by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 20, 2008 | Uncategorized
One of the biggest reasons I want to get married in style was so that I could turn it into a fundraiser said an email I received this morning. At first I was a little perplexed but then soon broke into a huge smile that turned into giggles. What a delightful idea and though perhaps a bit avant garde it seemed to have all the ingredients to make it trend setting in a land always avid and pinning for novel ways. Are we not the city that gets bowled over by anything and everything that is large than life. Remember the flowers costing 40 million a night!
It is an indubitable fact that we like lavish and larger than life weddings. The bigger the better, the costlier the better, the larger the better, even if it becomes ludicrous to say the least. People need to spend money at weddings, it has almost become essential to their well being. It is almost a benchmark for success and this is sadly also the cause in humbler families.
The practice of donating to charity at occasions like weddings or funerals has been in existence for a long time in the west where celebration and charity often go hand in hand. Websites have even been set up to facilitate this. Some time back a young Italian couple donated us the money they would have used for bonbonieres!
If you cannot beat them, join them goes the maxim. If we cannot make people see sense and downscale the size of their celebration, perhaps one should just turn these ostentatious weddings into fund raisers. One simply needs to work out a way that would appeal to all concerned. I must admit that as I write these words I do not have any concrete ideas, but I know that there are millions of possibilities. It is really time that our big fat Indian wedding came of age.
Any ideas…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 18, 2008 | Uncategorized
Things are not bright at pwhy in spite of the glowing report card we got from the recent workshop about our work and the impact we have on the life of children. The flip side of the famous SWOT was of course the fragility of our funding model, something I for one, have been painfully aware of for innumerable long nights. It was touching, infuriating and yet heartwarming to learn that everyone was aware the fact that pwhy’s life was at the present moment linked to mine and that as things stood now it did not have much chance of survival unless some drastic measures were not taken.
The King is dead, long live the King goes the saying. But maybe we need not wait for the king to die to prove the maxim right. Pwhy is facing a crisis and one could just use this to test waters. Let me elucidate.
A few months we faced a terrible crisis: a series of unforeseen events led to us having to raise a mind boggling amount of money to save the dreams of some very special children. The task was daunting, something we had never attempted: we had 70 tiny days to raise what was actually needed to run pwhy for couple of years. We managed. Wonder how? Simply by holding on to the dreams and never losing sight of them. Today the situation is the same. If we do not come up with the money needed for the next 3 months we are doomed. A pot of gold awaits us at the end of the said 3 months but we need to reach it.
I could do what I have done each time I have been faced with crises: write innumerable emails; beg unabashedly and knock at every door virtual or real. But my intuition tells me not to. And intuition is God’s Alphabet as Paulo Coehlo writes in his Manual of the Warrior of Light. Intuition tells me to use this god sent opportunity to test my team and see whether they are capable of walking the talk. Are they not the ones who just a few days back said that they were willing to taken on new responsibilities and even fund raise, that they were willing to do whatever was needed to save pwhy. The stage is theirs. Easier said than done.
It is true that there lies in each one of us a huge untapped potential, one that emerges in times of crises but therein lies the problem: what defines crises in each one of us: losing ones’ job, losing a dignified and motivating job. Or is it something deeper? Would I have fought as hard as I did, overcome situations I found galling if it was simply a matter of saving a job. I do not think so. What fuelled me with unknown passion and fervor were all the things that were at stake if pwhy was to close: the smiles of children, Manu’s home, Utpal’s school, the report cards handed with pride, Preeti jumping on a trampoline, Rinky hearing her first sound. What filled me with horror was the idea that all this could come to naught if I did not walk that extra mile. It is important for each one of pwhy’s team to find what they are fighting for, only then will they be able to make miracles. They need to realise all that would stop if they decided to do anything: the faces that would stop smiling, the children that would stop school and take the road to work, the heats that would remain broken, and more.
And if they do nothing can stop them. My intuition also tells me that time is ripe to resuscitate the one-rupee-a-day programme. Was it not the funding model created for people like the pwhy team, one that did not need special skills but simply a heart at the right place. It is time to listen to one’s intuition and sit back. Intuition is indeed God’s Alphabet and it is time to listen to the wind and the stars.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was Utpal’s PTM always a special day for more reasons than one. It is a day that always begins with excitement laced with dolefulness as one knows that time will fly and the day come to a close when we will have to bid him farewell.
It is almost three years that Utpal left for boarding school. I have been there for every single PTM ans each is etched in my mind with indelible lines. I still remember the heart breaking cries that rented the air when it was time to say good bye. Then as time went by the tried turned to murmured pleas and entreaties that wrenched my soul. But then as time went by the good byes were easier though seeing him walk away clutching his little bag of carefully selected goodies was never easy.
As we drove along my heart was once again heavy as I did not quite know how to tell little Utpal that this Diwali when he comes home his mom will not be there. Sadly she relapsed and has been checked in to rehab again where she will spend a few months. And to say that we were all so happy and truly convinced that things had finally settled, that in spite of a few bouts of depression J was well into recovery. How wrong we were. The alcohol was too big an adversary, J too fragile, society too eager to draw her back into a world where she could be manipulated, her own family too weak or too greedy. The writing was on the wall: we just did not see it. Women who drink are sadly never given the second chance they deserve.
