by Anuradha Bakshi | May 20, 2008 | Uncategorized
We work hard to raise money so that we have the opportunity to help people but the more children we educate the more are being born that… so we are tempted to say that education will help our people to overcome poverty but if the resources remain the same and the population continues to grow… it’s a losing battle.
These very frightening words were sent by a dear friend who is a volunteer with an organisation that is deeply involved in education projects all over India. This friend also is a young highly educated Indian the very people on whose shoulders the destiny of India lies. I understand her concern ans perhaps would have shared it had I not been part of project why!
The education scenario in India is abysmal. But it is not only the state of education for the poor or underprivileged but also that of the so called rich and extremely privileged. A strange caste systems now prevails in school and one wonders what schools have become.
The simple definition for the word school in any dictionary is: a place for educating children. The crux of the matter lies in the definition of the word education and the one we at pwhy adopt is the one based on Delors 4 pillars of education: learning to know, to do, to be and to live with others. He says: these four pillars of knowledge cannot be anchored solely in one phase in a person’s life or in a single place. There is a need to re-think when in people’s lives education should be provided, and the fields that such education should cover. The periods and fields should complement each other and be interrelated in such a way that all people can get the most out of their own specific educational environment all through their lives.
To me the most important pillar remains: learning to live with others as therein lies the true success of education and this is sadly what is disappearing from the society we live in. Schools should be a level play field but is now turning into a mirror image of the social strata you belong to and the habitat you live in. Hence the richer you are the fancier looking your school is, and the poorer you are the more pathetic it will be. So any exchange, peer learning, learning to live with others is doomed to fail as you remain within the tiny part of society you belong to.
But I have digressed as the concern voiced here was that of population growth, or have I really? That is the moot point. Education we all agree is a spring board that can enable one to change one’s destiny but is the education we are today giving the children of India the right one to do that? The question raised has within it another element that we may tend to overlook: static resources or we can even say dwindling resources. And I speak with a certain authority as I was spent almost a decade raising these very resources.
Education alone can change the destiny of India and even help arrest population growth and maybe one day reverse it. Sadly it is perhaps not the kind of polarised education we see around us but one that would merge different strata of societies into schools that look like schools and not of seven stars resorts or slum backyards! That in itself would alter the content, change mindsets and bring a transformation that we cannot begin to imagine. All election oriented and fund draining dramatic programmes will lose their relevance as a symbiotic learning will emerge on its own.
Today we have idiosyncrasies like a pass percentage of 33% and a college entry point of 90+%! reservations in higher places of learning when we know the slum kid will never reach. These could slowly vanish on their own without laws and programmes.
But there is also another change that such an approach can bring. It may also address the resource issue as the better off kids may in such a situation become aware of their won responsibility and add to the resource pool. Pay it forward a simple fiction made into a movie launched a movement and a foundation. A child helps another and in return asks him or help to help three others and so on.
When we took on the challenge to give four kids the best education possible we were derided by many, particularly by those belonging to the rich side of the spectrum. And yet everyday these kids shows us that we cannot be wrong. In a pay it forward situation a rich kid could sponsor a poor one who in return would commit to help three or any number when her or she was in a position to do so.
Daydreaming? Perhaps or perhaps not. Change requires bold and seemingly preposterous action. Only one thing remains unchanged education is, cannot and should not be a losing battle!
We have to find the resources both financial and moral to go on!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 17, 2008 | okhla
Sarva Siksha Abhyan, Education for All, Right to Education Bill are all lofty projects. Sadly none of them have truly helped the children of India get what is rightfully theirs: a sound education that would help them become part of shining India! They all seem to be half baked attempts that seem to be politically motivated and not children friendly. They are good meat for heated debates and often lie in wait while adults debate their commas, and full stops. Their huge budgets help line many a pocket.
And while this happens children grow and miss the boat altogether. And as many cores issues are never dealt with, some children fall out of the net. Seema is little Radha‘ sister. She is 9 and should be in school yet she has never been to one. Her parents are too poor to think of sending their children to school and anyway someone is needed to look after Radha and her brittle bones! Seema is just mother’s little helper.
We have a handful of Seema’s in our believe it or not creche! They all belong to the Okhla slums where families are extremely poor and barely survive. It is our very own Sitaram who ferrets these kids from the darkest holes and brings them to project why. Most of not all of them are girls. We now have a handful of them and have decided to run a class for them where we will try and teach them basic reading and writing to start with and seeing their motivation maybe steered them towards and open school option. We will also try and teach them some useful skills so that they can become capable of earning. We know that putting them in a school would be close to impossible so this in our opinion is the best we can do for them.
