I think I am well placed to write an apologia in defence of the English language which has come under fire in recent days. Courtesy my sometimes quirky parents I barely spoke English as a child as Kamala, my unique mom, wanted her child to speak Hindi which thus became my mother tongue in the true sense of the term, and Papa’s love for the French language and culture made French the language I would be educated in. On the other hand I spoke Hindi like a native and French to perfection, and as a toddler perfect Mandarin as being posted in Beijing I had a Nanny who only spoke Chinese. Sadly I lost my Chinese as there was no one to speak it with.

English did enter my life as not only was it spoken at home but was the second language I took in school and the brand of English I did speak was the kind spoken by any school kid going to a French school and having taken English as a second language. We were often taught by non native speakers and the abundance of the sound zeee was proof of that: Ze book iz on ze table! . I guess the fact that English was sort of spoken in my entourage made me a tad better than my school friends but just about. My parents thumb rule was that I would learn English somewhere along the way and I guess I did as is proof of the fact of me banging these words in English and having been a bilingual booth interpreter in more conferences that I can remember. However were you to ask me whether I have learnt English in a structured manner, the answer is NO!

After school I was hoping to be sent to the Sorbonne but again my unconventional parents decided to send me to a all  girl college in Delhi where speaking Hindi was infra-dig, and a strange social stratification based on which ‘school’ you came from conferred gave your status. Strangely it all boiled down to how well you spoke the colonial language. My friend corrected my atrocious pronunciation and an old friend of my father’s told me that the only way to improve your language was to read as much as you could. I did. Books were my saviour. You would be amused to know that a few years later I realised my French had become wanting and remembering the old man’s advice I embarked upon reading the complete works of Balzac. Now I make sure to read both languages regularly.

My grandson who barely writes though he is 5+, speaks 4 languages: English, French, Hindi and Italian and navigates from one to the other with utmost ease depending who he is talking to. We Hindi speakers have an extraordinary talent to master languages and can speak them as natives. This is not the case with many other populations who can never lose the accent and lilt of their mother tongue. We have one such example in our political firmament.

Today I feel saddened when misguided youngsters are bent upon removing basic English comprehension questions in a examination that will make them senior administrators and decision makers should they succeed. I feel outraged at our politicians who are supporting them to pursue their own agendas where the success of these kids is not even a minuscule footnote. I wish someone realised that in our quest of becoming a super power one of the big advantage we have is English. Today English is being taught in China in a frenzied manner and we are busy undoing our asset with impunity.

When I sat for the IAS in the seventies there were no preliminaries and we had a compulsory English paper where the most difficult question was the (in)famous précis. You had to condense a passage to a third of its size using your won words and not repeating any idea. That was definitely something that made the grey cells work overtime. The aspirants who will succeed in their examination will need English if not to write reports but certainly to access information and interact with the world. English should be taught properly in every single school, more so in State run ones. And to amuse you a little and end my tryst with the IAS, I must share what happened in my viva. I sat for the IAS with a 2 year old baby and had little time to mug statistics that anyway would change by the time I would need them. I also found the idea of mugging statistics of coal production, and so on totally futile. So unlike others who were waiting for their turn with yearbooks and last minute revision and went in without a stat in my head. The interview began with the eminent Chairman asking me a slew of statistics and hearing a slew of ‘ I do not know Sir’! He finally looked up and asked me what I knew. I told him that by the time I would finish my training and get a posting all the figures would have changed but I knew where to get the information and would make sure to have all the yearbooks etc on my office shelf. Everyone burst laughing and that was the end of my interview for which I got the highest mark of my batch.

But let us some back to this English comprehension question that is dividing India. If you can read the passage in the picture you will see that it is so simple that a class 6 kid can do it. Does it mean that we will have officers that will be unable to answer such a simple question.

The first thing I was asked by both parents and kids of the first slum I began work in was: teach our kid/us English. Even the most illiterate parent knows how important it is for his child to speak English. No one looks at it as a colonial legacy or a diminishing of ones Indianness. It is again politicians who want to nurture vote banks and do not care about anything else.

A language is not limiting in anyway. On the contrary it opens endless doors and avenues and when we have been blessed with a palate that catches unknown sounds without problems then we should make the most of it. 

I urge you to read this post and give your take on it. Thanks. Anou

It was more than a decade ago that my dear friend and mentor DV suggested we have a detailed budget on our website as he felt that total transparency would help us gain the trust of people and hence get the support we needed. Actually he is the one who designed the page for us and we have been updating it since without any transformation. I was in complete agreement with him as I felt it showed the potential donor exactly where his money went. And that it worked needs no further proof that we are till today a vibrant organisation that is thriving in spite of a few hiccoughs.

Till date I have been the one who has headed, virtually single handed, the funding aspect of project why and I have been overwhelmed by the support of I have received. However the new laws that may soon come into force make an organisation like ours very precarious as we depend on the famed FCRA – the government stamp that allows us to receive funds from outside India -! It seems that the Intelligence Bureau has now set its eyes on all of us FCRA holders and may revoke it almost at will. In that scenario we sink, as ours is a cause that is not dear to our countrymen. It may or may not happen but I feel that one has to be prepared for the worst as one is responsible for so many tiny dreams. The option is to raise money from our own and that is a herculean task.

As luck would have it, a mail dropped in my inbox a few days back offering a fund raising workshop. I jumped on the occasion and sent my two coordinators even though it meant a hole in our pocket, one we could ill afford. But I really thought that we would get some new ideas if not an epiphany and also prove where I had been wrong.

R & D – and it is not Research and Development but why two hands Rani and Dharmendra – travelled the unending distance in heat and rain and attended all lectures attentively. If had not yet had my full debrief – I am dreading it – but from the little they shared I think that from from an epiphany, it seemed like a Oh No! moment.

Before I go on, I need to share my world view in the matter. When I was a donor, what mattered to me was that the money I gave reached to the beneficiary as directly as possible and not through some devious round about way. I my early days when I was still finding my way, I visited an NGO that is extremely successful and flushed with money. They had a swanky building designed by some foreign architect that to me seemed quite futile as it did not house any of the main activities of the said NGO. The Director’s office was huge and had not one but two air conditioners blazing and though it was midsummer I froze and wished I had a jacket. I could not resist asking him how much the maintenance of such a building cost and he had no hesitation in replying: 100 000 a month! That meant that the first rupee reaching the beneficiary was after the 100 000 were in the bank. I swore to myself never to go that way. Of course nowhere on their website would you find mention of this useless cost as it was well hidden.

