by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 30, 2008 | Uncategorized
If two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 18:19
Thus quotes the Bible and these words were sent to me by the one who made my dream come true. Dear Popples’s genesis began much before Popples himself came into this world. It actually began as a dream of a teenager growing in the sixties a time when everything seemed possible. It began in the head of a girl fed and overfed on books that were the sole form of escape of a lonely child growing up in different lands amidst too many adults. It began in the absurd dreams of a young girl sitting at cafe terraces in Paris imagining herself to be a writer.
Then life took over and decades went by but the dream did not. It sprung back on a summer day when the girl now an ageing woman came across a little child who was to redefine her life and stumble upon who she really was. The dream that had laid in waiting sprung up again and took the shape of a sheaf of haphazard paper where she poured out her heart and soul. But dreams as the Bible says need two people to make it come true as does creation. Where was the other half of the dream.
For many months the sheaf of papers lay in the recess of a drawer; it was sometimes taken out and shared with someone or the other but it quietly slid back into what seemed to have become its resting place. Then one day something impelled her to take it out, clean it up and begin the daunting task of finding the other half.
The rest is history. True that there were the needed string of rejections but those just made her more obstinate till the day someone miles away responded positively; the other half had been unearthed. Dear Popples had emerged from its dark abode into the light and the dream had come true.
I have never met Abhigyan Jha, my publisher, in person but somehow I feel I have known him for a stretch of time that transcends all spatial-temporal laws and defies logic and what I feel is not just gratitude but again something that cannot be expressed in words. I know he understands
Soon dear Popples will be for all to read and I must confess I am terrified.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 30, 2008 | Uncategorized
I was recently sent a link by a friend about a new library fad: borrow not a book but a person and an interesting link to a comment on this new fad!
A lot of food for thought.
I sent this link to many friends and one of them said the following: we will soon begin to barter ideas and expertise on a peer to peer / person to person basis as that would be the only validation for being human and worthwhile.
you will not need a gardener to do the garden or mow the lawn – you will need him for his insight and creativity – the manual labor ill shift to robots and automatons.
which is all the more reason to educate our children about the conceptual reality if life. that we are nothing if we don’t create products of the mind. it can be values. it can be ideas, processes, products, advice, conscience, friendship, talk, coaching, teaching, storytelling, experience sharing – whatever but it has to come from the mind.
he goes on to add: we are human because we use our mind. period. the sooner we stop talking about the dignity of labor and start making it clear to everyone that there is no option to using our mind to create value which others might want to partake of – the better for everyone. otherwise we are going to see the kind of income inequality that we have never seen before.
Even in the parts of India where there is no food on the table – there is a mobile phone. and it’s almost free to use. Lifetime Free. and what do people do on the mobile phone – they talk. and why would the poorest need a mobile phone. because even for them talking, sharing, communicating is more important than just eating. the hunger of the mind is a bigger necessity than the hunger of the stomach.
His approach seem a little bewildering at first but of you stop a and think, what he says is true and what is alarming is that for once the two Indias’s hearts seem to be beating in unison. They are both spinning unconsciously towards a dystopic view of the world where the power of the mind is losing its importance.
When I was a young girl growing up in the mad sixties I saw Fahrenheit 451, a mind blowing movie by Francois Truffaut: a story about a society where books are banned and have to be burnt! A bunch of old men decide to memorise them so that they are not lost forever. The film end on a bitter sweet optimistic note: the said society is destroyed and a new one is about to be created: their first task is to build mirror factories, a literary allusion, to show people who they are, what they have become, and how they can change with time and knowledge.
Borrowing a person in a library seems akin to the Bradbury’s soft science fiction novella. And are we today slowly but surely moving towards the self destruction of our dystopic society.
On a more optimistic note I would love to borrow the idea and create a library where one could borrow people who still have in the recesses of their memories stories about the past, the traditions, the mores , the of forgotten and never documented anecdotes that threaten to be lost forever. A few years back DV Sridharan the creator of GoodnewsIndia began a series titled memory speaks. I remember having written a few pieces that had been told to me by my mother when I was still a child. Some were amusing others thought provoking and all in need to be preserved before memory failed. The series sadly stopped. Today’s new fad brought it back to me. I guess I too was a person that was once borrowed!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 28, 2008 | Uncategorized
If we Indians could take off our minds, eyes and ears from silly slaps by overpaid cricketing heroes and ensuing debates about the quantum of retribution; or stop debating about the appropriateness of the dresses imported and highly paid cheer leaders should or or should not wear – wonder who would pay for the new ones – ; or the inconvenience created by a new transport system, we would be compelled to see the horror that has been and is enfolding around us in the past few days.
