circa 2013

2014

There has been a lot of talk on the importance of empowering women! One of our supposed PM candidate has been more than busy wooing women as suddenly the 49% of us seem to be good electoral fodder. India will not become a superpower if women aren’t given opportunities. We need equal representation for women at all levels to make them empowered he clamours for those willing to hear him. I again wonder why it has taken 6 decades to understand this, why bills linger for decades waiting to be discussed and passed. Let us not talk about rapes, rapists who sit in power, patriarchal kangaroo courts who dispose of lives of women they feel are custodians of their honour. And how can we forget women who lull their hungry children to sleep every night with promised they cannot keep. 

Forget about all this. Suddenly we the women of India have gained importance and are told that we must feel free and safe and wanted. I would love to know how this leader would achieve that and why no one felt the same way earlier. The 49% of us has been there from day one! So why did it take 66 years to realise that: India can’t be a superpower until we empower women. Wonder when that will happen.

Today I want to share with you two real stories of women’s empowerment that I have witnessed and even been a part of. When I decided to set up project why, I also decided to give a chance to those who were never given one and thus sourced my team from the very community project why was reaching out to. Many were women and each is a story of empowerment waiting to be told.

I will today tell you the story of two such women, though one of them was a baby when I first met her. I mean Rani and Kiran. Rani must have been about 15 or so way back in 2000 when we set foot on the street she lived in. A school drop out – not because of poor marks, Rani is Harvard Business School material – but because she was beaten for being late in paying her fees and her doting mother withdrew her from school. Rani had finished a nursing’s aide course and was waiting to get married as in her community girls are married at an early age. Though she lived in the shadow of a  very dominating mother who barely allowed her to speak, I could sense a feisty spirit that was raring to break free. Thankfully her mother liked me and accepted that Rani help me in my work and she thus ‘joined’ project why and was in charge of our nutrition programme where we distributed bananas and cookies to children. The way she set about her task from minute one showed that she was a born leader. That banana and cookie tray was her first step to empowerment. A decade later she was and still is heading a large part of project why. Along the way she finished school, got her Bachelor’s degree and I am told she will soon get her Masters. 

But that is not the real side of her journey to empowerment. The real side lies in her acquired ability and prowess to alter the destiny of her family and thus become a true agent of change. The young girl who once only wore the ungainly clothes her mother chose, has now convinced the same mother that wearing a pair of jeans or a skirt does not change who you are and that values do not depend on the way you dress. Rani’s deep beliefs are intact and she has shown that one can be ‘modern’ without giving up what is important. Rani has transformed the quality of life of her family and her aptitude in sifting out the good from the not good is remarkable. The child who once had to carry water from long distances and sleep on a mud floor, is now a savvy woman in charge of her destiny and the destiny of her family. A truly empowered woman who will walk the extra mile when needed and hold on to what she believes. 

The other ‘woman’ who got empowered along the way is Kiran. She was 1 day old when I first held her and is now a teenager. Thanks to the support of her aunt Rani who had understood that a good education was the real trampoline to a better life, she  was admitted in a good public school and is now in class VIII. She is a spirited teenager who knows her mind and has her head in the right place. Kiran is the little girl who spends her holidays teaching our challenged children,  some of whom she has known all her life. She had opinions and defends them when needed. 

These two young women are the proof that if given the right conditions and support, one can battle strangling patriarchy and unfair and unreasonable diktats. They are the kind of women who can turn India into the ‘superpower’ mentioned above. But there is caveat. These two young ladies could only begin their empowerment journey because they had moved from survival mode to risen from survival mode thanks to the hard work and determination of their mother and grandmother. They had the basic enabling environment that is the first stet to any empowerment: food, a roof on their heads, access to school, health and so on.

When politicians come up with highfalutin ideas about empowering women they forget that in India today millions of women are denied the very basic needs to survive. A mother who has to constantly worry about how to get one meal for her children even if that means ferreting for grains in a rat’s burrow, cannot begin to think of empowerment of any kind.Her life moves from one meal to another with an occasional thought about what story she would tell her child to lull him to sleep should she not be able to get anything to eat. This is a reality we cannot shy away from. I once again quote Ash in the Belly:  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). Maybe the politicians who talk of women’s empowerment should read this book before they open their mouth.

The women of India are extraordinary beings who survive in circumstances beyond imagination. The first step to empowering them is to help them move out of the survival mode they are condemned to and give them the dignity they deserve. What will happen after will be nothing short of a miracle. Maybe that is what the 51% so fear!

1176 hours equals 49 days. 49 days is all it took for the new kid on the political block to be compelled to render its resignation. The jury of course is out. I watched with amusement how the satraps were quick to vituperate and denounce the move and try to muddy the waters. We all saw what happened in the Assembly as old foes got together to defeat a bill that was meant to reign in corruption. I am not going into the merits of the bill which I am sure is not perfect, but then do feel that the valour with which old adversaries stuck to each other speaks volumes. The way in which they pretended to be knights defending the Holy Grail of corruption was to say the least laughable. And their wanting us to believe that they were simply safeguarding modalities and procedures did not fool anyone. The bottom line was that none of the old political parties wanted a law that would target them. It was too uncomfortable to say the least. When the session ended they were quick to go on camera to show themselves in a good light.

With the resignation came the accusations. The incumbent government it was said had run away as it was unable to keep the promises it had made. This sounded preposterous. They had been in power for a mere 1000 hours as compared to the 66 years the people of this country had patiently and stoically given to the old and entrenched parties. 66 years in which no government had been able to give drinking water, 2 square meals and a roof to millions of people. And what about proper schools, health facilities, roads without potholes, electricity in other words all the things that are enshrined in the very Constitution every one was pretending to defend. I guess it is a case of selective choices. Where is the justice, equality, liberty and fraternity we the people gave to ourselves on the 26th November 1949. These words ring hollow when we see them in the reality that surrounds us. Liberty and equality is only for the chosen few. So to my mind it sounds ludicrous to expect anyone to deliver promises in a mere 1176 hours.