So when R & D told me that one of the funding options suggested to them during the workshop was telemarketing I did a double take and candidly asked: but how do we get the money? The deal is you get 100 000 from a donor and if you can use that to generate 200 000 it is a win win situation. I guess many large organisations do that, but to do so you need to ‘hide’ cots, something that makes me gall. I know of one that started as small as ours but today has a huge fund raising department that not only does telemarketing, but also door to door campaigns as well as expensive mailing. I also know of many who have stopped giving to that organisation.

For me it is morally unacceptable to ask any donor for money that does not go to the beneficiary as directly as possible. I have refused more than ice the offer of four wheel drives as transport at project why is provided by auto rickshaws owned by parents of students and ex-students. How can I ask anyone for money that will go to some funding raising agency. I would rather close he doors. So here goes one suggestion.

The other was to have a good ppt that would showcase our achievements and be transparent. Whereas  we have been wanting in the first instance and never been able to show the scale of our achievements, I though we were spot on on the later: transparency! I was soon to learn that it was not quite so.

A friend from the US, who is knowledgeable in the field of fund raising: making presentation, writing proposals etc happened to be staying with us and I requested him to help R & D with the presentation part. It all went well till we reached the slide that would show expenses. Being extremely proud of my expense page, I would have bet my bottom dollar that all  that was needed to be done was to translate it into a chart of sort like those colourful pie charts! Our expert said that that would be counterproductive as we were too explicit as we mention every expense and have foot notes to elucidate if and when needed. However apparently this is not the way it works in the big bad world.

I need money for project why but I strongly believe that it cannot be at the price of giving up what has been my strength. I do not see why someone who wishes to donate to a cause should feel upset to see where her/his money goes even if it is cleaning material that we truly need and for which I can produce bills. I for one would prefer that then a section of the pie stating: project costs!

My intuition tells me to follow my heart but I would love to have your take.

In the past days we have been ‘treated’ to what I can call call the absurdities of one Dr B, who has taken on single handed the mantle to defend India in a rather inane way. But beware this is not just a lone crusader that would at best be laughed at and set aside. Far from that. Today his books are being ‘taught’ in all primary and secondary schools in Gujarat. A sample of his ‘beliefs’ can be savoured here. One particularly caught my attention for two unrelated reasons. In one paragraph it quotes Sarvepalli Radhakirshnan saying that Indians are the most loved people.”Once God wanted to make a chapati. He was not able to cook the first chapati properly and he (God) termed the first chapati as ‘Britishers’; he failed in his second attempt as well and overcooked the second chapati as well. Thus were born the African nationals. The explanation goes further and it points that the third chapati, made by the God, turned out to be perfect. Thus God gave birth to Indians.

The reason this quote my attention is two fold. First of all I am named Anouradha because of Dr Radhakrishnan. The name my mother had chosen for me was Mandakini but the day I was born Dr Radhakrishna, then Vice President was in Prague and when told that an Indian baby was born, decided to visit the hospital and thus me and suggested I be named Anuradha. My parents esteemed it an honour and he became my the facto godfather. Over the years I met him a few times and have read most of what he wrote being a Philosophy student and cannot imagine him being the author of this absurd quote. A humanist and eminent thinker, I do not see him state anything that could be derogatory to any other human being.

That is part one.

Now comes part two and that pertains the quote itself. I must have been 4 or 5 when I once came back in tars from school and asked my mother why I was not white. To soothe and assuage a disturbed child, Ma related this ‘story’ as she knew that I needed a boost in my self esteem and more than that to accept with pride the colour of my skin. The tears dried up and the story was forgotten till Dr B brought it up again.

Dr B is also on a crusade to do away with all English and Urdu words, words we use daily and perhaps without even realising that they are ‘foreign’. Often we add a bit of India flavour and appropriate them so it is Masterji and Professor Sahib. And there is much more Dr B dislikes. Again you can read it here. Now according to him we should not blow birthday candles and so on.

His dislike for English is scary as as things stand today English is what can make our children’s morrows brighter. Way back in 2000, when I first landed in Giri Nagar, the first and only thing every parent asked me was to teach their kids English. I am taking about illiterate parents from humble homes who are ware of how important its is for their children to learn a language than came get them access to what they could never get. If Dr B gets his way, our kids will regress irreversibly.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Kamal Ataturk who decided to modernise and thus westernise his country and thus make some fundamental institutional changes. One of them was the adoption of the latin alphabet. That meant that Turkish children need only to learn one alphabet that would lighten the burden of their further learning. We need a Kamal Pasha, someone who can change India without altering its ethos.

When I blow my birthday candles I do not feel less Indian or Hindu for that matter. But I feel my blood run cold when I see the kind of ‘valued’ the likes of Dr B suggest. In my opinion they will annihilate the very essence of Hinduism and India.

Neil Gaiman begins his book American Gods with the following quote quote from Joe Miller’s jest book: The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of the Equinoxes, and on the west by the Day of Judgment. It may have been words mouthed in jest way back in the XVIII century but in our times where boundaries seemed to be placed within boundaries and more boundaries, these words are poignant to say the least. All across our planet innocent people are being killed. Missiles bring commercial flight down, and missiles rip through schools for children. People are killed in the name of religion leaving us wondering what religion truly is and what kind of God allow such aberrations. I for one am lost. Children die each day by the thousands whilst their country mates throw food with impunity or pour milk on stone deities. Again in the name of religion making me almost feel that ‘religion’ has become a multi-headed hydra monster.

 The blood of every human, whatever her or his creed, caste, social or economic status, colour is red. A child is born from a mother’s womb after nine months. The pain of a mother losing her child is the same the world over. People suffer pain the same way no matter where they come from or which God they pray.

How wonderful then if we could in all seriousness define the boundaries of our country as it is in the quote and do away with all the divisions and barriers and walls created by humans and see ourselves as inhabitants of this beautiful planet whilst remembering that one of the boundaries is the Day of Judgement. Wishful thinking but worth a thought.