Two baby girls are found abandoned in our own city, one barely a few hours old. A 12 year old is raped by a cop, a 5 year old by a so called uncle, a 36 months old by a relative and his friends, a 7 year old by another neighbour. 5 rapes of children and no one bats an eye lid.
Yesterday the prime Minister of India addressed a meeting on “save the girl child”. Time someone did: the latest figures are alarming, the sex ratio is declining: 927 to 1000 is the all India figure, 782 to 1000 is South Delhi’s figure. According to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, there 100 million missing girls!
The PM made one valid comment: But it is not government alone that can address this problem. Though Government must be active in mobilizing public opinion in this regard. We need active civil society involvement in the national campaign to save the girl child.
This should make us stop and think. The startling figures of South Delhi are ample proof of the fact that we cannot any more brush the problem under the carpet and say that this only affects rural areas or the ‘poor’ as we like calling a large part of our own land. Rest assured we many not be guilty of throwing our new born baby in a dump or leaving her on a doorstep. We have the resources to beat he law and kill her before she is born.
I have often written about the plight of he girl child based on what I have seen around me. I remember a letter written to a child that died in the womb of her mother, or the post written on one of the days when India worships little girls. One must not forget that we are the greatest worshipers of the female form and energy and yet we kill, rape and abuse little girls with impunity. Is it not time to look at ourselves in a mirror with honesty. We all pay lip service to the save the girl child appeals, even make it our cocktail banter of the day and yet we are the ones that surreptitiously ask the name of the local doctor willing to perform a sex determination test for our pregnant daughter in law, whatever the cost!
The poor have another recipe: they keep producing daughters till the male child arrives or the mother stops being able to bear children. I have known of families where there are 11 girls and one boy! I am not going to go into the plight of the girl child, I think we all are aware of it. This post is meant to try and address the problem that is now alarming.
What is it that makes us abandon baby girls? This trend is of course more prevalent with the poor. The question is simple: a girl means marriage that means money in vast quantities. Boys are an investment they can bring all the coveted things; girls a drain because you are the one to pay for the coveted things. All laws banning dowry have failed. The demands are getting larger by the day. Even in slums people talk of cars. One of our teachers who is not very pretty and a bit plum and now 26 remains unmarried as her family cannot afford the Honda Accord that was asked! In states like Bihar it is hard cash. Our rickshaw driver married his daughter to a much older man because the dowry was only 100 000 rupees plus the cost of the wedding where there were 500 guests! The girl is just 18. So the simplistic solution would be rather than give the girls child cash incentives for her marriage as many of the proposed government schemes do, give cash incentives to those who spend little and give no dowry!
But things run much deeper: we are dealing with customs and mores and age long religious diktats and decrees that no politician would want to touch. And let us not forget the law applies to all so who wants to be deprived the right of a lavish wedding for his or her own child. Some of the latest trends are galling: helicopters for the bridegroom, international starts to perform and food imported from the world over and then thrown away as the display itself gives visual indigestion. So I ask are we really serious about saving the girl child.
As for child rape it is something beyond my comprehension in spite of the fact that child abuse is rampant even in he best of homes. Does it come from our so called prudish attitudes a legacy as was aptly said by someone of Victorian England as are we not the land of the Kama Sutra. And the only thing that could protect children – though maybe not 2 years old – would be a healthy sex education programme, but that is rabidly opposed by our politicians! Child abuse, far too often perpetrated within homes is protected by the code of silence and honour, something that has to stop.
Maybe it is time we looked at ourselves with honesty and bluntness and answered some disturbing questions even if it makes each one of us look pathetic and ask ourselves what we can do to save the girl child that leaves every moment of her life amidst unknown yet terrifying fears.
I will end this post with the words of Alan Beck:
“A girl is innocence playing in mud,
Beauty standing on its head,
And motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.”