Lost in my thoughts I had not realised that we had reached the school. After the checking in formalities we went off looking for little Utpal. He was in his classroom waiting with his Kamala ma’am and his bright pink report card. The marks were good and his teacher gave glowing reports though we were told that he was very naughty. Somehow I felt comforted by those words as that meant he was happy and content. Th teacher asked me to fill up a form and as I sat to do it, Utpal stood next tome dictating the answers. When we came to the mother’s name column he promptly said ‘Jhunnu‘. My heart missed a beat and I was filled with a sense of overwhelming sadness. I wrote the six letters quietly and perhaps that is when I decided not to tell Utpal about his mom yet.
A quick trip to the hostel to meet his warden Dolly and seek her permission to give him the few toys we carried as we would be dropping back earlier than usual, then a few words with Anil Sir the PT instructor. We came to know that Utpal loved football, badminton and the Frisbee and had started skating. The music teacher revealed that he could now play happy birthday on the keyboard! All in all a successful PTM!
It was then time to take Utpal for his outing and the destination was the closest Pizza parlour. He was in a happy mood and regaled us with his antics: sipping his fizzy drink with his hands locked at he back, dancing to the rock music that blared as he ate his pizza, telling us funny stories. Time just flew and then the dreaded hour approached: it was time to take the road back. But before that we had to make a quick stop at the local store as he needed some toiletries. At the store he asked us to buy him some biscuits and carefully selected them. We were told that these were for his friends. We came to know later in the car that it was for his big friends. I guess this is what happens in all boarding schools: the gently bullying that signifies that you have been accepted.
When the time to say goodbye came there were no tears or murmured words. A very confident little boy clutched ll his packages and gave us a hug and then walked down the long corridor with a confident stride. I watched him walk away quietly wiping a tear that was threatening to spill over.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
The real tragedy however is that when my mom told me about the blasts on the phone I was not shocked….I was sad ….but somewhere inside me I am learning to live with this terrorism as part of life…not feeling shocked when it happens….and something is just wrong with this picture! To think that my children, whenever they come into this world, will never have a childhood free of this aspect like I did even though for a short while.…
These poignant words written by a young friend who lives miles away dropped in my inbox this morning. They ring painfully true in more ways than one. It is a sad fact indeed that we seem to have got inured to news of bombs blasts and terror. Even when it hits close to our own reality. It is as if we have accepted it as a part of our lives we do not have much control on. As the news enfolded on the TV screen one just kept on doing what one was. There was no shock or panic.
I heard about the first bomb as I was watching an evening metro channel. Ghaffar market seemed so remote and distant. It is a place one rarely went to. Then a few minutes later came the news of blasts at Connaught Place. This was closer to one’s life. It was the very place where one hung out almost everyday many years ago, the very place where one headed to escape the boredom of home or the stranglehold of college, a place where one felt carefree and insouciant. Remote memories almost forgotten that were brought alive by the blasts. Then the news of blasts at M block market GK I, a place one frequented every day. Actually I was there just a short hour earlier and still no panic. Is this not proof enough of the fact that we have learned to live with terror and simply accept it with sadness and a sense of longing for days gone by where such horror did not exist.
But at least we have know better days, days where such things did not exist, when streets were safe, when all you feared at most was a freak accident, something you would accept with a sense of fatalism. And people my age would even remember times when terror was almost alien vocabulary. Many would not believe it but I can still recall days when one could see a person off at the step ladder of an airplane!
We still have memories but our children, those who are still very young or those still waiting to be born will never have a childhood free of terror. It has engulfed every nook and corner of our lives, even the sanctity of our homes as TV images of gore and violence invade our privacy. Children of today grow up hearing about terrorism and bomb blasts and sadly have by force majeure become inured. It is a matter of survival.
Gone are the carefree days of childhood. Life has changed irreversibly. Something is really wrong with this picture.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
It was almost three years ago that I wrote a post entitled morning has broken. I reread it and realised that every word in it still rung disturbingly true.
The morning after has broken again, the sky is lighting up and the sun will soon rise….
Once again my inbox was filled with messages of concern and once again I answered them with words of reassurance. Yes we are all safe. Though I wonder what the word safety means. Should we just say that we are lucky not to have been one of the 30 or one of the 90. As usual gory images are aired with unsettling regularity to increase TRPs, rumor mills are afloat, divisive forces are in play…
And once again we will pick up the pieces and reassemble our lives to the best of our ability trying to forget the cracks and missing bits. One gain we will put our bravest face and best foot forward and carry on. It is the only befitting answer to dastardly acts of terrorism.
I am at a loss of words in the wake of such horror. People simply enjoying a balmy evening in a park or shopping on a week end find their lives destroyed in a split second, their loved ones condemned to a life of sorrow and despair. Is this what the perpetrators of such acts seek? The never ending feeling of loss and pain that remains etched in the lives of the survivors as a constant reminder of the fateful day.