I embraced Hinduism with pride. That is not because of what its written word is, but because as I was growing up in a Hindu family though my parents were not overtly religious and far from being fanatics, whenever I asked a question pertaining to other religions and how I should view them, I was always told to embrace them too! As a child I, lived in Morocco where I had Muslim and Jewish friends and whoever I asked my parents whether I could fast with them during the Ramadan month or partake of the Sabbath meal, the answer I always got was a resounding yes with a small caveat: provided you do not hurt their sentiments. Having spent some of my school years in a Convents I, like all my catholic friends, said the Lord’s prayer with conviction and attended mass as I was in the choir. For me I was just praying to God, and my God had no specific religion. To a child growing up far from her country, Hinduism seemed a wonderful religion and making it mine was a matter of pride.

Then came the fanatics and everything changed. I was deeply hurt when a mosque was destroyed in the name of a temple and other terrible things happened in the name of religion. No God can approve of killing innocents. It does make sense.

Religion to me should be contained within the walls of your home and should not cross the door. The problem is that it is a wonderful tool that all rulers have used to control populations and exercise power with impunity.

The day of Judgment that lies on the west according to the quote awaits us all. I still believe that the maker we will ultimately meet whether we are cremated, buried in a shroud or grave or left to the vultures will never forgive us what we have die in His Name.

I just hold on to the religion I was taught, even if at times it is almost impossible to do so.

Dispassion is a gift not given to all, certainly not to me. I found this turn of phrase in the personal histories column of last weeks Tehelka magazine. The piece is entitled How Does One Deal With So Much Suffering Every Day. This is a question I ask myself day after day and having been doing so for as long as I can remember. The author, a young student cruise out: Every day, we encounter tragedies that by all means should tear us apart emotionally. However, confronted by these happenings, we sigh, we sympathise, we pray for those in distress — sometimes we even help them in our small ways — and then we just continue with our atomised, quotidian lives, moved yet unaffected. It disturbed me how we all seemed to live like islands in impervious bubbles, which pain and sorrow would touch, but never invade. The problem with me is that it has more than invaded me. I have lived with this feeling since I was barely 3. Human suffering has always disturbed me and still does every time I step out of the house.

For the author the human tendency to forget and heal is not a character flaw. Nor is it a virtue. It is a survival tactic. I guess when you are young you are able to forget easily and heal faster. This tactic does not work for me. Actually it never has as I feel the same knot in my gut each time I recall the dancing bear that my grandmother lovingly invited to ‘treat’ her only grandchild. What she did was open the eyes of my heart.

I wrote about this incident some time back. I share it again.

The big bear has just finished the last of his antics. The noose around its snout ensured he did not step out of line. The owner in his tattered and threadbare clothes stands proudly hoping to get a good take. The house is imposing; its inmates look rich.

It is a chilly morning in this small Indian town. A watery sun is trying to break through the late morning mist. The grandmother has specially arranged the show for her 3 year- old grand daughter who has come from across many seas. She gets up and gives the man a few notes. A lot for a simple bear show in times when a few coins bought a lot of ware.

The man still wants to try his luck.

“It is very cold, Memsahib, would you be kind enough to give me an old coat”

The grandmother knowing the game smiles and tells him to go. The man insists. The grandmother raises her voice and repeats her words. The game goes on for a while till the man realises he will get no more and packs up his ware, urges his bear to move on and walks out of the gate.

As everyone gets off the rope chairs that had been laid out in the veranda for the performance a loud wail is heard:

“You are all very mean, you have so many coats hanging in your cupboards and you could not give the man one”

It is the little girl who has been watching the show from a corner, a tad frightened by the huge animal. Maybe she saw much more than the simple antics of the performing bear.

The grandmother and all present try to reason with her and tell her that the man has got a lot of money and must be happy. But the little girl refuses to be quietened and goes on crying and repeating her now almost incoherent pleas.

The grandfather who had remained in his office now comes out to find out what is happening. The little girl is still saying in between wrecking sobs:” you have so many, why did you not give him one”.

The grandfather somehow sees beyond the words and simply asks his wife to find a coat and send the house servant on bicycle to find the man and give him the coat.

Only when the servant comes back and tells all present that the coat has been given does the little girl stop crying.

The year is 1955, the small town Meerut. The little girl was me!

I am still the girl who said: ” you have so many, why did you not give him one”.  I cannot begin to understand why those who have plenty do not feel the need to help another. I have been shocked beyond words at the callousness and the kind of reasons for not giving that I have had to hear. I recently cakes across a person who could sponsor project why without it making a difference to his lifestyle, a person I took to see the children in their homes hoping that would open his heart, but no way. It did not affect him at all. All it did was made me mad!

The young author of the article I mentioned in the beginning quotes a passage from Neil Gaiman’s book American Gods that freed her of the guilt of not feeling lasting pain. Gaiman writes: “No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other’s tragedies. We draw lines around moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearl-like from our souls, without real pain.”

I pondered on these lines for a long time wondering how you draw lines around pain and remain on islands and cover our pain with safe layers, however nacreous. If that were so, than the bear story could have been recalled without the hollow feeling in my gut. Maybe I am the odd one but I am who I am and like what I see.

These is how the  author ends her piece: Human suffering is limitless. If you see what I see, you’d realise, it is limitless. We expose a tiny fraction of our hearts to it, and yet we get burnt. If we could expose all of ourselves to it and feel its true immensity, it would cripple us. We would never be able to do our jobs. Dispassion — it is a gift.

Dispassion is a gift but not for me!

Arti 2001-2004

8 children died in Gaza yesterday when a drone struck a refuge camp. Hundreds of children have died in this incomprehensible war between humans who once lived side by side till some wily politicians who search for causes to ‘espouse’ and ‘defend’ like predators hunt for prey, decided to make them enemies in the name of what else but religion with a big R. Today even killing a child simply because he bows to another God is kosher. To me this is abhorrent and despicable and is something we too have been subjected to by our erstwhile colonisers who handed us freedom at a price, a price that seems to be endless. Today the social network is replete with outraged comments and posts and looks like Gaza is more a part of India than let us Saharanpur as is so well said by one of my FB friends. Gaza is page 3! I was told by a dear friend that a lady was terribly rude to a poor boy in a shop and when the owner asked her why she was so upset she reported without batting an eyelid: Gaza. Btw she was Indian, page 3 I suppose.