We sincerely hope this works.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
A mail about little Radha’s plight dropped by this morning. It asked some stark questions:when you run in to such cases have you been able to get any insight in how the parents intended to support so many children? what were they thinking when they had 4 children in one room? is there some way you have found to communicate that there is no difference between a girl and a boy?
I wish I had answer to these questions. But this is one of whys for which we have sadly not found answers till date and yet it is one of the most deafening ones as therein lies the solution to many of the problems that plague our society. Yet it is almost one of the most inaudible ones too!
Parents like Radha’s produce many children often in the hope of the one or more son that seems to be the touchstone to gage the credibility of women in our land. And this definitely transcends all classes of society and all creeds. As they produce one child after the other they are not aware or thinking about the future of these children or about they would support them. That is often left to God! The paradox of this quest for the elusive son is that they are all aware of the reality that each girl that comes along the way is a burden as she will have to be one day married but that does not stop them.
The flip side is darker as is proved by the terrifying figures of the sex ratio in cities like Delhi where the rich can find ways to abort their unwanted girl child and the poor just abandonned them in garbage dumps or door steps. According to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen there are 38 millions missing women in India. So in a way Radha’s family should be lauded as at least they did not get rid of the unwanted daughters.
To the question about how they intended to support these kids in a tiny room the answers are again baffling and multiple. Having many children stems out from an atavistic past where many children died in infancy, children were extra hands on the land, where life was self contained and did not need stepping out from the habitat of origin, where families lived in clans and support systems were many. Sons were prized as they ensured continuity and protection of the land. The feudal system ensured protection of farm hands and those who did not own land as their being was a matter of honour.
When society changed and land got divided and could not feed the families it belonged to and as cities grew and were in need of labour, rural exodus started and simple illiterate families came in search of work and a better future. But the urban dream turned into a nightmare and with the total absence of any regulation and above all any housing policy, slums mushroomed helter- skelter and families found themselves living in dark hovels. Radha’s family is still small, sometimes over 10 people live in such places. I remember one case where the father was so tall that he either had to sleep at an angle or keep the door opened for his feet to stick out.
Life is a matter of survival in urban slums. In many cases people are daily wagers and the meal depends on what is brought home each day! It comes to a stage when people stop thinking beyond the day and live life one day at a time. But traditions, mores and atavistic instincts remain. Maybe they become a sort of lifeline in a world too strange to fathom. The yearning for boys is kept alive in spite of the fact that it has lost its meaning, the obsessive need to keep every ritual remains. I was horrified at the money spent for all the death rituals of an old woman who past away recently. The family, simple scooter drivers, fed almost 1000 people for 3 days. On the other hand the poor lady who died was never looked after. I shudder to think at the amount of money that is now owed to the loan shark.
So coming back to the questions asked by my friend and particularly the last one: is there some way you have found to communicate that there is no difference between a girl and a boy? The answer is sadly no, in spite of screaming one’s self hoarse and standing on our heads. There are more than 50 posts on this blog about the girl child and her plight some chilling beyond words. Every day the government announces new programmes for the girl child but rarely do they reach deserving beneficiaries because of complex paperwork, and often do not address the real problem as they are often looked at as simple monetary sops.
If we truly want to find viable solutions in my opinion one needs to be addressed are core issues. One of the main reasons girls are unwanted are that they need to be married and that marriage is a huge money drainer. Boys on the other hand bring money, cars, scooters, fridge, houses etc. Politicians, religious leaders and we the so called educated class should be the ones to set the right example. But sadly the now (ill)famed big fat Indian wedding is turning obese! And what is even more tragic is that in today’s India brides are being killed or forced to commit suicide because they have not brought enough dowry. This happened less than a month ago to young Astha whose parents had given a Mercedes car as part of her dowry. Till weddings mean money girls will not be wanted and boys welcomed.
This of course explains the different ways in which boys and girls are treated in families: education, food, pampering et al!
The other factor that I feel is never talked about let alone highlighted and is the cause of much pain in the lives of women is the fact that the woman is not responsible for the sex of the child. The X Y chromosome story is one that is never told. One cannot begin to imagine the number of women even rich ones who are derided and scorned for not producing that prodigal son. This is even true in rich and educated families. A simple campaign highlighting this could make a world of difference. We are all aware of the hue and cry raised by the so called conservationists and upholders of moral values when sex education was introduced in India. Not only is this essential is a country where AIDS figures are becoming alarming, but could be a way of also explaining how a child sex is determined and who is responsible for it.
There are solutions, but where is the political and social will to seek them, let alone implement them.