The political drama is in full swing. Talk of conspiracy, destabilisation, seeds of mistrust, empty words of comfort by politicians seeking mileage.. everything is there to see and applaud.
Life will go an, it has to. It will go on for the ones who have lost dear ones, the ones who will have to live with a maimed bodies and scars on their souls. Life will go on for those who have to go back to work to feed their hungry families, for determined business owners, for school children, for each and everyone of us. And this is the only answer we can give to the death merchants.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 11, 2008 | okhla
Little Babu and his pal Shankar did not come to pwhy yesterday. It is not because they did not want to, quite the contrary: the love pwhy. They did not come because their parents, simple illiterate folks, fell prey to to the misinformation and fear spread by vernacular TV channels about the outcome of the CERN experiment.
We were aghast when Sitaram called to inform that no parent from the Okhla slum was willing to send their children to the project. They were convinced that the world would come to an end at 12 pm and thus did not want to send their kids away. We were also informed that many menfolk had not gone to work and decided to stay home. The Okhla slum where these kids come from is home to migrant labour most of them illiterate and extremely naive, being recent arrivals in the city. Nevertheless most if not all have acquired TV sets, their only lifeline in their abysmal lives. For the past few days some TV channels catering primarily to such people have been running doomsday stories in graphic and dramatised ways that have succeeded in scaring naive viewers to the point of panic. Talks of tsunamis and earthquakes, black holes that would suck in the entire world and such horrors created a fear psychosis in the simple minds and hence children were not sent to school. Though the maximum absentees were in the creche, attendance was very poor in all classes. Fear was visible on the face of our hearing impaired girls who hugged each other with tears in their eyes.
I must confess that I saw red. I have always feared the power TV hodls on simple minds and seen time and again how it affects their lives. The quest for TRPs is acceptable to a point but when the result is the kind one saw yesterday one has to question things particularly when nothing of what was said or shown has any scientific basis. What is worst is that people believe what is shown without an iota of doubt. No matter how much we explained that a tsunami for example was not possible in Delhi, our logic was pooh poohed away as the TV had said it!
The other question that came to mind was the disturbing yet indubitable reality that people are always willing to believe bad and negative things and rarely positive ones. This probably stems from a feeling of deep insecurity. And nothing you can do or say can free them. The issues are too deep seated. And sadly this is what soothsayers, dubious astrologers and other such people play on, something that TRP seekers have understood and mastered.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 10, 2008 | Uncategorized
During the recent workshop held in pwhy, a series of qualitative methods were applied to assess the impact of pwhy on children. The methods were applied on a wide section of children: under 12, above 12, kids with special needs, kids not in pwhy. Fun games were organised where questions on specific issues were asked. There was a card game where children were asked to chose pictures and identify those that hey associated to pwhy. But the most revealing game and by far the most exciting for the children was the one called photo mapping. Here a cross section of children were given cameras and asked to shoot pictures of positive and negative aspects of their everyday reality.
The results were stunning and pwhy kids came out winners. Unlike the control group of outside children, our kids had opinions and views, string likes and dislikes and were not shy of expressing what they felt.
One of the most extraordinary and revealing results was the choice many children of the women centre made when asked to shoot their most favourite thing. It was the library and its books. Each kid shot a picture of it. What makes this even more striking is the fact that the library is a very recent addition to their lives as it was set up just a few months back thanks to our dear friends of the om prakash foundation. And yet in such a short time it has assumed a huge part in the lies of these children. It was on the insistence of the children that Sunday at the women centre is library day where kids come and spend long hours browsing through the shelves. When a couple of books disappeared and the coordinator threatened to shut the library down children made sure that the books were found. Since a lending system has been instituted!
Many conclusions can be drawn from this single result. I will leave the more technical ones to the academics and wait for them, but for me it is undoubtedly a very rewarding outcome. I fell under the spell of books when I was very young and nothing could replace the magic of books till date. It was with extreme sadness that I saw children turning away from them with the advent of TV. As the power of visual media grew, books seemed to loose their charm ans slowly took a back seat. I guess the sheer cost of books and the vanishing of the local library had their role to play. In slum India books became akin to school and hence boring, tedious and unexciting. Slum kids never saw real books. And yet when one was able to set up a colourful and large library in the span of a few days, children not only took to them but placed them on the list of their most favourite possession, one they were willing to protect and care for.
We have thousands of books still packed in boxes waiting to be displayed. We plan to rebuild the small mud room we have in Giri Nagar, the one where pwhy began almost a decade ago. The room will be a library open not only to pwhy children but to all children of the area. Unseasonal and unending rains, and paucity funds have delayed the venture but today the pictures the children took tell us that we cannot wait much longer!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 9, 2008 | Uncategorized
Little Pooja and Radha are not playing a mindless game! No sir. They are proud participants of an international workshop held under the aegis of the Human Development and Capability Association Thematic group on Participatory Methods a group pf the Human Development Capability Association (HDCA) being held in New Delhi this week.
The workshop was held from 5 to 8 September and had two main objectives: 1 – Strengthen the organizational capacity of Project Why 2 – Explore the impacts of Project Why on beneficiaries of their work with children. The results are awaited and we all, and I in particular, wait with bated breath for the outcome.
