts and in some heavy soul searching. Had I made the right choices? Should I have soldiered on working with the nutrition programme and the very deprived children in villages? Should I have marketed my ‘don’t give them a coin; give them nutrition!’ mantra with more conviction? Could I have, with all my shortcomings been able to make a difference in their lives, keeping my abysmal track record of battling wily politicians and greedy bureaucrats? And most what would have happened to Manu, my alter ego and conscience keeper and above all the indomitable spirit I still draw strength from.

As I always say, I simply do what the (wo)man upstairs wills me to. I cannot afford to look back with regrets or remorse. But I can surely shed a quiet tear for my Bhatti Mine children.

Incredible India. It can never cease to amaze or infuriate you. Even when you think you have seen and heard it all wham, you are hit by another salvo you could not have imagined even in your wildest dream. You may recall the ‘incident’, as that seems to be the word of the day, when buffaloes belonging to a Minister went missing and the whole police set up was on their toes till they were mercifully found. Humans of course do not get the same attention but jack fruits do! This is India my darling and yes you guessed right buffaloes are in the news again and the protagonists are the same: the police and the Minister.

Our buffalo loving Minister, does not seem to like people even if it is they and not the buffaloes who vote him in, wanted some more and someone who states he can give everything to the said Minister decided to gift him… buffaloes! Now these had to be transported and from point A to B and the men in uniform laid out the royal treatment for our 4 legged friends. They were fed hot and fresh chapatis and jaggery rich fodder and a bonfire was lit up to keep the mosquitoes at bay. I wonder if buffaloes can get malaria but I know humans do and die of it. In Tripura there were 67 deaths last month, and the average in India hovers around 50 000 a year. But we are blessed. The Minister’s new buffaloes are safe. 

What really made me see red was that police personnel in uniform was making hot chapatis (flat breads) for the buffaloes, mothers in the same State ferret rat holes do find grain for their starving children. These are the Hunger Games that will never be talked about. Should you care to know more, read Ash in the Belly. I am just quoting some lines: On days where there is no food in the house the whole family sets out to find food. They scour the harvested fields of the landlords with brooms to garner the gleaning of the stray grains of wheat and paddy… they follow field rats to their burrows and are skilled in scrapping out the grains stolen and stored underground by the rodents…after each weekly market ends, they collect in their sari edges, grain  spilled inadvertently by traders or rotting waste vegetable… they even sift through cow dung for undigested grain. (Ash in the Belly page 6).

It all seems so wrong and absurd and yet no one reacts and people will still vote for the man and his buffaloes. We are not a democracy but a feudal society.

As if that was not enough for the day, another incident! This one called rape: a beast that lurks at every corner looking for its prey that can be aged a 6 months to 80 years! We all recall the Delhi rape with horror and every single rape after that with despair and helplessness. Well one of our brand new Minister qualified that horrifying crime as one small incident of rape that cost us billions of dollars in terms of global tourism! he has tried to ‘defend’ his comment but come on Mt Minister no rape is a small incident. Imagine if the victim was your daughter. Are rapes gone be looked  at as revenue loss?

Incredible India!

Sorry guys here is more about loos and apologies for the ‘illustration’ but it has not been downloaded from the net but taken by one of our teachers. Poor man! He had to do this on a Sunday and told me that he could not eat a meal for the next two days. I will spare you the innards of the place but I have a collection of pictures that would make you gall.

 This picture was ‘commissioned’ by someone who wanted to make loos. He was spot on as everyone is vying for the title of the Loo King of India after our Prime Minister stated the urgency of making loos in his I Day Speech. Today two mega industrialists have pledged 100 crore each, that is one billion! I think I gagged more than my poor colleague. 200 crores are on their fast descent to waste. And I speak with confidence. What makes me choke more is that if someone placed 5 measly crores, the interest could run project why forever and we would do more than make loos.

In our capital city there are loos, believe it or not. There those for the poor like the ones in the picture that are often locked, like the one in the picture or so filthy that you can barely use them, more so as you have to dish out a rupee to do so.

Then there are the ones that were built for the Commonwealth Games but never got used. What you see is not a monument but the Defence Colony loo when it was being made. I do not think it has ever been used. It lies locked waiting for its first user. I believe they are under litigation and I guess will be totally unusable by the time the case is settled.

You may have also seen the new kid on the block: the bright red loos made by the  DIMTS, better known as the BRT gang. They are good looking but are often locked for reasons beyond comprehension. Delhi also has the horrid portable toilets and of course all the walls and open spaces available to ‘relieve’ ones self. All these have been made at some cost to the tax payer. It is time we asked for an audit before throwing crores to make more such useless structures.

The problem that arises is why these toilets that were at one time totally acceptable reach such a state. The mistakes we often make is ‘think’ we know what the ‘other’ wants. Girls need toilet in schools but they also need clean and safe toilets where they live. Why do we always decide for others and never ask them what they want and WHY things have gone wrong. I was myself surprised when a the mother of a teenager brushed aside my worry about safety when we were talking about the toilet in her area. She in the inimitable style of survivors told me that her brother could accompany her. What irked her most was the 1 rupee to be paid reach time. They are a family of 8 with one earning member. Do the maths. Think of how many times we use a loo in a day then multiply by 8 and then 30. It is a huge chunk of the 5 or 6000 the bread earner earns.

The main issue was all cleanliness. Beautiful structures are erected sometimes after international or national competition and then no one sits and thinks of how they will be maintained over the years as loos are needed as long as humans are there. Thinking that the 1 rupee per use will do the trick is ridiculous. A block of toilets needs water of course but cleaning implements, products and people who are given a proper salary. Toilets have to be cleaned almost after each use. But that is not the real solution. The real solution lies with the community taking ownership of the block and then all is well!