A deafening why no one is willing to hear!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
“Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.” wrote Ivern ball. The recent dastardly blasts in Jaipur sadly confirms this saying. While bodies still lay unclaimed, while families are yet to come to terms with the horror that has hit them, while reality is yet to sink in, the now jaded reaction drama is in full swing. Speeches are made about the spirit and resilience of the people of the land; blame game have begun targeting other political parties, and other nations. Sops are promised out to grieving families, wonder how many will actually reach the right hands, and wonder how money can heal loss.
The innumerable intelligence agencies are pointing fingers at each other. VIP’s are planning visits to the maimed city and thus ensuring front page coverage hence displacing all the disturbing and embarrassing issues making us almost wonder about how well timed the blasts seem to be. And international sympathy is surging.
The writing is on the wall but we all look away. Every day in our own city there are rapes of children and vulnerable women, carjacking have become the order of the day, murders for a few pennies abound, neighbours kill neighbours for a handful of coins, road rage is rampant.
The writing is on the wall as walls visible and invisible are built to widen the gap between caste, creed, or social status ; new malls and stores multiply with quantum leaps while tiny businesses are sealed and road vendors banned in the name of aesthetics.
The writing is on the wall but we just assume it is written for someone else as we carry on unabashedly, stopping maybe just for that small instant to mumble a few appropriate but empty words.
And yet everything points at the indubitable and unavoidable reality that all is not well in the world we live in. That sooner than later all of this may just happen to us, that we are not protected by impregnable walls. It is time to read the writing on the wall and accept that it is for each one of us.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 13, 2008 | women centre
Roshni has been working at our women centre since its very inception. She began has a general helper and then slowly moved on to being a creche worker. Today she even attends adult education classes.
Roshni has seven children. Hers is the story of many migrant families who leave the safety of their villages and come to the cities seeking a better future. her husband is a tailor and the family barely survives. They live in a tiny hovel where one can barely move.
When Roshni decided to put her children into a school her first option was undoubtedly the local municipal school. It was supposed to be free. But as she did not have birth certificates the school refused admission. Roshni was never told that a simple affidavit would have solved the issue.
Not one to give up she registered in some local private school – read teaching shop – where the combined fees and compulsory tuition were a whopping 4ooo rs! When we heard this we decided that we would get her children admitted to the government school and set out testing them to find the appropriate entry point. We were shocked to see that the children, the elder being in class V could barely read. Wonder what the tuition was for.
That is one chapter of Roshni’s story. There is more. Her husband was has a debilitating back problem and once again brave Roshni took him to the best hospitals and got a sound diagnosis. But, and her is the catch, one important element of the treatment was regular exercises and when we asked her whether he did do them regularly, her sheepish answer was that he never had. The reason was again a huge eye opener for all of us: their house being so tiny, there was no place to exercise. I confess I could never have thought of this in my wildest dreams.
So in true pwhy style we decided to open the centre for an hour after all regular classes so that Roshni’s husband and anyone else with similar problems can do the few stretches and other exercises that have been prescribed to them. And maybe, who knows,we might just start some yoga classes as any form of physical activity is totally absent from the lives of children and adults in slums.
Mens sana in corpose sano as the latin quote goes, a healthy mind in a healthy body. Maybe that is what is needed
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 11, 2008 | fostercare
For the past few days I have been in a state of postpartum blues, the kind women suffer after the birth of a child. Doctors have their own complex clinical explanations but to me it is simply the feeling of overwhelming emptiness that comes after what you have waited for, desired, expected, prayed for finally comes your way and instead of the feeling of elation should come your way, it is a terrible emptiness that engulfs you and leaves you rudderless.
Last week saw the realisation of two incredible feats came my way: we managed the garner all the funds needed for the land for planet why and are ready to close the deal, and dear popples got published. I should be jumping with joy, planning a holiday or a bash but al I feel is terribly empty and at a complete loss.
What comes to my mind are Oriana Fallaci’s words: To fight is better than to win, to travel much better than to arrive, once you have won or arrived you feel a great emptiness, and to overcome your emptiness you have to set out on our travels again, create new goals..
That is where I stand now. Needing to create new goals, charting new travels, conjuring new dreams as again in the words of Oriana Fallaci: to have realised your dreams makes you feel lost!
And there are many, some small, some huge, some seemingly easy others daunting. Garner the figure with a staggering numbers of zeros needed to build planet why, assemble the much needed money to run pwhy for the next months and then he next one; find the support to ensure that the foster care kids complete their education, find a possible treatment for little Radha, and maybe start writing another book: the project why story!
Yes to fight is much better than to win, to travel much better than to arrive. It is time set out on a new journey…
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 10, 2008 | Uncategorized
Little Radha is 7. She suffers from ostoegenesis or brittle bone disease has terribly deformed legs and is unable to stand. The slightest fall or hit causes a fracture as her bones have become terribly porous. She has already had more than a dozen in her tiny life.