But this post is not about whether or not we passed the litmus test, or what measures need to be taken to strengthen our capacities, this blog is about the other side of the workshop, the tiny moments that may have escaped many, the backstage angst, the fleeting moments of pride, the surreptitious phone calls to assert that all is going well, the furtive gestures to ensure that nothing is missed and more.
For 4 whole days project why was on its toes though we did try to put up an equable face. A plethora of different activities were scheduled at different times and places. It was impossible to keep an eye on all as we would have liked to as most of us (teachers and the management team) were part of a SWOT exercise that took a large chunk of time. I must confess that when we were told about having to spend nine hours (3×3) in a room the reactions of everyone were to say the least noteworthy: raised eyebrows, perplexed faces, vigorous shakes of the head and total bewilderment. The motley crew that makes up the extraordinary project team was in a quandary. They all knew that we were to play hosts to a dozen eminent academics from the world over and every one felt diffident. Would we come up to the expectations?
Moreover the past few weeks had been marked by furious preparations with the help of Sara who had come a month earlier to help prepare the workshop. The activities had to be meticulously planned: children identified, parents informed, teachers assigned, transport organised. Props needed to be made, translations done keeping in mind the ground and social reality. Then it was time to explain it all to the team and I guess our own nervousness must have added to theirs in quantum leaps.
D Day dawned after a sleepless might. We all felt like debs on the even of their coming out ball. For the first time we were to be showcased to those that mattered and that would in many ways define our future. We were aware of the fact that in spite of all our careful planning there would be many slips and glitches but decided to put our best foot forward.
The workshop began and we were carried in the whirlwind of activities barely having time to think. We simply moved from one activity to the other and one day to the next. In between we fed our curiosity on the bribes of phrases we heard along the way. As the participants visited some part of the project or finished one particular activity we devoured the “the children are great” ; “what nice answers”; “stunning pictures” ; “interesting debate” that we overheard. It seemed we had come out winners or at least been accepted warts and all!
The frightening SWOT went off like a breeze thanks to the wonderful professor who steered it. We sheepishly recalled how scared we had been and how apprehensive we had felt about the whole matter. Renato was extremely warm and managed to make even the quietest teacher not only speak but share his or her inner most feelings. We discovered things about ourselves and others and above all saw how much we shared in common. It was a priceless experience for all.
We now await the official results but I was made privy to some. The subtle and even anodyne games were powerful tools that helped delve into the children’s mind and bring out their aspirations and hope. It also brought out what project why had taught them and that was a matter of great pride: some children selected the library as their most precious option while others took pictures of places of worship other than theirs to show that they had understood the importance of respecting each other. Many children wanted their friends to also join pwhy and that alone made our hearts swell with pride.
I could have waited for the official results before writing about the workshop, but the excitement was too much and somehow I felt this candid account would better showcase what I felt. It is the moment to express my indebtedness: to all those who made this workshop a reality – Mario, Renato, Nicolo, Sara, Alex, Jean Francois, Jim, Francesco, Sara, Ina – by coming and spending their invaluable time with us, to the pwhy team without which none of this could have been possible but above all to the children of project why who are a living proof of the indubitable reality that every child, no matter how deprived, has a right to dream and we are blessed to be those who are entrusted with the challenging task of making these dreams come true.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 4, 2008 | Uncategorized
Head fake or indirect learning is a expression I have learnt recently from Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. In hindsight it is something I have been using, albeit surreptitiously and perhaps sometimes even unconsciously!
Yesterday I was quietly handed over a CD with pictures of the women centre. They were snapshots of their everyday activities as well as those of the Independence day celebration they had organised. As I browsed through them I was taken aback by the vibrancy and vitality that permeated each of them. And above all I was taken aback by the number of children that smiled at me. I could not believe that a year back this centre was not even in existence.
It is true that the women centre was initially set up as a refuge for women in distress, an answer to the deafening why posed by the plight of Utpal’s mom. But we could have found a tiny place and given her shelter. But that was not to be. Instead we set up the women centre which is not only a refuge for women in distress but a vibrant children centre and community outreach programme.
Herein lies the head fake.
Planet why was on the anvil as the panacea to all problems of pwhy. It looked good on paper, it looked good in words but there lay a unexpressed and unformulated doubt: would it run and survive in spite of the fact that it was miles away? The women centre is its present avatar was the much needed surreptitious testing. Would it be possible to set up and run a complex centre without constant monitoring and hand holding.
Barely 10 months from the day we found the quaint premises that houses the women centre we have a happy place where over 200 children and 50 women are busy changing their morrows. No mean task!
What is truly remarkable is that this centre grew from a few kids to this staggering number without fuss or drama. All decisions were taken in house: staff was identified and selected, time tables made, course corrections made. All crises, and they were many, solved without fuss. Today the women centre has a creche, primary and secondary support classes, tailoring and beauty courses and a weekly women’s meet where a plethora of diverse issues are debated amidst laughter and cups of tea!