When we began our work in Okhla almost 8 years ago, the local mafia did not want us and thus they use to break our ‘school’ every week end. We simply rebuilt it every Monday and carried on. Today it is located in a flimsy structure that can be broken with a kick but no one touches it. We have expensive equipment that is safer than in a bank vault. The same has to be the case with community toilets which are a must as if the ‘fashion’ of everyone making some makeshift loo continues, it would be a disaster for the environment. That is why work like we do is important. You can make diamond studded loos but unless you make the community accept and respect them they will have the same fate as all the others.

So you can understand how I feel when I see 200 crores going down the drain as I struggle to keep project why afloat.

If there is one topic that has received unprecedented publicity in the last months it has been loos! Unfortunately, the reason ‘we’ remember the importance of loos are often tragic: rapes, girls dropping out of school or having to defecate in the open even in cities and all related problems the worse in my mind being fatal diseases related to poor hygienic conditions. The reason ‘we’ think of toilets only at those horrific moments is because ‘we’ are the privileged 52% of Indians who have access to a loo. Should you be interested in knowing the hazards of open defecation here are some shocking facts: A single gram of human faeces contains as much as 10,000,000 viruses, 1,000,000 bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs When ingested it can therefore lead to typhoid, cholera, hepatitis, polio, pneumonia, fatal worm infestation, trachoma, stunted physical development and impaired cognitive function. It makes open defecation a lead cause of diarrheal death; 2,000 children under the age of five die every day, one every 40 seconds, from diarrhoea. These should make us hand our head in shame and scream our outrage, but the reality is that we have access to toilets so why should we waste our time on human waste(sic).

But for the past months loos are the ‘flavour’ of the day and everyone and anyone wants to set up loos.  The latest commitment came from as high as the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day. Yes 68 years after becoming a free nation we are yet to solve our ‘shit’ issue.

A few months back a modern Croesus came my way and upon learning that I worked for the urban poor stated his desire to build loos. His benchmark was to give the poor the best loo possible. He even went to state that he wanted to make Indians give up squatting and sit instead. Hoping to have a few pennies come my way, I accepted to help this person and in my own realistic way requested him to come and visit some of the existing loos in the slums we operate in. The visit was an eye opener to me though I think our Good Samaritan did not get the picture. My plan was to first try and find out why the loos that already exist do not work and in Delhi we have quite a range: from the filthy loos set up by the State, to the swanky ones made at humongous costs for the Commonwealth Games that have never been used, to the new red ones made by a Transport organisation that seemed locked too! Unless we find out why these have not worked, it is pointless to make new ones. To me it seems not so much the design of the structure but the maintenance, safety and upkeep etc. And the only people who can give these answers are the users themselves.

The state of toilets placed in slums is so bad that one of my staff who lives in such a slum has had to ‘rent’ a room across the street that has a toilet facility for hide extended family and come rain or fire, if you need to poo then you have to take a walk. Everyone cannot afford such a solution so as it is impossible to even enter the stench infested toilet blocks, you have to find your place in the sun. So to my realist and cynical mind all these promised loos may just go the same way. If I had a say, I would first fix the existing ones and then go on to making new ones that would meet the requirements of the end users.

Should you go to Defence Colony Market or Kailash Colony Market and feel like peeing, then in spite the super fancy loos that were meant to house cafes and flower shops you cannot as these are closed and unused and I am told in litigation. That they were build with millions of our hard earned money does not matter. It never does.

Making more loos in markets or slums makes no sense as they will go the same way unless we audit them and run proper surveys to find out where it all went wrong. If we do not do that, then apart from some pockets becoming heavier nothing will change.

I guess we were all waiting for our new Prime Minister’s address to the Nation with bated breaths. Many of his admirers as well as detractors were a little discomfited by the fact that one had not heard him at all after he took over as PM. I do not know about you, but I fell vindicated today when I heard his address from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Sixty eight years Kamala my mother was part of the delirious crowd and never forgot the range of emotions she had experienced. All the trials and tribulations she and her family had suffered were forgotten be it the pangs of hungers, the lacerated backs that had to be tended by a 7 year old, the humiliation and sneers. Nothing mattered any more. India was free!

I am happy Kamala is no more as her heart would have been shattered at how badly we tended the fragile sapling the likes of her had gifted us. I do not want to go into details, not today. Today let us celebrate the tree whose roots still stand strong.

Yes we all heard the the new PM’s speech and we all heard that he addressed us not as the Prime Minister but in his own words as the Prime Servant. This was balm to the heart but what made me want to hug him was when he addressed parents and asked them the questions never asked. Why did parents question every action of their daughters and not ask then same ones to their sons. As he rightly said, rapists have parents too and maybe if they were challenged at the right time they would not go astray. I guess that is where it all begins. Screaming for rapists to be hanged is not the solution.  

It was refreshing to hear a PM speak extempore! It was comforting to see a PM standing in the open like all his fellow Indians and not behind bullet or whatever proof glass. But what I loved most was when he said that he could not understand why a bureaucrat who comes to work on time is Breaking News!

This again is something that has always annoyed me. In my past avatar I often worked in high profile meetings and my team and I worked our a****** off to say the least. Yet when the time to reward those who were truly responsible for the success of the event, the medals went to bureaucrats. To me it was inane as they were just doing their duty, whereas people like us who were employed for specific tasks and found ourselves cleaning bathrooms or carting luggage because some bureaucrat had forgotten to employ porters or cleaners, we were ignored even when our names were sent up by our immediate bosses. So a bureaucrat who comes on time is no headline news and should never be.

I do not know what will happen tomorrow or in the next months, years or more, I only want too savour what I heard today.

Happy Independence Day!