She came to our office in the arms of her mother clad in a fleece outfit. The ambient temperature of the moment must have been 40 degrees Celsius. When we asked her mother why she was wearing such an outfit, the answer was simple and direct. She had no other decent clothes.
Radha lives in a sunken hovel, the roof of which is lower than a person standing and where not a shred of light enters. Her father lost his job as the factory in which he worked closed. He now sells tea but can barely make both ends meet as they have 4 children. Radha seemed a healthy child till the age of two when she first fell and broke her leg. It was then that she was diagnosed with osteogenesis.
1 in 60 000 children get osteogenesis and little Radha is one of them. Also known as brittle bone disease the ailment has no known cure. Management of the disease includes focusing on preventing or minimizing deformities and maximizing the child’s functional ability at home and in the community. Sound doable but in a home like hers it is close to impossible. Support groups exist but not for someone like our little Radha. The prognosis is scary as it not only affects bones but can result in brittle teeth, loss of hearing and easy bruising. The main cause is little or poor type of collagen.
Wheelchairs or braces are recommended and exercise like swimming is extremely beneficial. But where does a child like Radha go to swim or how does she use a wheelchair in the hole in which she lives. A child with OI needs good nutrition, rich in calcium, leafy vegetables, cereals, milk products all not within reach of a family that barely survives. The doctors had suggested this but for a family that can barely feed 6 mouth this was quasi impossible. And little by little her legs contorted as she suffered one fracture after the other.
New research suggests the use of bisphosphonates that seem to have has excellent results but that still seems at a trial stage. We will of course look into it!
Radha was denied any form of childhood and could not accompany her siblings to school or play. She just lived in her dark hole and dragged herself from one corner to the other. Two of her siblings come to our creche and that is how we came to know about her. Thank heavens her spine of head did not suffer any fracture!
Radha is an intelligent child who could learn like any other seven year old but her ailment closed all doors to her. We hope to be able to help her as best we can. As you know we at project why believe in miracles!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 8, 2008 | women centre
The Kamala centre is now more than six months old and much has happened within its walls. It all began as everything does with lofty ideas, impossible dreams and ambitious plans though past experience had proved that these do not get fulfilled no matter how hard you try. We were of course prepared for all course corrections and open to all suggestions and constructive criticism.
It all began when two women needed some breathing space to take stock of their lives and chart out their future at a time where they had been dealt too many blows by an unforgiving and insensitive society. I guess what we did not understand at that moment in time that once you found your feet you had to start looking for your feet and we made the mistake of planning out a long term future for them.
It is true then when things look dark and without hope, people are willing to make adjustments and come to terms with many situations. But as things start looking up and problems resolved, old habits came back to haunt and wings slowly start growing. Often their growth is slowed by a misplaced sense of indebtedness but your heart is not there and you start slipping. Just like with children that is when the wise should let the bird fly out of the coop though many do not understand this.
The last few weeks have been difficult as one of our residents, now healed of all her ailments, started feeling stifled in an environment so different form the one she had known all her life and though it was one that gave the respite she so need a year back, it was not conducive to her needs and desires now that she had found her feet. It was time to let her go.
It was also time to understand that the women centre could only be a refuge and temporary shelter for those who needed to some breathing space. True some may turn up to want to stay for long but we must realise that we cannot and should not try and hold any one back.
On the flip side the Kamala centre has gone beyond our expectations in other ways. We had imagined the children activities to be a small part of the overall project but once again reality stares at us and our education support system now till class X is choker block and even has long waiting lists. Our activities with local women are also on the rise and over and above vocational courses like beauty and stitching, we now have English classes and regular get togethers where women share all their problems and discuss matter of interests to them or us: girl child, banking, legal rights, health and hygiene, government schemes etc.
So slowly we too are finding our feet before looking for our wings!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 7, 2008 | okhla
This is not a picture of a tsunami hit structure. It is simply our very won Okhla centre after the dust storm that blew over Delhi two mights ago. The figures you see eagerly repairing the tent are our very own students. And this is not the first time they have done this, they do it every time the need arises.
The Okhla centre has known more than its share of problems and has dealt with each of them with rare dignity and courage. They are not ones to be deterred and prove beyond doubt the oft quoted and sated dictum: if there is a will…. The almost apocalyptic site was not enough to wipe off their smiles; they just set out to task determined to have their precious school up and running.
Actually they had come out in the night itself during the storm and seeing the damage guarded the place till the teachers turned up in the morning.