I have my answer and my head fake worked. Planet why will not only run and survive, but thrive. This is undoubtedly a huge moment for me personally. When pwhy began I had many dreams, and one of them was to see the local community take on responsibilities and take charge. My dream was to see my teachers and staff spearhead new activities. It has happened and somehow I know pwhy is safe.
Here are some pictures of the women centre, a centre that was set up and is run by those many of us do not trust or even bother to acknowledge, a bunch of remarkable people I am very proud of.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 29, 2008 | Uncategorized
It was almost 10 days or more ago that Radhey my auto rickshaw driver informed me in a matter fact way that a barrage had breached in Nepal and that floods in his village were imminent. It was just a matter of days. I could not at that time fathom the magnitude of the disaster in waiting. Every morning in a matter of fact way I would enquire about the flood and he would answer that the waters were coming. I must admit I did not see the urgency. How could I. Even the press did not report much. By the time India woke up it was very late: over 3 million people had been rendered homeless, a major river had changes its course, villages had been swept away, lovingly built homes obliterated from the face of the earth.
In a popular TV debate aired a few days back the anchor asked the disturbing and startling question: Does India care about Bihar? And the uncomfortable answer that made us squirm in our chairs was: No! Bihar simply seems to have fallen off the map. We just want to wish it away. The news from the ground gets grimmer by the day and no respite is in the offing. The figures are alarming millions of people have lost their homes and livelihood.
Almost every year Bihar suffers the fury of floods. Some years are worse than the other and lead to large scale migration. It was in 1985 that Radhey fled his village and came to Delhi to build a new life. Like many others he sent money regularly to his village to repair the house, build a new one, buy the much needed farm implement. Today everything is gone. The members of his family have fled the raging waters and taken shelter with relatives. Some have even come all the way to Delhi and will swell the ranks of the staggering migratory population of this choking city. Many pwhy children’s families have similar stories. What is saddening and infuriating is the calm with which they share their plight, as if they too have given up.
It took a long while for India to waken up, or has it really as in spite of the magnitude of the calamity there is no palpable urgency: no dramatic headlines, no continuous coverage… It is as if floods in Bihar are regular occurrences. Bihar once a vibrant state of India, the seat of the Maghadh Empire, of Licchavi the first known republic, of Buddhism the religion of tolerance is today neglected and derided. It is today equated to corruption, hooliganism, gang and caste wars and considered an aberration. Yet it is home to millions of people who bravely fight all odds.
The picture you see dropped in my inbox with an appeal for help.It took me some time to figure out that what looked like a mosaic pattern where actually people left stranded on a washed away road. Imagine the number of children who today instead of setting out for school are living in the open, hungry and wondering where all their dreams have fled. Imagine the number of people deprived of all the facilities we take for granted: water, food. medicine, shelter. Imagine the pain of seeing your life come to naught. Where does one pluck the courage to begin all over again.
Have we given up on Bihar. I do not know. All I know is the contempt with which the word Bihari is used. All I know is the baffled look on people’s faces when I tell them I too am a Bihari. All I know is that today I feel the need to reach out to those in need, casting aside the cliches and commonplace utterances one will be subjected to. Yes we know of the corruption that is rampant during all relief operations but does that absolve us of the duty to do something. Certainly not. As with the tsunami we will wait a little and when the initial wave of help dies down we will try and see how we can help some children reclaim their lost dreams.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 26, 2008 | Uncategorized
It is fifteen years since the golden summer of 1991 when we lost our innocence wrote Gurcharan Das in a recent article. He was of course referring to our new affair with the the free economy and our expansion as a growing economy. I am no economist and do not understand market forces and the likes of it. I simply see what is around me and draw comparisons with was was an what is.
Last week we celebrated or let us say commemorated 61 years of Independence. All leading magazines had special issues and one must admit no one had anything glorious to share. Even Vinod Mehta who always proffers some light relief on his last page candidly states: I’m looking to offer you some humour. Alas, there’s none to offer. A quick read of the Independence day issue of this or any other magazine does not make happy reading. A leit motiv seems to appear almost with obsessive regularity is the fact that our brave walk on the free economy path has further alienated the poor of the rich. The rich have their schools, their hospitals, their habitat, their markets, their just about everything whereas the infrastructure of the poor is growing from bad to worse.
One of the articles that caught my attention was the one on gated Communities aptly titled Free from India.
The proliferation of gated communities is undoubtedly a world wide phenomena and its Indian avatar larger than life. An article in the New York Times reflects the sad reality of gated communities in our capital region. If one India lives a life of luxury inside the walls, the other survives at its very gates. The raison d’etre of these communities is best defined by a resident himself who states: Everyone understands that there are things outside that you don’t want to expose your children to. The idea is to have the area sealed and sanitised. The apartment costs are huge, but it’s worth it to protect yourself from the violence and crime outside… When I leave these gates I am bang slap in modern India. I can’t say that I don’t like India; it’s my country. But if I can avoid exposing myself to it, why not?‘
The above statement is to say the least perplexing and saddening. Are we simply giving up on India? is creating comfortable and yet visible cocoons the real way out. Did we really lose our innocence when we decided to walk the free trade path and open India’s doors? I cannot say. But if an Indian says that he or she does not want to expose his or her child to things outside, outside being the real India then something is terribly wrong. As citizens of India are we not responsible for that very outside.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 26, 2008 | Uncategorized
It was exactly one year ago almost to the day that a mail dropped into my inbox. My name is Willy and I am very interested in becoming involved in Project Why. I run a small NGO in America called the Omprakash Foundation. Those words were the beginning of a beautiful journey of mutual discovery, a journey were the key words were love, compassion, respect and trust.