Gaza is page 3; Gaza is fashionable; Gaza is the flavour of the moment. My sympathies go to all those dying in Gaza as the death of a child is unbearable but what saddens me is that some deaths of children go unnoticed, deaths that happen EVERY DAY in our own country, deaths that could be avoided if we simply cared.

The little girl in this picture is one of the 5000 children who die everyday of malnutrition in our country. They die because they do not have the immunity to fight the smallest disease and as they often live in squalor, death comes easy. Arti lost her mother when she was a baby and her father who drove a truck barely had the time to look after her and her two siblings. Her sister, barely a few years older was surrogate mom. Their house was so tiny that the father, a tall man, had to sleep diagonally with his fight outside the door. The smell in their hole of a home was unbearable and indefinable. We discovered the little family perchance and they began coming to pwhy. We tried to settle the older ones in a boarding school but the father was not agreeable. One hot summer morning, little Arti came to my office eating a candy floss and sat on my lap as she did every morning before going to the creche. Late morning she started vomiting and we took her to the doctor and got her medicine. We dropped her home as usual but she started vomiting again and by the time the father got his act together and took her to the hospital she was gone. Her tiny malnourished body had been unable to withstand a small infection, the kind our kids sail through unscathed.

FIVE THOUSAND kids like her, between the age of 0 and 5 die everyday in India. Born to malnourished and barely nubile anaemic mothers, they are tiny and sickly. They feed on their mothers poor quality milk as long as possible. sometimes 2 to 3 years, and then eat a diet low in nutrients that makes them prey to any infection, mostly water borne ones as they again often do not have access to clean drinking water. There are places where the families are so poor that the mothers cook the only meal of the day with many chillies so that the ensuing thirst feels the little tummies filled. I have read horror stories about women ferreting rat holes for grains.

I have so often written about these silent deafening deaths but no one has been even mildly outraged or disturbed; no losing temper with the shopkeeper on this one! 5000 children is no match to 8! You may be wondering his this kind of maths works. Wonder if these page 3 types are followers of Godel’s incompleteness theorems, and they may just become so as Godel is mentioned in the Rehman’s book ‘ In the light of what we know’  a wonderful book replete with little gems though I wonder how many page 3 birds will have the ability to read the 500+ odd pages!

We do not need to meet Godel. I will explain the logic that makes a human being go ballistic when 8 children die and remain unfazed when 5000 of their own die. It is simple. The 5000 are not us. They are them. What makes them different is not their religion or caste but their poverty and that is something we do not suffer from and hence I guess we cannot vibe with! They belong across the invisible line that divides poverty from affluence and it is an impregnable though invisible line. Of we see them but as we would a species that we cannot akin to ours. We keep our voice for the fashionable global perspectives that make good cocktail conversations local tragedies are ‘downmarket’. And then unlike the 8 children whose deaths are heralded loud and clear, the 5000 die quietly and are barely mourned as their families have to get on with surviving.

No one will write an epitaph or sing a requiem for the souls of the 5000 who die today, who died yesterday and the day before and the day before…

Did you know that we Indians should be credited for inventing stem cell technology. According to Dina Nath Batra – yes the one who compelled a publisher to pulp a book not to his taste – and I quote “…America wants to take the credit for invention of stem cell research, but the truth is that India’s Dr Balkrishna Ganpat Matapurkar has already got a patent for regenerating body parts…. You would be surprised to know that this research is not new and that Dr Matapurkar was inspired by the Mahabharata. Kunti had a bright son like the sun itself. When Gandhari, who had not been able to conceive for two years, learnt of this, she underwent an abortion. From her womb a huge mass of flesh came out. (Rishi) Dwaipayan Vyas was called. He observed this hard mass of flesh and then he preserved it in a cold tank with specific medicines. He then divided the mass of flesh into 100 parts and kept them separately in 100 tanks full of ghee for two years. After two years, 100 Kauravas were born of it. On reading this, he (Matapurkar) realised that stem cell was not his invention. This was found in India thousands of years ago.” — Page 92-93, Tejomay Bharat.

This is not a joke but an extract from Tejomay Bharat, a book which is now compulsory reading for school children in Gujarat. Imagine children having to learn such nonsense. The book’s content advisor, an eminent educationist informs us that Tejomay Bharat gives an insight to students about our rich culture, heritage, spiritualism and patriotism. The language has been kept simple, which is apt for students. These are to be given free of cost to all schools, while 5,000 copies priced at Rs 73 have been prepared for those other than students. How long will it take to cross the state borders is anyone’s guess. The idea sends chills down my spine.

But it does not stop there. The same gentleman – I mean the author not the advisor – is upset because NCERT hindi books use Urdu and English words and has a sent a letter to the new education minister to take appropriate action. Some of the words he objects to are: vice-chancellor’, ‘worker’, ‘business’, ‘backbone’, ‘plan’, ‘you get out’, ‘of course’, ‘frock’, ‘half-yearly’, ‘seminars’, ‘cultural’, ‘horticulture’, ‘canvas’, ‘organise’ and ‘thank you’! Good God what is the Hindi for these. As for the Urdu ones, they are part of our daily lexicon:  ‘mushkil’ (difficult), ‘dost’ (friend), ‘gussa’ (anger), ‘shararat’ (naughtiness), ‘khabardar’ (to warn), ‘gayab’ (vanish), ‘saal’ (year), ‘mohalla’ (colony), ‘mauka’ (occasion), ‘aksar’ (often), ‘mauj udana’ (to have fun), ‘farsh’ (floor), ‘himmat’ (courage) and so on. I am gobsmacked and wonder where we are heading.

I wish all this was just banter but if the gentleman in question was able to get a book pulped then who knows what else he can achieve. My hart goes out to the poor children!