What endeared and still endears the likes of me to the new political party that briefly shone on the political firmament of our city is the fact that they sounded like a breath of fresh air and went against everything that we were forced to accept as the almost holy prerogative of those we had elected: from red beacon lights to unbearable arrogance with everything in between. The ‘mango’ party as it has contemptuously been called, was the exact opposite. True they were unable to ‘pass’ their pet bill and thus true to their words they resigned but not before exposing for those of us who are willing to see, the fact that sleeping with the enemy is totally acceptable when needed and that finally all political parties have similar agendas.

This post is neither an apologia nor an elegy. It is simply a statement of facts that one needs to remember. The din and noise that is being made to try and drown the little positives that have happened in the past 1176 hours should not blind us to what we have witnessed. For the first time we saw some kind of shelters put up for the homeless and even if they were just tents at least it was something. An audit was made of the existing schools’ resources something that activists had been clamouring for, hospitals were also inspected and remedial measures taken where possible. An anti corruption cell was set up and if nothing else, for the last 1176 hours the police harassed fewer people as was confirmed by the three wheeler drivers we employ.

An attempt to listen to the people was also made. True the weekly contact programme had to be abandoned for practical purposed but I am sure some other system would have been found. The idea of local committees to suggest how the money given to local leaders should be spent was a good one as we are all silent and mute spectators to the innumerable times perfectly good footpaths are destroyed and rebuilt for no reason at all if not the garnering of deep pockets. With time I am sure a via media would have been found and the money used in a sensible way that would benefit people. But therein lay the problem: all these changes were touching issues that would have hurt those used to make money. It was bad enough to have one’s red beacon lights taken away but basta! Let us not forget how quickly – in a matter of minutes – the Parliament passes a bill to increase their salaries and how bills that would better the lives of the disabled or women linger in Parliament for years at an end. Get the picture?

No one wants their comfortable boats to be rocked. There is a line that cannot be crossed. And the AAP was guilty of crossing the line.

It was refreshing to see a party that believed in transparency. It is time political parties were upfront with the source of their financing. The uber expensive PR campaigns we are witnessing – be it the lengthy TV and print advertisement or the state of the art tea parties – makes us wonder where the funds are coming from. And come to think of it the sight of a CM sleeping on the pavement touched many more people – I am referring to simple people – then the glitzy advertisements that punctuate any TV programme we see.

The Cassandras will come up with all sort of criticisms as days go by. The Pollyannas will hold on to the dream that they believe in. Somewhere in between the likes of us must decide whether we want change and if we do, whether we are willing to forgive mistakes and above all give time to anyone who is willing to walk an honest talk. If we are not, then we are doomed to the old ways for a long time to come.

If I told you that the future of this little girl is linked to the shenanigans of our political masters and the image people have of our country, you may think I am talking nonsense, but sadly that is the reality. It is always the innocent and the helpless that bear the brunt of the wrongdoings of others. India is slowly falling off the map of tourists and donors. The perception of India as an unsafe and unstable place is too big an adversary for this little challenged child. To be able to spend a few hours every day laughing, singing, dancing and learning with her friends is entirely dependent on our ability to keep our doors opened and run our day care for special children. Should we be unable to do, the world as she knows it crashes without a sound. This is also the reality of the 1000 children project why reaches out.

This morning I got a mail that very gently suggested that all is not well and that funds that we were a lifeline may dwindle sooner than we think. It would be untrue if I said that this came as a bolt out of the blue. Actually it was more like a Damocles sword that has been hovering over my head for long that gently fell. I know I have cried wolf many times in the past but each time an Angel appeared and set things right. This time I am not crying wolf.

Some may say that everything has an end and that one should accept this reality and bow to it. How can I! What have my innocent kids done to deserve such a fate. They have played by all the rules and even walked their extra mile. Not only have they passed each examination but have topped their class many times; they have come each and everyday come rain, hail, storm or unrelenting heat. They have done us proud in every way they could. They have proved time and again that they were worthy of our trust and love. How do I tell them that because India is no more the flavour of the day, you are neither. Should I have to do so, I would never be able to look at myself again. They never asked for me, I went to them to fulfil some need of mine. Now it is payback time for me.

I cannot put the clock back and change things. I cannot conjure from a non existent hat a super endowed being who would come and make things right. I cannot wallow about all the I should haves that I did not do. Hindsight is great but futile.

The miracle case scenario would be to find someone who would give us access to the interest of a corpus fund that s/he could withdraw should we fall out of line. Stop dreaming old biddy is what I find myself repeating.

So what do we do. Cut costs is what many would say. So help me out. Which of the 1000 do I axe: my babies in the creche ( I know that is what my reasonable team would suggest) but my heart breaks; the challenged ones, the primary, the secondary, Okhla, Khader and so on. Get the picture. It is more than Sophie’s choice.

I know that as hours pass, I will come out with some band aid solution, have I not always done so. But that is not enough as this day will dawn again and again till the time we find the sustainable solution, if there is one.

I never thought that at the ripe age of 60+ I would be writing a post on colour, I mean the colour of your skin. But in a country where tracking down the robbers and returning the buffaloes to a leading politician has become the top priority of a district police, everything is possible. Apologies for using this example for a post that deals with something as serious as racism, but this is simply to show where our priorities lie. However buffaloes are black and black is not beautiful.

The simple reality is that we are racists though we are not man or woman enough to admit it. Look at our matrimonial ads!

Being different is not easy. I grew up being different and having to fight for my place in the sun. As my parents were diplomatic nomads I was waltzed from country to country every three years. The colour of my skin was never the right one. And what was the worst was that my name which sounded like something out of this planet. As a child I was lucky to find friends who stood by me and made me feel wanted. It was only when I went to boarding school in Switzerland at the age of 15 or so that racism really hit me. My classmates much older than me and from rather rich homes disliked me for being a good student. They made fun of my name, my rather humbler clothes as theirs were branded and ostracized me. In a dining room that had tables for 8, no one sat at my table as I was the ‘noire’, the black one. At 15 it is not easy and I decided to pack up my bags and go home to Ankara where papa was posted.