Yesterday another mail dropped in my inbox. It simply said: check out”featured partner” on the omprakash homepage.…. A click on the page and there we were: Project Why as this Season’s featured partner with a special page on us that described our activities and our needs in beautiful and simple words. It was indeed some journey from email to webpage!
Over the past almost ten years I have come across wonderful people who have reached out to help us and each one of them have made pwhy possible. When Willy and his friends landed in Delhi a few months back it was truly a special moment as such kids are one of a kind. They brought with them all that makes today’s world still bearable.
But let us go back a little. Before we met Willy and I use to exchange long emails and I found myself sharing my deepest thoughts with him quite unabashedly. It never came to my mind that more than 4 decades of life on this planet separated on us. He simply became the friend I needed in moments of doubts, pain and joy. He always had the right words and often gave my sagging moral the fillip it needed. Somewhere along the way he shared his dream of bringing books to the lives of children all over India and though it was in no way up our sleeve, there was not an iota in doubt in my mind when I decided to jump on the wagon and make it a success. Today over 200 000 books have found their way into the remotest part of our land and are brightening up the lives of many children. Project Why children too are busy discovering the magic of the written word. And what better proof of success of this venture than the fact that some books did surreptitiously find their way into children’s homes!
As the omprakash story enfolded it was as if a remote dream of mine was coming to life albeit in a land thousands of miles from mine. I have always prayed to see the day when young Indians would be touched by compassion and would reach out to less fortunate people and share some of what they have:time, resources, love… as this is what omprakash is all about. A bunch of kids backpack through India and other lands. On the way they stop by to volunteer in a few organisations and somewhere along the way they decided to do something. And the something is for all to see!
What makes Willy, Gordon, Ashely, Lilly, Steve, Nick, Elliot tick? I do not know. Or to use a Hindi expressions: of what mater are they made. I guess the very same one we are made of. But the difference lies in their ability to see with their heart. And what does it take to make young successful people see with their heart is for me a zillion dollar question? I must confess that when I started project why one of the head fake or indirect learning (to use Randy Pausch’s expression) objective was to try and sensitize young Indians and show them how to see with their hearts. Sadly it was not to be.
The journey from email to webpage has been a exhilarating and rewarding one. To the uninitiated it can be quantified by the generous resources we have received and that we are truly grateful for. But for this old lady it has been much more: a renewal of faith and trust, a validation of ideals that many found preposterous and absurd, a ray of sunshine in a sometimes grey world and much more that remains tacit.
I truly hope and pray that all the omprakash foundation reaches unknown heights and realises all the hopes and aspirations of the wonderful hearts that steer it. And I know that this will happen as more than anyone else a wonderful old man, who touched the lives of these kids many summers ago and whose name is the one they chose for their organisation, blesses them as he simply litstens to his radio in a remore part of India’s capital city.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 23, 2008 | Uncategorized
As I was leaving the women centre yesterday I was as usual greeted by loud good morning maam’s (notwithstanding the time of day) from the gang of kids that live in thee vicinity and often play in front of the centre. I stopped as I normally do. Amongst them was a new face. Huge melting eyes in the middle of a tiny badly scalded face. A closer look reveals burn scars on the body, arms and a badly maimed hand. I stop in my tracks, my heart pounding and am suddenly taken back to the fateful day in March 2003 when I first laid eyes on the little scalded Utpal.
The little girl standing in front of me is about 2. Her scars look almost as old. I look around for answers to my silent questions. After a few long seconds an older girl offers some insight: the little girl was burnt when she was just a baby. She was sleeping in a mosquito net, the kind you find in all markets and that look like a huge bell. There was an oil lamp burning in the vicinity and the net made of cheap nylon caught fire. The baby too!
She survived. But unlike Utpal whose face had got spared, hers got badly scalded. Two huge almost identical scars mar her little cheeks. But somehow her impish smile and lovely eyes are endearing and make you forget the ugliness of her scars. To me she was just a child, with the same dreams, aspirations and hopes in spite of her scars and maimed hand. My mind is choking with questions and emotions. What will the future hold for her? What can we do? How can we ease her morrows? How do her peers treat her? Why is God sometimes so unkind?
Just like Utpal’s, her family too shifted only recently to a house almost adjacent to our women centre. Is there some hidden Jungian synchronicity? Some hidden message? Is it once again the God of Lesser Beings at his best?