I am about to finish reading Zia Haider Rahman’s In The Light of What We Know. It is intriguing as well as delectable and challenges the reader at every page. I am enjoying every line and even find echoes to my own life journey. Somewhere along the way of the narrative that throws out all canons of space and time, I found a comment that hit my very soul. One of the two main protagonists relates a seemingly innocuous event where a member of the aristocracy felt equally comfortable hosting a upmarket Xmas dinner on one day and working a soup kitchen the next. This leads the protagonist in question to state: That is the relation I want with poverty; something that does not bite me each time I see affluence or misery.(In the light of what we know page 380 Picador India).

The later part of the statement truly summarised the almost existential question that plagues me each and every day whenever I see as the author says affluence or misery. True I see more of the later as that is the world I work in and that makes my forays into the world of plenty that much more disturbing. Before I go on in my ramblings, I would just like to mention that the pictures I have chosen to illustrate this blog are pictures taken by the children of our Okhla centre during a workshop where they were asked to take snapshots of their world. I can understand the protagonist of the book saying he would like to be as comfortable in one situation as in the other but I guess that where he and for that matter I come from, that is not possible as we come from countries where misery is visible at every nook and corner of our space. And very time we come across it, we feel what I would describe, at least for myself, a sense of guilt, helplessness, anger, despair all coalesced in an emotion that has no name but hits you each time. So that when we do come across affluence then that unnamed emotion translates into something akin to rage.

My forays into the world of plenty are far and few: an occasional wedding, a visit to a husband’s rich friend’s home or a meal at a club or posh restaurant that one cannot avoid. But my encounter with misery is frequent and is not limited to my actual presence but being part of the path I chose to tread, haunts my waking hours and my dreams. And if that was not enough, then even when I step out of my hole to fulfil an innocuous task, my eyes are drawn to misery. I see it in the worn out face of the old man pushing is still laden fruit cart and start wondering whether he will sell enough to return home and not face the ire of his daughter-in-law to whom he has become a burden; I hear it in the late night call of the vegetable vendor in the dead of winter; I see it in the cobbler sitting on the road and the child begging at the red light in the scorching heat. Those are times when I wish I had the resources to do something more than I do.

What makes it even worse is the dignity and the smiles and the positive attitude of those we have let down with total impunity. No wonder then that I seethe with anger when I see food thrown on the streets following useless and self gratifying religious feeding frenzies or the plates still laden with food that are placed in the large vessels strewn all over marriage halls to make it easier for the affluent to discard what they did not finish. And when I enter homes  that are vulgar displays of affluence, I feel physically sick more so when I know that those who own these homes will never agree to spare a coin for lesser beings. I have been down that road and speak with full responsibility.

And when I see what goes as homes for those who are an intrinsic part of the city and who make our lives better, homes that are legitimised to suit vote bank politics, then I want to be able to have the very politicians who come grovelling at election time live in these homes for a given period of time and experience the challenge of doing so. How can one accept such aberrations without batting an eye lid, more so as those who live in these abysmal conditions have the same basic needs as those we want for ourselves.

And yet they dream and do not lose hope, like this child who chose to take the picture of an aeroplane. Maybe he dreams of becoming a pilot, and why shouldn’t he? He is a child born in India, who has the same rights as any other child born in India. The tragedy is that we have forgotten this indubitable truth. Over the years we have systematically closed all doors that could have helped children from humbler homes break the cycle of poverty in which they were born. We have privatised schools, made state education a farce thus making it impossible for the poorer children access to higher education while we have opened with alacrity more doors for our progeny, doors that can be accessed only if you have the means.

I am humbled and amazed as his the poor do not hold anything against us. The kid who took the picture of this gleaming red car parked in front of the factory where his father or the father of his friend works, took it because he likes cars and enjoys watching them. There is no jealously or bad feeling. There is simple acceptance of a reality. It simply ends there. Every time I see misery I hurt and hurt and maybe I want to be able to continue hurting. That is who I am and want to be.

Is this the only news we have, snapped the Karnataka Chief Minister when asked about the horrific assault on a six year old in Bangalore. No sir we have a lots more of you want to listen: today’s news and yesterday’s news too. In your very state Sir, a mentally challenged rape survivor had to wait hours in a semi nude state for the required medical tests that are essential if she is ever to get justice and that is a big if! How is that for starters.

In our country, according to a UN report, the girl child is still seen as a burden. So she runs the risks of being killed in the womb, being killed at birth, not being educated, no being given proper care, married at an early age and a mother far too early, killed for dowry, killed for falling in love by her own family and so on.

In India today hundreds and thousands of children die of encephalitis each year, and each year new fixes are promised and promises they remain. Encephalitis can be prevented if one does have the will to do so.

There is so much more news if you would care to hear: 5000 children die of malnutrition every day in your country; millions of children are out of school or drop out as the education is non existent on the ground; millions of children are trafficked, abused, work in sweatshops or beg on the streets. In your country millions go to sleep on an empty stomach; mothers feed chilly powder to their infants to quell their hunger and even ferret rat holes for a fistful of grain. We have a lot of news that should make you hang your head in shame or send chills down your spine.

But today we want you to hear about a little girl who could be your granddaughter. She was brutally assaulted by a man. The scars that have seared her soul can never heal. We want you to listen because this is a little girl who was born on the right side of the fence unlike her peers whose suffering we all chose to ignore. And under your watch it has taken protest after protest to get anything moving. Imagine is she was just a poor kid.

And what about the mentally challenged woman who was assaulter twice if not many more times. After suffering the trauma of rape she had to lie half nude as men passed by. Imagine of she were your child. What will you do to soothe her pain and heal her soul. Nothing I presume.

For the past 15 years I have been trying to do something that would enable me to look at myself and not turn away but everything comes to naught when I hear about the atrocities our children and women have to suffer and hear empty promises as nauseum.

I was one of the painted and dented women who raised my voice when a young girl was brutally assaulted in a bus in Delhi. But what was the point and what did we achieve. Nothing.

Crimes will continue and according to one of your kiln, only God can prevent them. But what if God too has given up on us.