Later, when I was on the marriage market I was again faced with all this black and white business. Everyone wanted a fair bride. I bore the brunt of some remarks about the colour of my skin and put and end to all this drama and happily found my husband. I know of a dark girl whose family was asked for a car as the girl was so dark! And we say we are not racist.

The incidents that have occurred lately in our capital city targeting Africans and people from the North East have not only touched a chord deep inside me but also saddened me and made me hang my head in shame. What endeared me to my religion as I was growing up in lands of different faiths was the feeling of tolerance I found every time I flung what I thought were trying questions to my parents. Whenever I asked if I could fast with my Muslim friends, go to church with my Christian ones or be part of Sabbath festivities with my Jewish pals, the answer was always a resounding yes and as this game continued I felt stronger in my belief. So when I came across the ugly side of the religion that I had accepted so unconditionally, I was lost. Sadly this sense of loss has deepened as intolerance and aberrations came my way relentlessly.

Today, when I saw that following the terrible death of a young Indian from Arunachal, students from the North East were demanding a law against racism, my heart broke without a sound. Is this the India our forefathers fought for, the India my father told me not to lose faith in shortly before he breathed his last? Is this where we have reached 66 years after Independence?

Our intolerance now seems the rule rather than the exception. The stories that have poured out after the cowardly attack in the middle of the night against young Africans are heart wrenching, more so because that is not who we are. It seems  we have become lulled into stupidity by our so called politicians who have forgotten the spirit of our constitution and decry diversity instead of celebrating it.

Before I carry on, a breaking news that again shows the pits to which we have descended. The buffaloes have been found and 3 cops have been punished for not having done their job promptly enough. This assumes a different proportion in the light of the fact when it comes to dealing with people, the police is to say the least incompetent.

The reason why I am so angry at this intolerance towards people who are different is that I know this is not who we truly are. I would like to share a true life story with you. The story is about Stone, our very first volunteer who was from Uganda. It is true that it took a little time for the community to accept Stone, and it also true that some bad tongues did mention N and H words, but the children accepted him with open arms and as he marched the kids up and down the street, it did not take long for perplexed and even intolerant looks to turn into big broad and welcoming smiles. It was Stone who was the first to open his heart to Manu and to care for him when no one else did, notwithstanding the terrible state he sometimes was in, drenched in his own excrement. Stone would bathe him like you would your own child and never lose his smile. Over the few years he was with us, he not only taught the children but reached out to anyone who needed help. I was quite amused when one day, a woman known for her violence and foul ways slapped a passer by who had dared use the H word for Stone. The morning he left, the whole street was outside and even the most hardened souls were openly weeping. Stone was and African and he was black. As it taken 10 short little years to make us into intolerant wimps too scared to stand up for what is right.

Everything is now a mad scramble for vote banks. Students from the NE began a candle light vigil to seek justice for their murdered kin. Here was a cause to espouse in election times and all political parties jumped in the bandwagon: one aspiring PM screeched his take in a rally, the other chose to sit in with the students, whilst our new CM proposed to make his presence felt today. Where were all these people when a young woman was brutally raped last winter? Oops I guess rape victims are not vote banks to woo.

Will the young boy from Arunachal get justice. I wonder. Will people from the NE get the protection they have been promised is also a big question. Here again it is about changing mindsets and not win to vote banks. I was beside myself when yesterday the coordinator of our women centre told me that some kids were refusing to come to school today as it was Saraswati (Goddess of Learning) puja and they had been told that they were not to touch books and pencils. Now where did this come from and which vote bank does it woo.

Reservations, quotas and affirmative action have become the favoured weapons of our political class even if it goes against the very grain of the Unity and Diversity are kids dutifully learn in their schoolbooks. We are Indians last after being from a city within a state, a caste or sub caste within a religion and so on. And above all we remain stuck on our notion that black is lot beautiful.

The nursery admissions annual nightmare is on. It has had many avatars in the past years, each more ludicrous then the other. In a city where there are 4 tiny tots applying for 1 seat, the odds are really skewed against the poor souls. Over the past years nursery school admission procedures have gone through many mutations and avatars. Each time a problem arises due to the supply and demand situation, a Committee is promptly set and a new set of regulations are made making our children nothing short of guinea pigs. I remember a time when a young woman I knew burst into tears when she came to know she was pregnant. When asked, she answered amidst sobs: I cannot go through a school admission again! I do not blame her as getting your child admitted to school is a herculean task! To give you a taste of what it was 3 years ago in Mumbai, I simply suggest you read this link. This was the time when parents were submitted to a sort of Spanish inquisition. Here is a sampler:

Do you have a PC at home? Are you the carrier of a life threatening disease? How big is your house? What car do you drive? Do you have your tax returns in place? And most importantly, do you have a criminal record? The normal answer would be : this is none of your f****** business!! But beware the wrong answer would deny a place in school to your child.

When the parent’s interview’s were found to be outrageous, a new model was conjured and you had the points system and the possibility of your child being rejected by umpteen schools and the said system was elitist to say the least. Then there was the donation route which again left the humbler children out. All this whilst schools made money hand over fist as they charged greedily for admission forms and you had to fill up umpteen if you wanted to see your kid’s name on the hallowed list. More Committees with unclear terms of reference or should I say hidden agendas. Then came the quota wand! Oh how we love this word: QUOTA! It has been the preferred route of our political masters to muddy waters when they are in a soup. So over and above the points: siblings, gender, alumni, neighbourhood etc there was the management quota that at least protected those who had connections or moolah. It suited some interests.

By this time the debate on neighbourhood school versus 25% reservations for the poor was raging and the later won. Wonder why? Insidious privatisation of education was in full swing instead of the saner option which would have been to improve Government schools and make them a valid option for the the middle class. And therein lies the problem. Everything got lost in translation as inane regulations were drafted and Government schools left to decay. Let us not forget that most of our senior bureaucrats are G school alumni! So quota it was: 25% for the poor and underprivileged and then the point system. Now we all know that we Indian are masters at beating the system. I cannot begin to tell you how many fudged income certificates and tenancy agreement have been made to circumvent the problems. So be it the 25% quota or the neighbourhood points, most of them do not really have the real beneficiaries.