I do not what the future holds. As I write these words I dot even know her name let alone anything about her. All I know is that I cannot and will not be a silent spectator. A maimed girl has no morrow in a land like ours where the future of any girl child lies in her ability to find a good match. Her family is poor and will not be able to make up for the scars and the maimed hand by providing her a handsome dowry. I do not know whether medical wizardry can be of help and even it it is at what cost it will come. I know that a good education and sound income generating skills are the only hope she has.
I will go back to the centre today and set the ball rolling by seeing that she is enrolled in our creche. I will call up all the men in white I know, browse the net and connect with anyone one i think can be of help. I will do everything I can to ensure that the huge eyes in the scarred face remain filled with trust and hope and never have to suffer the indignity and stigma that is often the fate of those like her.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 21, 2008 | Uncategorized
I was invited by a dear friend to write the 1000th post of his blog. It was an honour and it took me a long time to decide what to write. You can read the post entitled childhood dreams here.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 20, 2008 | common school
Last week end was truly special. It was a long one – Independence day, raksha bandhan, Sunday – and was also little Komal’s second birthday. And to crown it all Utpal was at home too. So I decided to put my life on hold for these 3 days, get off the spinning wheel, shelf all worries and work and do what I almost never do: take time off and follow the kids.
Raksha bandhan, the festival when brothers and sisters renew their bond was touching as Kiran and Utpal are soul siblings. Utpal went to Kiran and Komal’s home and got his two precious Rakhees. Kiran was barely two when a scalded Utpal landed in our lives, and though she may have at first resented all the attention he got, she soon understood what was happening and became his little caretaker and helped look after him in every way possible. As they both grew they were inseparable and attended the same play school. She was heart broken when he left for boarding school and since has never missed a single of his PTMs and looks forward to his holidays. After the rituals it was time to go shopping. Toiletries that Utpal needed to take back to school and Komal’s birthday present. The kids knew that there would be goodies for them too, all they needed to do was look at me with their huge pleading eyes. I must say they were very reasonable!
In the evening, Utpal regaled us with his latest choreography: a 4 minute dance performance to the hit from the film Taare Zameen Par with song and sound effects. He did not miss a step or falter. It was amazing and I realised how much a child can learn through dance: coordination, rhythm and above all self confidence. I wish we could do the same at pwhy but lack of space, time and above all the reticence of parents to any form of creative pursuits are obstacles not easy to overcome.
Sunday was Komal’s birthday and it had been decided that we would take the children to the mall. Me at the mall was unheard of but had I not come off the spinning wheel of reason. WE set out early as we knew that a holiday week end meant more footfalls at malls. We also did not quite know how little Komal ,whose two little years have been spent between the cooped up space of her tiny home and the overcrowded space of the pwhy creche with a few forays into the local markets, would react. To say that she was to the manor, or should I say mall born would be an understatement. She took to the place like a fish to water. She ventured in all directions imbibing all she saw: the long brightly lit corridors, the shop and their gleaming windows. Her little face was beaming and her tiny feet busy.
We set out looking for the kid’s corner and soon found it tucked away on the second floor. It was paltry compared to the rest of the mall, as if children were not really important. And to the dismay of Kiran and Utpal, the kid zone of this mall seemed geared to toddlers and did not have much for children their age. I wonder why! We soon discovered that to be able to ride the plastic Noddy car or sit in the Barbie house you had to shell out Rs 150 per child for an hour even if the child decided to spend a few minutes. But it being treat time the appropriate amount was shelled out and the kids had their moment of fun. As we sat on the bench watching them many families passed by, some with numerous children and in spite of loud pleas and even wails, most parents were not willing to pay and just their dragged their progeny away. 150 rs per child when you have 4 children was way above many budgets. Kids play areas in malls were just like multiplexes: too expensive for the common man.
After the play area it was time for the food court and then the candy store! By the time the mall treat was over a whopping amount of money had been spent. But this was time off for the kids and their happy faces were worth every penny spent.
You can share some moments of this very special week end here:
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
After a long time I decided to check the site traffic on both the website and the blog. To say that I was in for a surprise would be the understatement of the year! I would have liked to believe that something was wrong, that the code was not correct, that the programme was not running properly. But that was not the case. All seemed in order except the flat line that greeted me instead of the pikes and curves. No one had dropped by in a long long time. I was staggered. I had been posting regular entries and nothing seemed to have changed.
Many questions crowded my mind: what had happened? what was I doing differently? what needed to be done? was there a hidden message? and each begged for an answer. True there was a time when over and above posting on the blog, one wrote mails to all friends and supporters with regularity, sharing news or begging for help. The last such onslaught had been at the beginning of the year when we were looking for help to buy our land. The land was bought and somehow unknowingly we had entered a new phase of our existence. Gone were the days when we simply needed enough support to survive month after month. We were now in another league. And perhaps this unconscious shift changed things surreptitiously.
The flat line that greeted me this morning was a harsh reality check. Something was wrong. Was it a case of out of sight, out of mind. A simple lack of visibility. I cannot tell. True we have not been in the media for long and true that direct communication has been far and few but things on the ground have not changed. We are very much alive and need all the help we can muster. We are still dependent on individual help and conscious of the fact that till date most of it has come via the net and blogging. So a flat line is akin to a death knell.