When the Chief Minister of a State questioned by a reporter about the terrible assault on a 6 year old inside her school quips: Is this the only news we have? you know something is terribly wrong. It almost seems as if India is loosing it, insidiously, surreptitiously but losing to nevertheless. When 3 blind kids under the age of 10 are brutally caned by their blind teacher gleefully assisted by the Principal, something is terribly wrong. When a 29 year old is beaten to death in what is called a case of road rage in our capital city then you know things are not what they should be. And when the Governor of a state where rapes occur with impunity says: Even if the entire world’s police force is put on duty, rapes can probably be prevented only if the gods come down from heaven, then we have lost it. There is something terribly wrong in the state of India. We have become a nation that has to constantly hang its head in shame.

After the horrific Badaun rapes where two girls were found hanging from a mango tree, a rape that was reported the whole over, we as usual went into band aid damage control mode and a slew of measures were announced. One of them was the building of toilets in the village of the victims as the young girls met their horrendous end as they had to go to the field to relieve themselves. It was announced that 100 toilets would be built. Two months down the line they lie unfinished and unusable. I would not be surprised if they remain so. That is a snapshot of what we as a nation have become. We make promises, money is raised, work begins and ends. I guess some pockets have become richer at best.

Toilets were built for the Commonwealth Games at astronomical prices but remain shut and are falling apart. Wonder what happened there. DIMTS the ones who run the (in)famous BRT, built much needed toilets @ of 15 lacs rupees but they are locked and unused. A friend told me that some ‘dry’ toilets – for males only – had been made in an swanky market but clogged on day one. He was told in confidence by the contractor who built them that so much many had to be given to grease plans, that the toilets could not be properly completed and hence would get clogged and hence someone will make more money. There are millions of unfinished toilets across India, each with a story to tell. Maybe there is material for a book, and sadly, not a funny one. It is time we the tax payer should ask where all the money earmarked for loos went!

Just like the loos meant to prevent rapes have not taken off, if one is to go by precedent, then the man who assaulter the little six year old will walk the streets sooner than one can think as the man who raped a seven year old in a city school in the same city two years back is out on bail. The brutalised child however will carry her scars to the end.

As for the blind children who were brutally caned, the explanation the perpetrators give is that they were told to do so by the parents. Oh yes I believe it, as this is what parents tell schools in India where children are beaten in their homes with alacrity and impunity. Our parents too do but then we try and counsel the parents and explain to them how beating children is bad for the child and that they should not do so. In project why no child is beaten. Two teachers lost their jobs for having slapped a child. The rage that is visible in the video of the beating of the blind kids is not just giving a little rap on the fingers but is manic. It seems more like the child bearing the brunt of the lifetime frustration of the teacher.

In the last three decades I have witnessed how violence has become an almost acceptable norm of life. The rage we see in all incidents, even mundane ones, is unhealthy and dangerous. It is a seething anger that may grow into something momentous and apocalyptic if we do not check it. India is losing it slowly but surely. I do not anticipate a French or Russian Revolution kind of thing, but perhaps the emergence of a vigilante society or an increase in violence without appropriate reason.

Who or what  do you blame it on? Some politicians blamed it on migrants and maybe rightly so as ever willing to accept the extra and cheaper hands, this city never bothered to give them the respect and dignity they were and are entitled to. This picture is proof of that. What you see is the home of a second generation migrant family. This boy is 10 or so and he is as tall as his house. I assure at least 6 if not more people liven this house that is sunk in. Imagine what happens if it rains and I do not want to begin to tell you what flows by the drain outside: chemicals from the factories whose walls give support for these tenements. And of course all adult members have voting cards as everyone wants their votes. I am sure that some day in the near future these people will ask for their long due pound of flesh. I do not know whether the animal is night’s dinner? Not much meet on those bones. This little boy is at presently in school and comes to project why. His smile shows that he is a happy kid in the circumstances he lives in. One of the reason for our opening a centre in the midst of a garbage dump was that most children dropped out school and joined drug running and other mafias. But I fear for their future. It would take a minute incident for them to lose it.

What has shocked me over the past 30 years is how the rich are becoming richer and the poor poorer, both in the most visible way possible. How long do we expect a little boy like the one in the picture to keep on accepting living in a hole before his smouldering anger turns into rage and he too loses it. Who is to blame. Our hubris? Our lack of compassion? Our deafening silence? Our indifference? It is time we took stock of the situation before it is too late.

I do not know how many of you remember the protest song written by Barry McGuire entitled the eve of destruction. I am copying the lyrics at the end of this post and if you have 3 minutes and 42 seconds to spare do listen to the song. I guess way back in then I too was one of those who did not want to believe that we were on the eve of destruction. I was 13 when the song was written but 16 when I heard it along all the other protest songs by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and so many others. They touched my heart because I had lived in Vietnam in the early to mid sixties and seen with my young eyes the immolation of monks – one immolate himself just in front of our home – and gone to sleep lulled by the sounds of bombs that became so much a part of me that it took me a long time to get used to sleeping without the sound of that sinister lullaby. But it was the sixties and we did not want to think that we would be the ones destroying all that is good in the name of misplaced freedom, misguided religious zealots or simply hubris. Today aged 62, I am find myself believing that we are on the even of destruction, it is only a matter of time before that morning dawns. All it would take is the wrong finger on the right button and we will have no one to blame but ourselves as we crated buttons after buttons in a frenzy of megalomaniac hubris.

Yesterday a missile created by human intelligence was shot at a plane full of innocent passengers including infants whose right to live were usurped in our folly. I do not care who it was and I am sick of the usual blame games we love indulging in. A few years ago it was planes full of innocent beings that were rammed into buildings full of innocent people; then it was armed terrorist who went on a killing spree in Mumbai now it is a missile shot at a target that flying at 33000 feet. Yes we have such contraptions that can kill you in the air, across the sea and across continents. Gone are the days when wars were fought by the brave and when rulers and generals went to battle face to face. Our hubris is cowardly.

Military budgets are zillions times higher than education or health budgets. We fight over pieces of land whilst children die of hunger. We have enough arms to kill all humans many times over. We are incapable of learning any lessons because we do not want to.

Now every time a loved one takes a plane, I will spend anxious hours hoping they make the journey safely. Is this the way we want to live. Looks like it. As Barry McGuire says: This whole crazy world is just too frustrating!