Last week, another bombshell: the scrapping of the management quota. Ouch. It hit where it hurts! And to answer the question our CEO quipped: “Schools are charitable societies and their motive should not be to earn profit. Why are Delhi schools resistant to being transparent? They should not have approached the High court.” I am a bit lost. Education should be run by the State and yet no one talks of revamping the G schools. Now in Delhi, there are Government schools everywhere, almost at walking distance and many have single storied sheds. They have huge grounds and ample space to grow. Instead they are falling apart. Why not look at them and make them the logical option to everyone, and those who have issues about their kids studying with the kids of their staff can built their own gated school. It is time the children of India learned together as it should be and schools became the level playing field. But who will bell the cat.

Till that day, all we will see is more parents harried, more kids suffering and quality education never reaching the child most in need. Let us not forget that parents are now empowered and that even illiterate aspire to a good school for their kids. Education is a a right our kids earned after 6 decades of Independence so please do not botch it for them.

 Today in America, a teacher spent extra time with a student who needed it and did her part to lift America’s graduation rate to its highest levels in more than three decades. This is the way the President Obama began his State of the Union speech. I must confess that I am not interested in American politics, have scant if not no knowledge of economics and other such matters but have admired President Obama’s oratory skills and found inspiration in his speeches. Today his opening words unleashed a torrent of thoughts I could barely control. It is almost the best example of brain mapping one could find and I hope I can put all of it in some coherent way in this post. Please forgive me for the heady cocktail of emotions that I am about to pour out.

(Before we go any further, I would like you to pay a little attention to the picture above. It was taken in our Govindpuri primary class and the teacher you see is Anita one of the first students of Project Why. She joined us when she was in class I and graduated school two years ago. She has been teaching for the past 3 years and is about to complete a Bachelor in Commerce from the Open University. Her father is a contractual worker in a factory and her mother is a housewife. She is an extremely dedicated teacher and has spent many extra hours helping students in need. She came to my mind when I heard Obama’s opening words.)

I heard bits and pieces of the speech as I was going about the morning routine. My mind kept going back to his opening words and suddenly it was like an epiphany that brought some kind of order to the disturbing, angry, sad, despairing and troubling thoughts that I have had in the past weeks as I helplessly watch the political circus and the aberrations that come my way when I flick on a news channel, open the morning paper or browse through a magazine. What you get is a dissonant variation on the same themes. Speeches that mean nothing, sycophancy that makes you gall, promises that are and cannot be kept, vigilantism that makes no sense, protests for to save egos, calls to anarchy, shouting matches on the idiot box, battles over whose statue should be higher, and on the other hand, kangaroo courts that have scant respect for the law of the land and condemn a woman to be gang raped for having loved, courts that uphold antediluvian laws that criminalise a whole section of society for their sexual preferences, bonded labour whose hands are chopped because they dared to speak, a 14 month old girl raped by her father’s friend, homeless dying of the cold in India’s capital city in spite of promises of shelter. The list is endless. Seems like everyone’s priorities are skewed and wrong. It is all about agendas and egos. I almost feel sorry for the desperation to make a statesman out of a reluctant soul because of some feudal and dynastic past we refuse to shed. In our land a beggar’s son has to be a beggar and a leader’s son a leader.

I am sick and tired of all the, moral policing. I was shocked to hear the spokesperson of a leading political party defend her party’s view on homosexuality, a view that reeked of false morality. I am sick of vote bank politics that accept denying basic human rights to people who hurt no one.

For the past weeks I have been wondering why I am so disturbed. It was Obama’s words that made me realise why. If you think of any recent speech by the PM, by aspiring PMs, by leader of political parties, any political debate on TV and so on you realise that you never hear anything about education, or of you do it is yet another promise that will remain just that. Obama began his speech by talking of a teacher and a student and the need to lift graduation levels. He had his priorities right. Change, empowerment can only happen when people get education and not the kind of literacy that we see in India, where writing your name makes count as ‘literate’.

 What we hear in our political firmament is one person attacking his opponent time after time, or vague promises of empowering large sections of society like the women and youth (they form the largest vote banks). No one tells us how. We never hear of education because children are not vote banks. We do not hear of malnutrition that stunts the development of children, of hunger that makes women ferret rat holes for grain. We never hear anyone telling us they will ensure that every child will go to school including the child who begs at red lights and that no one will go to sleep hungry. Hunger is something that deprives you of every shred of dignity as you spend every living minute thinking of food and how to feed your children.

The women, the youth you want to empower can only become empowered if they are not hungry, if they have a roof on their heads. And once you have dealt with hunger, the first step to empowerment is education and unless you address that problem India cannot change. We all should be ashamed of the state of our education.

I have written ad nauseum about the state of our education as I have, for the past 14 years, seen every aspect of what we call education in India, beginning from the aberration of a paltry 33% to acquire a certificate or degree that gets you nothing to the pathetic and shameful state of state run schools. I have also witnessed the heart breaking hunger for learning in every child that has come to project why. I have seen failures become toppers with just a gentle push and spent many a sleepless night wondering how could help more such children with the meagre resources at my disposal.

Education in India is abysmal. It is not I alone who says that. A UNESCO report published yesterday states that even after completing four years of school, 90% of children from poorer households remain illiterate. And this also holds true for around 30% of kids from poorer homes despite five to six years of schooling. This in spite of all the policies, Acts of Parliament and promises we are now sick of hearing. And as for the women that one of our aspiring PM wants to ’empower’, if things remain as they are the richest young women have already achieved universal literacy, the poorest are projected to do so only by 2080. That is 66 years down the line.

Simply sending children to school and giving yourself a pat in the back is not enough. With the no fail policy till class VIII you now have children who will spend 8 years on a school bench and still be illiterate though they will have a certificate saying they are class VII passed!

The same report also states that India has the highest population of illiterate adults: India has the highest population of illiterate adults, 287 million, 37% of the total population of such people across the world, according to Unesco’s Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring report.