Had I sunk into a strange comfort zone where I thought that simply posting blogs would be enough to garner support. I must confess that there was a time when I did network much more actively. Was I content with the occasional comment posted on some bogs and felt secure? Maybe. But the flat line was a rude wake up call and I guess a much needed one.
We are alive and much of what we were earlier. We still reached out of over 600 kids and reach out to anyone in need of help. Our kids still bring us a 100% result and we had some excellent results in the Boards. Our women’s programme has grown remarkably and our new residential inclusive outreach is doing exceptionally well and is a great learning experience and a sound testing ground for planet why. We still need all the help we can get and have in no way grown a big head!
I confess to have been a little slack in my ways and promise to make huge amends as the life hopes and aspirations of many depend on it.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
The UNICEF report of the state of Asia Pacific’s children 2008 was published just a few days ago. According to this report 20% children under five who die every year are from India. The figures is staggering: 2 million. the report goes on to state: Unless India achieves major improvements in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education, gender equality and child protection, global efforts to reach the MDGs will fail…as more services within countries are privatized and the government share of health budgets diminishes, public facilities become more run down and health workers leave for better paid jobs in the private sector or outside the country. The divide between rich and poor is rising at a troubling rate within sub regions of Asia-Pacific, leaving vast numbers of mothers and children at risk of increasing relative poverty and continued exclusion from quality primary health-care services.
It is a sad reflection of a country that celebrates three generations of freedom.
Our real achievement seems to have been a staggering increase of the gap between the rich and the poor. India is far from shining. The children of India are still waiting for an elusive Bill that will give them their constitutional right to Education. And while a city is gearing up to meet world standards to host an international sporting event, children are withering away in dark holes in a city that has forsaken its poor.
Can any society worthy of its name claim to be shining if its most vulnerable group remains neglected? I wonder. Children have no voice, and are not vote banks. Yet they need the maximum care and protection. It is not so in India today. Child labour is rampant, child abuse of all shade and hue unbridled and though politically correct statements are made by one and all, they are rarely translated into action.
Two million children below the age of 5 die quietly every year in India. Is anyone hearing.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 11, 2008 | common school
A dear friend commented on my recent post way to go India. He wrote: I read with joy your latest blog post. 2 messages in particular struck a chord: One, how Project Why stood firm against institutional considerations and put the needs of the children as top priority. Having worked in the Education Ministry of Singapore and probably carrying on a career making education policies in future, I realized this is a dilemma most middle-tier leader face. As a young intern and observing how the current leaders go about formulating policies and making decisions, I was convinced the paramount factor is what’s best for the children – and their teachers, without whom education is impossible too, and any other administrative glitches can be ironed out. Two, the motivation and vibrancy of youth. The older I grow, the more I feel I lose this tendency to initiate things, and more importantly sustain them.
I sat a long time mulling these words and their relevance particularly in a week where we celebrate 61 years of Independence and the first individual Olympic gold ever won. And instead of elation and euphoria I am filled with despondency and sadness. Is one medal in a land of a billion and counting, reason to celebrate. I cannot tell. What stares at me are the eyes of millions of potential medal winners who will never be able to do so because we have collectively failed them in every which way possible.
A tiny and unobtrusive news item must passed unnoticed by many. The Right to Education Bill was not taken up by Parliament but sent to another committee for review as vote bank politics is far more important than sending 200 million children to school. It is in 2002 that the children of India got the fundamental Right to Education. A bill was drafted in 2005 and still waits to be passed or killed! A sad state of affairs when Bills on salary raises for members of parliament are passed in a jiffy. The writing is on the wall. No one is truly concerned about the plight of the children of India and with every delay a large number of children miss their chance to be educated. It is true that the Bill threatens many bastions and social divides as one of its clause is reservation of 25% of seats in the best schools for kids from across the street and hence everyone is up in arms: how can the drivers or washer man’s kid study with mine! In all this the children are forgotten and cast aside.
The lofty idea that education would promote equality and social integration across class, caste and gender is not something we are comfortable with. True it makes great conversations pieces as well as excellent copy for campaigns and ads but when it comes too close it is simply rejected. It was way back in 1966 that the Kothari Commission had mooted the idea of a common school and though many feel that this would be an answer to education for all, it has remain a dead letter for almost half a century. The CSS (common school system) is not something we truly want.
Generations of children have been sacrificed to the alters of greed, vote bank policies, dubious lobbies are more of the same and in those lost years the divide between the rich and the poor has grown unabashedly in all walks of life, even schools who now look more like spas than places of learning. No one is truly concerned about what is best for children or should I say best for all children. The reason being that children do not have a voice and are not a vote bank! Debates will continue, it is politically correct to do so. What makes me seethe with anger is that political parties are not able to bury their differences and come together to pass such a Bill, and unless they do so no Bill that aims at inclusiveness can ever see the light of day.
In this 61st year of Independence and in the euphoria of a gold medal can one hope that things will change. I doubt it unless each one of us, particularly those who were lucky to be born on the right side of the fence, come out of our torpor and do something before we lose our ability and motivation to do so.
Will be able to do so? Only time will tell.