Sometimes a simple picture can say more than a thousand words. This is a snapshot taken by one of our kids during a photography workshop. I presume it is the picture of his home, a home he is a proud of. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to see that this is a tiny space and I can tell you with certitude that it provides shelter to at least six souls. You do not need to have a super mansion to be house proud and I have been surprised and touched to see how much pain the lady of the house takes to make her seemingly hideous hole look like home, more than certain uber rich homes I have visited where you are scared of sitting on the outrageously priced white sofa and where you try and look for a personal touch and find one. I guess page 3 people might recognise the interior decorator.

But a slum tenement is personalised to the hilt. In this case you can see the minute ‘garden’ with a tree and small plants, the clothesline strung across what one could call the ‘courtyard’. I am certain that inside there would be shelves with sparklingly clean vessels and containers with food items; a bed cover on the sole bed, the multitude of nails on the mail each with its designated use: school bags, clothes of each one of the inhabitants and so on. The walls would have some pictures pasted on it, often of Gods and there would also be a tiny shelf with some decorations pieces picked up at the equivalent of the dollar store – the china bazaar – or the weekly mart. There would also be a TV with its own shelf.

In this picture what struck me was the empty armchair. It seems it has been left deliberately so as the lady of the house is seated on another one next to it. Probably the empty one belongs to the husband and is not be to be used. In all probability the man of the house is a drunk and like all of his kind resorts to violence at the drop of a hat or in this case were he to know that someone dared sit on his chair.

But to me the empty chair seems to have a far deeper and subtler message. It looks like the chair lies empty waiting for hope and unfulfilled dreams. It perhaps states, in an almost tragic and mournful manner, the aspirations this family must have had when they left their native village to seek a better future for their children and how they were dashed. But is also proves that they have not given up and that maybe someday someone will come and sit on this armchair and conjure all the miracles that none of them dare express.

It has been a long time side I spent a sleepless night. Yesterday was one such night. Even at the nadir of R’s illness, I still slept, albeit restlessly but slept nevertheless. Last night I was haunted by the image of a lovely young child, though she is now a teenager standing outside her class for the whole day: her crime – her parents had not paid her fees. The reason: they were going through a financial crunch. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that for the last seven hers they had not failed to do so. This child, as child she will always be to me, is still under the ambit of the ill conceived, ridiculous and absurd right to education as she is not yet 14. Let us not forget that in India, come your 14th birthday, you no longer have the constitutional right to free education.

Now in the case of this child I agree that there had been an inordinate delay in clearing dues and that the school too has the ‘right’ to claim them.The question that arises is: at what cost? Let us also grant the school the fact that they did wait for ‘some’ time before taking out their big guns. But again the question arises: what are those darned big guns. One would accept reminders but humiliating the child is nothing short of abhorrent, unprofessional and unacceptable. Collecting school fees should not and cannot be akin to resorting to tactics employed by wily debt collectors and over and above all should be matter that remains within adults; in this case between the school authorities and the parents or guardian. At best the child could be called to the office of the counsellor or principal, no one else, and gently and humanely asked about her home situation. I know of a school where the same problem arose and the child shared the family situation. A deal was struck between the Principal and the student: should he get 80% in his next results, his fees would be waived for the rest of his school years. Needless to say the child kept his side of the deal.

In the case of this young girl the big guns were brought out and the arsenal was a slew of actions aiming at humiliating the child in the school amidst her peers and friends. She would be asked loudly when she would pay her dues, notes were handed to her in front of the class, and the ultimate weapon was to make her stand outside her class for the duration of the school hours. Imagine a sensitive, mature young girl standing alone for no fault of hers. This seems to me like something out of the Middle Ages. I cannot begin to imagine what went through her head. All I know is that it kept me awake and seething the whole night.

I also felt responsible as this beautiful child was born in front of me and till she went to big school, she was part of my daily life in all ways possible. It is also because of the importance I gave to good education that her brave and proud family tightened their belts till it hurt to send her to a good school.  For seven long years they did so. It was only because of a death in the family and health expenses of the elders that the boat rocked.

I have questions and the first one is whether any kind soul in the school, someone who understands children and their psychology ever ask her gently how things were at home? Whether they thought of a solution that would not hurt the chip? Whether they understand how humiliating a teenager can scar her forever in ways that can never be healed? That they can change the family equation and the equation between the child and her parents? No Sir! They simply what their pound of flesh as education is no more about teaching but about making money.

When I heard that this baby girl had to spend a day in the corridor of her school, watched and riled by one and all, I brought out my bug guns. A few phone calls, emails and SMSs later the deal was done. We would take over the remaining costs of her education. Was she not one of Pwhy’s first students!

I have asked her family to keep her at home till we sort things out. Apparently a late fee of FIFTY RUPEES a day is charged. Imagine how it translates if you are months late! Some Shylock! We will also have a chat with the authorities and tell them gently how we feel and more than that remind them of how deeply hurt a child can be in such circumstances. She will return to school when all is settled.

When I gave her the news late last night, I could feel in her simple Thank You, a range of emotions I cannot describe. They brought tears to my eyes and made me hate myself for not having acted earlier.

I am deeply thankful to all those who accepted to sponsor her education. God bless them all.

Project Why’s incredible 3 musketeers are back to school. This is what happens to you when you perform impeccably and have learnt whatever the old biddy could teach you. Over the past 14 years now I have tried to the best of my abilities to share and teach all the tricks of the trade to these incredible trio. The problem is that I failed miserably on one front: fund raising. In my defines I will say that it was because the fund raising model I adopted was entirely based on skills that are impossible to share: personality and writing. I know the model was flawed but it was the only one that worked for me and gave good dividends. The one epiphany I thought I had conjured and that would work for everyone could not see the light of day. I am talking of Planet Why: a green guest house coupled with a vibrant children centre, the proceeds of which would have run the project. We bought the land, got the architectural designs and feasibility study but were unable to raise the funds to build. Along the way we tried many sustainability options that failed. I think that maybe they failed because I did not have the skills needed to push them through. Now with time not on my side, I must pass the baton and thus Rani and Dharmendra are attending a one week fund raising workshop and I hope it will give them the ideas we so need and that they are able to fulfil better than me.