Every time we eat out we pay an education cess of 3%. I realised this a few days back. Where does the money go? It is shameful that in India’s capital city we cannot send all our children to school in the most productive hours ie mornings. Our boys go to school after 1pm when the girls have finished their shift. Schools still run in barracks or even tents and in the open come rain, sunshine or cold. Over 100 children are crammed in a class meant for 40 kids. What kind of enabling environment is this. It takes court interventions to get drinking water or acceptable toilets. And no one cares.

I feel both humbled, blessed, frustrated and elated at the fact that for the past 14 years we have been reaching out to an average of 600 kids a year. Today our headcount is 1000 but will not remain so for long as we have limited resources and the cost of living will compel us to cut our numbers in order to retain our staff.

I wish people who have deep pockets understood the importance of education and reached out to those like us who have our priorities right and helped us. But it is simply banging your had against a wall and no matter how hard a nut you have, there comes a time when it hurts and you give up.

So when I see what is happening I see red. A government we elected because we thought it may be different has lost its way. And unless they too have an epiphany, we are condemned to more of the same.

What have the children of India done to deserve this fate. Stupid me. We are feudal and a beggar’s child has to remain just that: a beggar’s child!

Anyone who has a modicum of decency, a grain of compassion and a tiny bit of heart should hang her/his head in shame on the eve of our 65th celebration of our Constitution. A magazine that has hit the stands today and is not yet fully on line though you can read parts of it at this link, chose to place some very disturbing figures on its cover along the title: India’s lost children. 38% of our children are forced into sex trade, 23% are forced into domestic servitude, 4% routed to work at hotels and hospitals, 3% shackled at sweetmeat and garment units. Please buy a copy of The Week and read on if you have the guts to do so. An article on how child traders chose their victims made me physically sick. Here is a screenshot of the beginning of the article so that you understand

 God to whom little boys say their prayers has a face very like their mother’s wrote Sir James Barry. I had written a post with the same title way back in 2007 when Utpal was just 5. At that time we still believed we were miracle makers and the day would come when the little lad would one day have his mom just to himself. But God had other plans. Today Utpal is almost 12. For the past 5 years he has not heard from his mom who left one day and never even called to ask about her son. In the meantime I got his legal guardianship. He battled his demons in his own way. Not getting the answers he wanted because we did not have them, he resorted to challenging behaviour and aggression. With love and patience we helped him craft a new set of relationships and slowly he began to accept us and think of our home as his. 

But the God to whom little boys say their prayers has a face very like their mother’s, and he was just that: a little boy. Last week I had gone shopping with him as I needed a frame for a picture. While I was going about my work, he came to me with a frame in his hand. The frame was an accordion like one with place for 4 pictures. He told me he wanted it. I asked him whose pictures we wanted in them and he said in this other: My mummy, Maam’ji, Agatya and Sirji  (husband). I was stunned, moved and angry. Angry because I had just come to know that his mother had come back and remarried a man with 3 children; moved by the fact that he had not forgotten her and stunned because it had been a long time since he had mentioned her. 

His counsellor has advised us not to tell him about the mother and the new family, he is just entering his teens and has moved school and is still dealing with the bullying he had to suffer in his previous school. The court too felt the same way. We will need to tread slowly as the last thing he needs is for his life to be turned on its head.

Moms sometimes do not realise how much their child loves them, even if they have been abusive or unkind. I have made his little frame and will give it to him when I go and visit him.

Miracles are what happens when you get out of the way of yourself wrote Brad Szollose. Perhaps that is why the big miracle I sought -making project why sustainable- never occurred. You see I was always in the way. The reason why sustainability is so important to me does not stem from hubris for arrogance. It does not emanate from any misplaced desire to see my work live beyond me. Far from that. My wish to see the work I started comes from the simple fact that I never want my children to stop smiling. It springs from my hope to fulfil the dreams of my children, dreams that they have so trustingly put in my custody. It arises from the frightening thought that the very people who made all this possible and stood by me through thick and thin find themselves on the road. It derives from the very spirit of project why that was to change at least one life. I am nowhere in the picture and should someone want to obliterate my name from my work on the condition of continuing it in the same spirit, I would humbly accept and be eternally grateful.

For the past 6 years or so I have strived to find the magic wand that would open the way to our sustainability. I have made plans and more plans and knocked at every door possible. I have begged and pleaded but to no avail. And with each day passing I have also accepted the fact that big dreams will not come to happen as my strength wanes and my gait dawdles. The options in my bag of tricks are few.

The only way now is if a kind soul, a philantropist, a generous heart or a bunch of them gave me a corpus fund the interest of which could run the project. I am willing to trim the project to the size of the interest. What I seek is not much for many. In my country it would be barely what people spend on one event of a wedding or on a theme party; on 3 hand bags carrying the right label or 4 pairs of shoes! But I do not know such people and maybe investing in something where your dividends are not cash but a smile of gratitude, a first position in an exam or a job you could never have got is maybe asking too much.

Today I am putting this post out on the world wide web and getting out of the way. My only prayer is that it is read by someone whose heart is in the right place and who would invest in a smile.

I will put this post up over and over again and maybe the miracle will happen.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed wrote St Exupery in the Little Prince. The operative word is : forever! Never did the ‘forever’ assume a more heart wrenching meaning then when Utpal was home for his winter holidays. You see he walked into a home where a humongous elephant had hogged all the space. I mean death as unfortunately whichever way you look at it, the dreaded word cancer brings the idea of the grim reaper even in the most optimistic mind. Somehow Popples too sensed the mood. Sirji not being well had brought changes to Maam’ji, even if they were invisible to others. The little fellow reacted the way any child would: he became demanding, impossible and even moody. At first I thought it was because I could not give him as much time as I would otherwise have and making demands was his way of getting my attention even if it meant my getting irritable and angry. But I soon realised that there was more troubling him.

I tried to reason with him as he is usually quite open to discussion but of no avail. I even got irritated and told him that he was now a big boy. His answer was unexpected: I do not want to grow up. These 7 words were an eye opener. There was something that was compelling this child to withdraw into a space he felt was a safe one. If he did not grow up than things will remain the same. That is how a child’s mind functions.