As I watched this unique site many thoughts ran in my mind. I felt a sense of immense pride as in spite of belonging to the poorest of the poor, these children showed much more mettle and grit than their colleagues in other centres. Perhaps it is because most of these kids are survivors in the true sense of the word and know that their morrows depend on their own abilities.
My mind wandered on. I realised that this mild storm that did not make a dent in the lives of millions across the city who did not even suffer the customary power cut, had been enough to blow away one of our oldest centres. Was this yet another proof of the extreme fragility of project why itself that could blow away if we did not anchor it on solid moorings.
And I was reminded of these lines wriietn in the XVII century by William Collins
“But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.”
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 6, 2008 | Uncategorized
”We want to preserve their childhood days so that tomorrow if they ever want to see how they were, where they were, they could easily get to see those precious moments. We gift a CD to the parents of the adopted child,” says Madhuri Abhyankar, Director, Sofosh Orphanage.
This is a new initiative launched by an orphanage is an extremely sensitive and a step in the right direction. Adopted children often have the desire to know where they came from, what happened to them, why their natural parents abandoned them and so on.
Childhood needs to be preserved as nothing is worse than not knowing, even the if the truth is harsh. I wonder though how a child would feel of he or she finds out that it was left at a doorstep, in a garbage dump, at a railway station or simply to die. This is the case in India today.
A touching comment on a recent post says: Our 6 year old daughter was a 7 day old foundling left abandoned with a note in the train station at Kattack. Our 12 year old daughter was abandoned after birth at St. Ann’s Hospital in Kumbakonam. I often wonder if their birth mothers ever think of them, wonder about them, worry for them, if they realize what they gave up. I pray that these were the last desperate acts of desperate women hoping that their child might possibly have a better lot in life and not just the disposing of an unwanted commodity.
In a country where life is cheap and the life of a baby girl even more so, where babies are sold for a few farthings for nefarious ends, one wonders how many children do reach orphanages and how many are condemned to lives with no hope of escape? And yet no matter how sordid one’s past, there is a journey everyone has to make at some time of his or her life.
These memories frozen on some digital media will undoubtedly one day heal many hearts
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 5, 2008 | two indias
The last few days have been terribly hot. The mercury has touched 43 degrees Celsius and is still rising.
Most of us have retreated into the comfort of our homes or working places cooled with ACs and desert coolers and barely venture out. TV programmes urge us to take adequate measures to beat dehydration: electrolytes, cool drinks and watch for warning signs and call the doctor if need be.
If we feel bored we drive in an air conditioned car to an air conditioned mall or movie hall or even take time off to head to the hills or cooler climes in faraway lands though the terrible heat is still a good cocktail party conversation piece.
Yet here is an India just at our doorstep that has no option but to carry on irrespective of the sweltering heat. We do see them as we zip pass in our air conditioned cars and yet never look at them as one of us. Next time you take a trip in your car do take time to look through your window. You will see people who are out in the heat no mater what as if they were to stay home their families would go hungry: the construction workers, the ice cream vendor, the balloon vendor and his shrill whistle, the corner cobbler, the vegetable vendor pushing his cart on hot tared roads his feet protected by flimsy sandals and whose parched throat can barely call out, the water vendor who quenches other people’s thirst; the countless person who are daily wagers and cannot afford a single day off. The very ones that disturb us and that we want to wish away and hide behind walls.
And if you think that they do not concern you, think again many of them make our own lives more comfortable: the delivery boy who cycles in the heat to get you what you need at that very instant, the electrician or repair man who has to come by when your cooler stops working and s so many others who form part of that invisible India we chose to ignore and want to wish away.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 4, 2008 | fostercare, two indias
The furore created of US President Bush’s recent tirade on the growing appetite of middle class India as the cause of the global food crisis is understandable as it is a blow well below the belt. And many will take up the gauntlet and give befitting answers. This post is not meant to do that.
The battle royale that is now splashed all over the media set me thinking in an entirely different direction. Pwhy has made me aware of many things that earlier did not hold my attention. One of them is the amount of food wasted be it in rich, middle class or poor India. Sadly it seems to be one of the few common denominators that bind all sections of urban India.
Peep into the garbage discarded after any wedding and you will find enough food to feed many hungry souls. Walk into any wedding, party or religious festival and you will find many half finished plates pushed under the tables or dropped into the big plastic containers kept for dirty plates. Look at any one serving him or herself at the buffet table and you will be astonished by the quantity of food piled up on their plate. We are a nation that almost prides ourselves at throwing food.
Every day as I walk the tiny lane of our centre there is food thrown on the street and in every garbage pile no matter how small. This how our very own Manu fed himself for many years: rummaging garbage piles.