Shamika is back to school today. This is much more the closing of a personal journey that began when I accepted that my daughter leave school and train as a special educator. Over the past 15 years or so she has been working with special children and interned in organisations in France but she could not get admission in any course as she did not have a school leaving certificate: experience is not counted in India. Last month though the Gods finally smiled at me and she got admission in a course on mental health opened to people with a Masters degree! I know she will shine.

I am one proud woman!

Ever since an NGO mutated into a political part, the acronym NGO, which had always make people look at you with suspicion and distrust, has come under the scanner of one and all. A recent Intelligence Bureau Report accused foreign funded NGOs of stalling development and now the 2014 Finance Bill has given sweeping powers to the Income Tax authorities to withdraw tax benefits of NGOs and even cancel their registration: in another word- kill them.

A slew of reasons that could lead to cancellation have been stipulated but on a somewhat vague manner open to all kind of interpretation and thus misuse. One the stipulations is if:  its “income does not enure for the benefit of general public”. Not being familiar with legal jargon I had to look up ‘enure’ and the definition is: to be applied (to the use or benefit of a person).  So what it means is that the income of an NGO should be applied for the benefit of the general public.

Now benefit of the general public can mean just about anything and can be easily misused to get back at someone. Or simply can be used by an official to cancel your registration should you have, let us say, crossed swords with her/him. The other stipulation that is dangerously open ended is: its funds are invested in prohibited modes. Without proper definition of what is prohibited modes, once again you have a Damocles sword hanging on your head, prohibited modes could mean just anything.

Ours is a tiny organisation but comes within the present purview as we get most of our funding from donors outside India. That these donors are simple individuals and can donate as little as $10, will not cut ice with authorities that have a huge grudge against NGOs. And how can I explain that in spite of my best efforts I have been unable to create an indigenous donor base though my first instinct was to launch a rupee-a-day campaign. This failed miserably. I do not know why but maybe it is time to dust the files of the mind and look at this option once again.

How do I explain to tax authorities that I do not have the skills that allow me access to the rich and famous; that I do not have a celebrity who would lend her/his smile to our cause; that I am not a will never be a page 3 gal!

How do I explain to tax authorities that I set up this project because I felt that I owed a debt for all the privileges I have enjoyed and for no other motive. I am just paying back!

How do I explain to the tax authorities that I am ashamed and guilt-ridden each time I see, hear or come to know of the innumerable aberrations that exist in our land after 66 years of Independence – be it children dying of malnutrition while the rich gorge themselves and their dustbins; a baby being raped;  a young girl raped by order of a kangaroo court; or children being abused -. Each time I hear of anything of the kind I feel I have let my mother and all those who fought for our freedom down. And that is why I try to do what I can to regain the lost trust before judgement day which is approaching faster than I can imagine

Now I will have to walk on egg shells wondering whether my every action does enure the for the benefit of the general public. Why should teaching slum children not be so, or helping women, or sponsoring a heart surgery?

We have no money to invest; we barely have enough to keep our heads out of water.  So investing in any mode, prohibited or not does not arise. Yet suddenly the feel good factor that had always been there seems to have been abducted. Uncertainty prevails are we have become at the mercy of people who have never experienced the joy of reaching out to another or the privilege of becoming the custodian of simple dreams.

Today’s Times of India is replete with all the subjects that concern me and that I think need answers, subjects I have often blogged about giving by two penny bit in the form of simple suggestions with of course no takers as they stem for common sense. From the lack of proper living conditions for the underprivileged who do not have basic amenities  to the UNESCO report that states that 1.4 million children between the age of 6 and 11 are out opt school. from the Crime Records Bureau report that highlights a 70% rise in the rape and abduction of minors to the new poverty line that states that were you to spend more than 47 rs a day in a city you are NOT POOR! And there is more: a new born baby girl was found in a garbage bin close to our women centre; a 77 year old raped his 12 year old domestic servant. This is India today! I have blogged about each and every subject mentioned above more times than I can count but it looks like we are stuck in the same place. Eerie!

These is one more item tucked away in one of the inside pages that caught my attention and made my blood run cold. The article entitled South Delhi Municipal Corporation to rope in private firms for better education revisits the nightmare of privatisation of Education, something that will ring the death knell of education for the poorest of the poor. This corporation proposed to take the help of private firms to provide basic infrastructure in the schools i.e.: toilets, drinking water etc. Once the infrastructure is in place they will then address the quality issue. First, we will upgrade the infrastructure and then stress on quality of education says the Chairman of the Education Committee of the said Corporation. And that is not all. This scheme will be implemented in 50 of if 588 schools, schools which have fewer kids. Hallelujah!

The questions that scream to he heard are numerous. How come the Corporation has not been able to provide infrastructure in spite of taxes and education cesses levied with alacrity and impunity? What happens to all that moolah? If equitable education is a Constitutional Right of every child born in India then why can’t the Government provide that equitable education to all children? What is so difficult about building toilets or providing clean drinking water? And most of all what is the pound of flesh the private firms will demand as there are no free lunches. And while you are deciding to take help for private companies and negotiating your terms, and while the said infrastructure is being set up children are growing by the minute and cannot wait for the time when you decide to address the quality issue.

Just think of how many kids will miss the bus. When you have 1.4 million children out of school and the Lord only knows how many drop outs; when your no fail policy ensures that kids can sail through school without learning and again courtesy your abysmal 33% pass percentage even get a certificate, you cannot address the critical education issue in the laid-back manner that this article suggests. I agree that long term planning is needed but you also need quick fix options for those in school today.

If I had a say I would take some immediate measures that do not require exhaustive planning or inane Parliamentarian debates but just the ordinances so often used to cut corners when it suits the powers that are. The first thing to do is enhance the pass percentage to 50%, then abolish the no fail policy so that a child learns step by step as it should be; then make school co educational as that would sort a lot of gender issues. After that introduce skill training at class VIII level for those not academically inclined. That too is not rocket science. But this is only if you care for children and therein lies the question.

Th reason why all this makes me so mad is that I have for the past 15 years seen the so called underprivileged children and been a witness to their passion for learning and their will to learn. We do not have infrastructure to boast of; we do not have uber trained teachers; we do not have large spaces but we have an ardent desire to help as many kids as we can and they never fail to take our breath away. They are extraordinary children who study in impossible conditions and still bring impressive results. Stop letting them down.