I was deeply disturbed and called his counsellor. She decided to meet him immediately and the session was a difficult one as he was in tears most of the time. It was evident that he was troubled by some deep seated fears. His counsellor realised that he was terrified of losing me. She decided to have another session and talk to him about life and death. Surprisingly the session went well though I do not know how much his fears were allayed as this happened just a day before he returned to school.

This whole incident shook me deeply. One Utpal landed in my life I had no idea of what it would entail. Men proposes but God disposes. I had thought that we would be able to save his mother from the bottle and settle her whilst placing Utpal in a boarding school. This plan went awry and Utpal became my legal ward. I became responsible for him forever. But now the forever has taken a new meaning. This forever had to be beyond me and this had to be explained to this little prince who was refusing to grow. The challenge I face is to reassure Utpal that I will be with him forever even if it is not quite in the way he hopes. So help me God.

I never go to Mc Donald’s of for that matter to any eatery at all. Like all kids Utpal does like an occasional burger and as he is off to school tomorrow I allowed him a ‘treat’. So off he went to McD and got himself a burger and coke. I normally do not check bills in detail but today I picked up the bill from Utpal’s room as it was lying on the floor and though I normally do not peruse such bills, today I did. Imagine my surprise when I saw added to the VAT and other takes a 25 education cess and a 1% Higher Education cess!

I think we have all got somewhat inured to all the indirect taxes levied upon us and pay them blindly. It is time we became aware of all these taxes and levies and started asking questions about how they are actually used. Seeing the state of primary schools in our capital city makes me wonder whether any of this money ever reaches the right destination.

Just wanted to share this.

What a country we live in. Incredible India! We love to quote our multi millinery civilisation at the drop of a hat, but that is just what we do ‘quote’. All the rest is forgotten. I wonder how many of us know about the values and principles of our traditions. Or if we know that, they remain just that ‘knowledge’ but rarely turn into action. As I wrote in my last blog, it took years for someone in power to get outraged at homeless people sleeping in the bitter cold and do something. I am quite cross at the nit picking we hear on the media about how effective are the new night shelters provided by our brand new government. At least this is the first government that has done something concrete for the homeless who slept year after year in full public view for whom they were invisible. Plastic tents and old buses are better than the cold ground and the stars! Rome was not made in a day! At least they are moving in the right direction.

And talking of Rome, we have our very own sets of Neros who were/are fiddling while the city burns. The media is replete with pictures of leaders enjoying Bollywood extravaganzas while just a few miles away children die in the cold. Tens of millions of rupees were spent on flying in stars in private jets with total impunity. And that is not all, those who are not at the song and dance jamboree are taking of for study tours to exotic locales like Venice and Cairo and Dubai. Wonder what they will learn. The tour has been called tour of commonwealth countries, as if that makes it more kosher, though in the list of countries they visit, only one is a commonwealth country! Maybe they should first be given lessons at home on school basics. Legislators from across the land earn the privilege of two study tours per tenure. I guess we have to pay for them though we are never told. We also have to pay for the amusement of those we elect. It makes me gall. I also saw red when one of the ‘students’ had the audacity to state on camera that the State was only spending 40 to 50 million! Just imagine how many homes for the poor could be made with that. And if that was not enough, referring to the death of 48 children in the Muzaffarnagar, a minister had the audacity to state: Deaths of children, adults and elderly are inevitable. It isn’t necessary that only those living in camps are dying. People die in palaces too. Speechless.

The Muzaffarnagar riot victims are living in abysmal conditions whilst political parties feed on them to fulfil their dubious agendas. While the political show goes on, people brave the winter in terrible conditions. A recent article highlights the stories of these forgotten souls. These are survival stories about real people who battle all odds to survive while those they elected to protect them make merry. Speechless again.

What is absolutely revolting is the impunity with which they defend these aberrations when faced with a tricky question. Perhaps they feel it is a bit like the R& R given to those who work in harsh situations. Come on being a legislator in India is no mean task!

I know the picture is not great but I had to click it yesterday as I passed by the Nehru Place flyover. This is where I have seen for years families of beggars sleep under the bridge come rain, freeze of unbearable heat. This is the spot where I have see a little beggar girl grow and learn the family trade: panhandling. This is where children have learnt to ask me for chocorate – as they know I do not give money. This is where I ask myself why the powers that be at never gall at the fact that beautiful children are not in school. This is where I feel helpless and hopeless every time I pass by as I cannot do anything but give a few biscuits and clothes. True I stop and look with my heart, look deep into the eyes of these forgotten children, but then as the lit turns green I move on feeling totally powerless, knowing that no one cares. I remember the way such citizens were treated when Delhi had to get a make over for the (in)famous Commonwealth Games. Off with their heads said the then Queen of our city. It was estimated that there would be   3 million homeless after the games, 100 00 families displaced to beautify Delhi, 2000 children working as labour on CWG sites, 50 000 adult and 60 000 child beggars to be removed from the city for the 15 days of the games and parked in camps on the outskirts.

So imagine my delight when I saw a bright red and blue shelter under the Nehru Place flyover that would house the beggars at night. Our new CM had promised to do something for the homeless and he did! And now I believe he will convert old buses into shelters  so that the homeless can at the least sleep properly.

This is goes far deeper than a few tents erected for good measure. This actually means that these people have been given the visibility no other Government ever did and I hope that this will go farther than shelter for the winter and translate into giving the very people that some found anathema to our city, the basic rights the Constitution gives them.

In this simple plastic shelter I saw HOPE for the first time, hope that things will change, hope that finally the poorest of the poor will get what is their due, that these children will find their way to schools and to better morrows.

The young new Government is trying to walk the talk so please let them do so. They may stumble along the way but they seem to be on the right path. They will make mistakes and I urge the media not to go  ballistic each time one of them does something that is not quite what we are used to. Remember how fed we claim to be by corruption. Now that someone is trying to do something please help them do so or at least leave them alone.