In a land where food is equated to God and disrespect to it is considered a sin, this new found frenzy of throwing food is uncanny. Is it a way of asserting that one has finally arrived, reached, bettered one’s self? I wonder. As a child I was taught very early to respect food and not throw it away. My mother after numerous pleas and entreaties put a stop to my habit of leaving food in my plate in a rather harsh but effective manner: the leftover plate was put into a fridge and put in front of me at every subsequent meal. The battle of wits between a 6 year old and her mother lasted two and half days. The hunger oangs made me eat that congealed food as if it was manna from the Gods. Needless to say that since I have not thrown any food away.
Last week there was a party in the lane behind our house. The next morning we found vast quantities of food thrown in the lane. It could have fed over 100 kids. That was rich India. he same week I scolded one of the foster care kids for not finishing his plate. Pat came the answer: my mod allows me to throw what I do not finish. That is poor India.
And yet we all complain about the spiraling rise of food prices.
Food for thought….
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 4, 2008 | Uncategorized
Rakhee was one of our brightest little sparks. She had first come to us almost 4 years back when she was about 2 year old. Her story is one of total hopelessness and despair. When you hear it you may feel that is a one in a kind but sadly it is the story of many little girls in this land. It is also one that shows that in spite of our best efforts, there are times when we stand helpless.
Rakhee’s father is a construction labourer, one of the millions who flock into India’s capital in search of work. We first met her when her father got work on a site close to our project. They had pitched a small shack on the road and though we passed that way every morning we never saw her.
One day one of our teachers walked into the office quite agitated and told us about a pregnant woman who seemed to have a broken arm and yet carried heavy loads all the time. The woman was Asha; she was not more than 16. She was 8 months pregnant and her arm had been broken by her drunk husband and never attended to. It had just set on its own.
We did take her to the hospital but were told that nothing could be done.We looked after her and fed her emaciated body as best we could. Rakhee joiner our creche. A few weeks later Preeti was born. Asha told us her story: orphaned at a young age she was brought up in an uncle and aunt who married her off to the first man they found. He drank, gambled and beat her with obsessive regularity. He made her work too but there was never enough money to eat.
For some time we helped the family as best we could and even gave Asha a job but nothing truly changed. Preeti grew up in our creche and we got attached to her. But things remained the same in her home and no matter what we tried nothing changed.
One day the little girl stopped coming. We heard that they had shifted to another site. A few months later Asha came back carrying her two kids and told us hat her husband was in jail as he had been caught selling hooch. Once again we helped her and the little girls came back to project why. Rakhee was ready for class I and we were hoping to admit her to regular school. The husband was released and we even gave him some work hoping that it would bring some respite to the family. We were aghast when we heard that Asha was pregnant again but then did we not live in a land where everyone wanted a son. Blissfully the next child was a boy.
But the story did not end there. Once again the family disappeared. Another job on another site. Rakhee was never put in school. She joined the ranks of the thousands of kids that sit on road side while their parents work on the innumerable construction sites that have sprung in our city to make it world class!
Some time back we got news of the family via a surreptitious phone call made by Asha to one of the teachers. She was pregnant again and had been brutally beaten by the police and even kicked in her stomach, as she was caught selling hooch. Her husband made her do that forcibly while he gambled and drank.
We tried to call her to find out where she was but the wily husband had changed his phone number.
Little Rakhee and her siblings are somewhere in this city in state despair and misery and we have no way to reach out to them.
At timea like these I feel totally utterly powerless.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 3, 2008 | fostercare
If you look at Vicky you would think of him as a very quiet and obedient kid. Butter would not melt in his mouth as the saying goes. The reality is quite different as the teachers at the foster care discovered.
Vicky belongs to an extremely poor family and being the youngest boy and the only abled one he has been spoilt silly by a doting but totally illiterate mother. His father a rickshaw puller is barely at home and Vicky was often left to itself playing with older children in the slum, and learning all he wrong things.
It does not take long to change ways in the harsh reality of a slum. We have seen it happen with Babli’s brother Ramu, one of our brightest kids some time back when he was still in primary school. We had a lot of hopes riding on him but they all shattered as Ramu got into the wrong company. Today he barely attends school and has started gambling and other nefarious activities. It does not take long for the slums to take you down.
That is maybe one of the reasons that I held on to the foster care programme in spite of all the criticism and warnings. Maybe, if we took the kids at he right age we would be able to change their lives. Easily said than done.
Vicky the Angel with a halo when we are around turns into a unmanageable brat once our back turned. He has been driving the staff up the walls and also instigating his pals to rebellion. At night when all are meant to sleep, the double life of Mr V begins. Plans are whispered using words that would make a sailor blush. Mostly about what would be done to us once they grow up: I will plant a knife in them whispers Vicky while the others nod. Who do they think they are these ***** and so on. All this heard by he teacher pretending to sleep.