It was on January 7th, 2011 that Manu left us. I guess he had completed what he was sent out to do leaving many questions unanswered. I have often tried to understand what this saintly soul meant to me but know deep in my heart that I still have a long way to go till I fully comprehend the reason of our meeting as only a God of some kind could have engineered this unbelievable tryst between a beggar and a lost ageing woman. The only thing I can say with confidence is that it changed both out lives forever and that the equation in this case was not what many would think. When beggar meets well to do woman, one would tend to think that the beggar is the beneficiary. But this is not the way it happened with Manu. I know for certain that he gave me much more than he ever took. And what is more is that he is still giving abundantly at every crossroad of my life. In return, what he got from me is paltry and tangible: food, shelter, clothes, a bed and even the ample love he got cannot match what he gave me.

You may wonder what a beggar can ever give to someone who many think was born with a silver spoon in her mouth? What if I told you he gave me a reason to live and made me discover who I really am. Manu came into my life when I was rudderless and unable to pick up the pieces of my life that had been scattered the day I lost my father. His deafening cries that no one had heard pierced the armour I had built to protect myself from a life I was unable to find my way in after the loss of the ones who had always steered me in the right direction. It was Manu who stirred my soul and made me realise that I had a life beyond my parents and helped me take my first faltering steps in this new world.

Manu was a child of God, one who had been sent with a mission to fulfil. He was and is the living proof that no soul, however wretched it may appear is useless. Every life has a purpose. If not for him project why would not have seen the light of day. His life changed the life of thousands of other souls, big and small.

When Manu left I was shattered. At first I thought that it was an ominous sign that somehow meant the end of project why but mercifully I was quick to realise that a pure soul like him could never bring grief or destruction. There had to be a deeper meaning, and again I knew deep inside me that it was not because he had given up on life. The child of God who had bravely lived years in the most horrific conditions till that fateful day in May 2000 would and could not quit without reason. There had to be a deeper meaning in his passing and it was for me to unravel it.

I have been doing just that for the past 3 years but do not think I have been fully able to do so. At first I thought that his demise was a sign that Planet Why was not to be as it had been primarily conceived for him. I took some time and gave up the idea but still could not find the peace I sought. I then started thinking of the alternatives but groped in the dark as none of the numerous ideas that came my way bore any results. I knew that I had to carry on the search but also felt that there was more to Manu’s lessons than just project why.

In July 2013 I had to face the greatest and scariest challenge of my life: my husband’s cancer. I could have completely broken down and was at the verge of doing so when I felt an inner strength yet undiscovered filling me with a reassuring warmth and somehow I knew that no matter what the outcome would be, I would come out a winner.

Today as I write these words to honour the one who gave me so much, I know that it is Manu’s incredible spirit that has enabled me to go through this dark period with a smile. He is the one who surreptitiously taught me that one can smile through any adversity just as he did all his life.

As I continue walking the twilight of my life, I know he walks with me and will till the very end.

Today’s news was music to my ears. The new Government in Delhi which has been in place for just a couple of days has done something that I had always hoped and prayed a Government with a conscience should and would do. The news I talking about refers to the homeless: Delhi government today announced a series of measures to provide roof to the homeless in biting cold sweeping the city and decided to replace all night shelters being run from plastic tents with porta cabins. We who sit in the comfort of our homes, with electric blankets, warm quilts and blowers cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to sleep under the stars in the bitter cold with just a tattered blanket to cover you. We cannot begin to imagine how the conditions in which the poor live and how the manage to survive. I have often wondered why our collective conscience does not get outraged when we see families with tiny children living under flyovers. To us they are just irritants and pests as they dare bother our comfortable ride in a heated car and disturb our thoughts which could be about the new sweater we are off to purchase. I have also wondered why the rulers and administrators of our city, irrespective of their political hue or bureaucratic responsibility do not shudder when they see children who according to existing laws should be in school, knock at their car window begging for a coin. Just like every one, they too ignore them or scare them away with a glare.

Many do not know, but it is not just beggars who live on the streets. My first encounter with such people was way back in 2001 or so when I first saw the Lohar (gypsy) camp next to the Kalkaji bus depot. This is a nomadic blacksmith community that settled in various part of the city. The one I am talking about is a settlement of 30 odd families that have lived on this pavement for more than 30 years. Thanks to wily politicians they got a postal address, voter identity cards and ration cards. As I got to know this proud and dignified clan, I found myself drawn to their wisdom and philosophy and spent many hours taking to Tau, the leader of the said clan. I heard their story, the promises they were made that remained unfulfilled. I heard how their camps were razed with obsessive regularity and how they had to line pockets to be allowed to build their homes again. It was almost a cat and mouse game. I was horrified to hear that they had been visited by several politicians and petty officials and promised rehabilitation as they came under the nomadic tribes.

I saw the bits and parcels of documents that had survived the many razing and decided to do something. These were early days when I was still naive and had yet not lost my faith in the system. I decided to approach the NHCR ( National Human Rights Commission) hoping that they would do something. I was sent an answer saying that the Commission had asked for an Action Taken Report. Nothing happened after that.

I was thrilled to learn that the SDMs have been asked to prepare a list of all homeless in 2 days. talking of SDMs I too have my story to tell. I was told one day that there would be a demolition of the camp on the next day. I tried to contact the Chief Minister as I knew someone in her office. Could not. Then remembering that we still suffered from the British raj syndrome I called my friend who was the British High Commissioner’s wife and asked her to intervene. You guessed right. It worked. Well in a manner. The next day we got visitated by the SDM who diligently heard our plight and story, took notes on a green pad and left. Must have thrown the papers on the way. So much for approaching the higher ups.

One day I witnessed yet another demolition and it was heart breaking. And knowing that this happened again and again was unbearable. I decided to file a PIL in the High Court, as that was the last door to knock at, in the name of these beautiful children condemned to live in inhuman conditions. But to no avail. The case is lost in translation.

Sadly no cat and mouse game is endless. The cat ultimately wins and courtesy the Commonwealth Games the final razing happened in 2010.The day I had always dreaded did dawn. I know deep in my heart that my Lohar friends are survivors and must be well. It is I who miss them so!