When we confronted Vicky, he just kept quiet, his head bowed, butter would not melt…
Next day we called his father to tell him that if Vicky’s attitude did not change we would be compelled to send him back as he also refused to study. It was heart breaking to see the father’s face as he implored us to keep his son. He simply said that were he to go back to the slums he would become even worse as the environment was not conducive to any child’s proper growth.
We have of course agreed to keep him for the time being. Could we do anything else.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 2, 2008 | two indias
Next time you see a woman clutching a baby pounding at your car window, pleading for a few rupees to save or feed her child, think twice before you roll the window down and hand them to her. The child may have been sold to a begging gang.
A baby sale racket was bust in Delhi a few days back. New born babies were being sold at prices ranging from 50 to 100 000 Rupees. These were often children of young unwed mothers, helped by a solicitous midwife the kingpin of the gang. Children were delivered in slums and hence no one was the wiser. The mother was paid a paltry sum. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Wonder how many such racket exist?
The racket is perfected to the T. The baby often drugged looks miserable. A filthy feeding bottle is often held by the so called mother, or at times the baby’s head is bandaged in ways that would beat the best make up artist. The mother delivers her rehearsed lines with the aplomb of an actor, facial expressions and whine in attendance. Have you ever thought why there is no maternal feeling in her eyes or body language? Have you ever wondered what the baby goes through under he scorching sun or in the biting cold
A few months back I had read an article that said that babies were hired to beggars in Mumbai at a hourly rate. Have you ever wondered what the baby goes through under the scorching sun or in the biting cold or pouring rain?
Yesterday in a very up market school in Delhi a whole class was punished for some misdemeanour. The punishment was to have them study two whole days in a classroom without fan or lights. The outside temperature was 42.6 degree Celsius. Needless to say everyone was up in arms: parents, activists and even the Chairperson of the National Commission for Children was seen on national TV defending the rights of children with vehemence. Wonder why she does not see the hundreds of children that are seen begging at every street light in Delhi or is it once against simply yet another tale of two Indias.
Next time you see a woman begging with a child, think twice before you dip into your pocket!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 1, 2008 | Uncategorized
A glittering report was aired yesterday about the new home of one of India’s richest man. Quite a home: 27 floors, 400 000 square feet of space, bathrooms as big as flats, private cinema theatre, gyms and juice bars, 4 floors for parking and all for one family! At a whopping two billion dollars it is the world’s most expensive home!
In another part of the same country Jyoti lives with her family and neighbours in a slum. Her home has 80 square feet and no bathroom or kitchen but is her home and she has made the best of what she has: a little shelf displaying some steel crockery- remains of her dowry-, few plastic decoration pieces bought at the local china bazaar, a little TV that brings the world into her home and lots of smiles and giggles as she proudly shows her dog eared photo album.
A few years back when we still were running a centre at the Lohar basti – the gypsy camp – little Ritu a spunky 3 year old whose house was one of the last ones of the camp was often given the task of showing her home to visitors. She lived in a shack covered by a tarpaulin where one corner was filled with rags as her father a ironmonger by trade often picked rags to supplement his income. The dwelling has one large bed piled with clothes, a small rickety cupboard and not much else. It was dark, dingy and humid. I remember a day when I asked her to show her ‘home’ to a friend who had come by. Ritu the ever confident kid, bearing the age old pride of her clan firmly took my friends hand in hers and holding on to her slipping pant with the other marched off. We followed her. As she reached the entrance of her home she said with the confidence of a queen in a loud and clear voice and a regal gesture: Yeh Hai! – This is it-, as if her home was a palace!
And what was heart warming and wrenching at the same time is that it was she felt. This was her home, a place she loved and where she had spent happy moments. The visit was not over. She invited us in, cleared the bed, made us sit and set out to give us a tour of the place. She opened the cupboard and showed off her clothes and those of her parents and then looking for her mom simply said: chai banao – make some tea!
Needless to say we were all moved to tears as millions of questions begging for answers ran through our mind begging for answers. Why were people still living like this in a country that boasted it was shining!
Strange that this incident should come back to my mind today after seeing images of the most expensive home in the world. I simply wonder whether the richest family can ever feel the same pride that the little gypsy girl.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 1, 2008 | Uncategorized
Had Popples not come into my life, Dear Popples would never have seen the light of day. The young man you see in the picture look nothing like the bundle swathed in bandages, his huge eyes filled in pain who walked into my heart on a March morning in 2002. This one looks more like the pasha – read hero – he wants to be.