The reason I recounted this story was to tell you about the reality of this city. I could fill pages describing how the poor live and survive. This city has done nothing for the habitat of the poor. I hope this new Government does something not only for the homeless but also for the slum dwellers who have found their ways and survive with dignity and a smile.

Here are some pictures of how people in this city, the ones that often make our lives better, live:

And I told you that a little girl with brittle bone disease lived for many years in this house below, would you believe me?

They are a family of 6 and had to crawl into their home. Don’t forget that any child with Osteogenis Imperfecta, breaks a bone at the lightest touch. Radha must have had more than 50 fractures ion her life.

I hope and pray that the new government addresses the terrible plight of people living in this city and gives priority to the basic right of shelter to these citizens of Delhi.

2013 was a year that I will remember forever. It is a year when I had to put my life in parenthesises as I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. Ranjan’s cancer came as a cruel reminder of the cancer that had taken both my parents as I watched in total helplessness and hopelessness. This time I would have to come out a winner even if that meant stopping life as I knew it. That is what I did. My strictly regulated life that had run almost like a clockwork orange since 2000 was put on hold. One of the first casualty was Project Why! It would have been impossible for me to juggle pwhy and Hodgkin as the same time. Mercifully, thirteen years had been ample to train my team and I knew that pwhy was in safe hands whilst I got on learning, then taming and finally overpowering the demon that had entered our lives. I got on with the task and feel I did good, though the battle is not quite over. It will take another six months to really find our way out of the woods. I am confident that this will not be as arduous a task as it has been, as I have now evolved a comfortable pattern that seems to be working. As a new challenge crops up, I know the way to go to overcome it.

Today, on the eve of a New Year, I wonder how I was able to set aside everything that was so dear to me till that fateful July day: the cup of tea and blessings I got every morning, the good mornings of the children, the little problems that one would hash and rehash as it gave one a sense of worthiness, the bigger challenges that required skills you sometimes did not realise you possessed, the long virtual exchanges with friends, supporters and well wishers, the little achievements that turned into huge celebrations, the sense of belonging to a large family and knowing that they were always there for you. All of it had to be put on hold because the one person who held it together for me was in danger. I knew that without him, I would not be able to carry on. So there was never an iota of doubt in my mind when I took the decision to temporarily suspend my life.

Was it easy? Not at all. Did I have coping strategies? Indeed I did. Today I can reveal how I could survive these last months without losing the essence of who I was.  One of the things I found myself doing almost surreptitiously was looking at pictures of project why, pictures spanning all of 13 years. It was a comforting walk down memory lane that I took leisurely, sometimes staring at one snapshot for a long time and letting memories flow back. The picture I chose to illustrate this post must have been taken 8 years or so ago. The little chap in my lap is Popples! Each picture told a story: a story of courage, compassion, fortitude and joy. Each picture brought a flutter in my heart as I knew I was a little part of each one of them. I found myself smiling and even laughing alone. Thank heavens I rise well before dawn and these little escapades happened when everyone else slept. I also must admit a tad sheepishly though, that I often felt a sense of pride laced with humility. In fact, I was truly never away from my beloved project, I simply tuned it to my reality.

In spite of my physical absence and forced sabbatical, project why was very much part of my reality. In some ways this forced vacation compelled me to look at the future realistically. I know that we will have to make changes, so may have to be drastic because of elements beyond our control: the imminent loss of our women centre tenancy, the probable razing and relocation of the Okhla slums in keeping with the new social avatar of this once neglected area, the state of our funding and also because it is now imperative to reassess matters as more than a decade has passed since it all began.

I was telling a friend and supporter about how the social profile of the street where we began in the summer of 2000 had changed. What was once a motley amalgam of mostly single storeyed mud shacks with tin roofs and where our computer centre and maybe a handful of tenements were in brick and mortar, is now a series of multi storeyed brightly painted tenements, with dish antennas and even washing machines. On a street where you barely saw a bike let alone a car but many bicycles, you today see cars, bikes and hardly any bicycles. This is proof that a decade in the life of an urban slum brings about social mobility. However difficult it may be to accept, one has to realise that it is time to move on. I am sure this would have happened irrespective of our presence, but somehow I think that we have had a role, albeit tiny to play in the empowerment of this slum.

Another failure, if I may call it so, that we have to accept is the fact that the model we adopted has resulted in our inability to keep in touch with the majority of our students once they have graduated or left for a variety of reasons: gone back to the village, moved because of the nature of their family’s occupation, moved because of the inordinate rise in rents and so on. This fills me with sadness as it shows a deficiency in our approach as we never thought of setting up an old students group or make sustained efforts to keep in touch with those who had left. I guess this also stems from our initial desire for reaching out to as many children as possible. Numbers did mean access to more funding but also made us take hurried decisions that often did not stand the test of time. We had to shut certain centres because of non availability of space to rent! And let us not forget the fact that when we began there were no NGOs. Today they have proliferated all over.

As our sustainability plan did not come to be, project why’s future is again a cause of concern. Its funding is still very fragile as it depends on goodwill garnered by constant interaction with people. I would be naive and foolish to believe that I will continue to have the energy needed to keep the pace. It is time to find alternative avenues that we can nurture in the coming time so that they can replace the present funding structure. This will be a slow process but needs to be initiated at once. The face of project why has to change and those who have till now been in the wings need to come to the fore. My being AWOL has already started the process.

I am aware of the fact that those who will take over do not have the same skills as I do though they have a host of skills I never had nor will. I feel that what would work best for them is to have a well defined structure that they can take ownership of. What I mean by that is that we need to build our own centre in a location which is approved and hence that will not be razed or relocated. That will ensure that the children we reach out to will remain with us. My idea is to sell the land we have and find a smaller plot near the women centre as it is located near a rehabilitation colony. With the remaining funds we would build a small centre that can be extended in times to come. I truly feel that a building that belongs to pwhy will motivate the team to walk the extra mile needed not only to keep it going but to make it grow.

This is my line of thought as of now. I have six months to fine tune it.

So help me God!