Yet Popples changed my life in more ways than one. He taught me hope, love in its purest form, survival no matter how dark the hole you are in is, but above all he became the mirror that showed me who I was, what I had become, and how I could change with time.
Popples makes dreams come true, even very old ones, those you have forgotten or even relegated to some dark recess of your mind as they seem ludicrous and even absurd.
I must have been 15 or or so when I first read Bonjour Tristesse, by Francoise Sagan and as luck would have it I read it sitting on the terrace of a Latin Quarter in Paris. The book not only had the kind of story that would make any young girl swoon, but was written when the author was 17 and has failed her end of school exam. That was the time I think I first dreamt of writing a book!
But books need stories, the kind that wrench your heart and soul, the kind that ring true, the kind that touch others and my life seemed dull and almost jaded. And whatever creativity a young mind could have had, was quickly silenced by the monotony of life.
But dreams do not die. They just wait patiently for the right moment to resurface, even if the right moment is light years ahead. Popples was the catalyst that brought the discarded dream back to life.
My publishers have categorized it as fiction: inspirational and I am deeply grateful for dreams belong to that realm, or do they? I think Abhigyan and Mrinal have put in words as only they can, what I have always felf but never been able to say:
To accept the real is not to accept that it is perfect. Reality is like clay. It is the starting point and not the end of things. At the beginning of the race all runners are at zero. Reality. One goes on to win. He changes reality. Shapes reality. Those who fail – accept that reality and start again on a fresh race. Everyone is back on the starting block. Reality waits to be shaped again. The race is long. And it is continuous. Every moment reality awaits our turn to shape it. To deny it is to escape into wishful inaction. To simply accept it is to stay at the starting block forever. Only way forward is to run.
When our stories become ordinary and the ordinary becomes a virtue; then virtue itself becomes ordinary and the only extraordinary thing left is murder and mayhem. For it is easy to ignore daily goodness like helping someone cross the street but crushing someone on the same street under speeding wheels is bound to generate more interest. At least in these cynical times. Which is why it is the job of stories to exemplify and exaggerate goodness.
Goodness is not sticky when it is mundane. Murder is.
If we want a society of goodness, kindness, compassion, courage and excellence we must tell stories of extraordinary goodness, compassion and excellence. And the extraordinarily good, kind, compassionate and courageous is called a hero.
We are all ordinary but it is the stories of our heroes that inspire us to rise above the ordinary when the moment demands. Without heroes, with the ordinary grey protagonist, all we find are echoes of our own fallible, flawed selves and when the moment calls – the hero within us fails to stir because all he has experienced in life as well as imagination are defeat, despair, fallibility and flaws. When the forces of murder and mayhem confront us in their dark, blacker than Black colour, we are choked in our throats with grey balls of fear and apprehension while the white light of courage and conviction ebbs away from our heart like the blood from our veins.
There are no heroes in life when there are no heroes in our stories.
For life is a story. The story!
Anouradha & Popples’ is an extraordinary story. More so because they have lived it.
Abhigyan and Mrinal Jha
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 30, 2008 | Uncategorized
I must have been quite young when I first heard about dream catchers. As a kid it was comforting to believe that there was something that ensured that only good dreams came your way while bad ones slipped out. Someone had given me a dream catcher and I felt comforted having it hanging above my bed.
I soon grew up and the delicate dream catcher got lost as we moved from continent to continent and I forgot about it. It was only yesterday when I heard that Dear Popples was published that I suddenly remembered the dream catcher of my childhood.
The lore of the dream catcher is beautiful.
Long ago when the word was sound, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and searcher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider
took the elder’s willow hoop which had feathers, horse hairs, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web. He spoke of the cycles of life….how we begin as infants and move on to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age where we must be taken care of once again as infants, thereby completing the life cycle.
Iktomi said, “In each time of life there are many forces and choices made that can affect the harmony of nature, and interfere with the Great Spirit and all of his wonderful teachings.” Iktomi gave the web to the Lakota elder and said, “See, the web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will catch your good dreams and ideas – – and the bad ones will go through the hole.
When I look back at the past few years I am sure that an invisible dream catcher hung over my life helping me make the right choices or how else would all that has come my way happen? But dream catchers are not just about choices and ideas; they are also about dreams. And though I hardly have dreams about myself, one seems to have got caught in some remote corner of the web: that of dear popples being published!
The Great Spirit thought otherwise and set his own wheel in motion and knowing that I would never find the time, the way, the force, the motivation to keep this dream alive, entrusted my dream to someone else. That was Abhigyan a true dream maker!
You do not thank Great Spirits and dream makers. You simply feel blessed that they came your way.