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 24, 2008 | fostercare
The world celebrated earth day this week. Wonder why as nothing seems to shake us from the state of catatonic stupor that makes us oblivious to the reality that surrounds us in spite of all media reports, activists’ pleas and terrifying figures thrown at us each day.
In recent days everyone has been harping about escalating food prices and a lot of government bashing has been going on. No one seems to realise that things are going to get worse and that the main culprit in this real life whodunit is each one of us.
A recent news report stated the following
Steady fall in food supply across the world due to stagnation in farm output.Climate change threatens to worsen food insecurity in the world’s poorest regions.
Rising temperatures will affect crop yields in 40 developing countries.
Global warming will increase food prices by 40 per cent.
But we still remain unconcerned and unaware. What is alarming is the quantum of food wasted in our country not only by the rich, but by the poor itself. In villages leftover food is fed to the cattle but in urban slums it is simply thrown on the streets! One of the hallmarks of success or status symbol seem to have become food wastage. Every garbage pile in the poorest of slums is always replete with left over food fit for consumption. People tend to pile up their plates and unabashedly throw what they cannot finish.
When we chided one of the children at the foster care about not finishing his plate, pat came the answer: I never finish it at home! What no one seems to understand is that food shortage is going to hit us sooner than we think. And it is not the government but we ourselves who are to blame. Our total neglect of the environment and hidden economic agendas are the real baddies here.
car. Feeble attempts at promoting common transport seem to go unheeded as it is Land once uses for food is now used for land depleting but pocket filling cash crops. The escalating number of farmer’s suicide in India seems to leave us cold as we are busy increasing our carbon footsteps with misplaced alacrity. Families have not one, not two but cars in double digits. Motorbikes have replaced cycles and will soon be replaced by the much heralded nano believed that almost 1500 cars are added each day on the already choking roads of Delhi!
Trees are felled to make place for these cars, open spaces converted to make way for concrete jungles. The show just goes on. Huge malls that are avid gobblers of energy are replacing smaller shops. India is in the move and the yet inaudible cried of the earth are quietened by the roars of the progress.
Every decision we make affects climate change and this moving documentary urges us to make the right choice.
As I see things around me, I a reminded of the words of Jim Morisson writen in the sixties but that seems so true in our times:
What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down
When the Music is – Over The Doors
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 24, 2008 | okhla
Temperatures have almost touched 40 C this week. The heat is on. In many of our centres children sit in makeshift classes.
Okhla is one such centre. Normally the children sit in the outer place under a tent. But yesterday a bunch of drunks soiled the entire space and in spite of heavy cleaning a lots of phenol poured the smell was unbearable and the kids had to shift to the inside room under a hot tin roof. The fan blew hot air and the place was blistering. But this did not deter the kids for coming for class and studying.
I am always amazed at thirst for knowledge that the pwhy kids have. Nothing compels them to come to us and they already spent many hours in school. But come the appointed time and sometimes even before, they are at the door step, bag in hand rearing to go. Seems like they know that this is the only way they can accede to some education.
It is sad but nevertheless a reality that the present state run education is a total failure. The state of municipal and government schools is deplorable. In Delhi capital city many have no desks, no chairs, no fans, no teachers, no drinking water, no proper toilets! Wonder what they have?
Every Indian child has a right to free education till the age of 14 and yet again the government has failed them. Some like our Okhla kids know that the hot tin roof is at present their only option!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 24, 2008 | Uncategorized
There is a mural being painted on the walls of project why. It is truly one of a kind as it is a collaboration between two worlds in more ways than one.
Joe is from Arizona. He is a well established artist with a huge heart and a bigger smile. He has his own website and his string of clients. Rinky is a young 18 year old hearing impaired girl from a Delhi slum, an artist at heart but also a true survivor and one whose thirst for knowledge is unquenchable. A trained beautician and hairdresser who can give you a mean haircut in the most unlikely location. Just a few days back she got a brand new hearing aid and is now in a frenzy to make up for lost time and join the big new world of those who can hear and speak!
When Joe came to project why it did not take time for the two artists to connect in a warm bond that did not need words. Joe somehow became the mentor Rinky was looking for.
The stairwell of project why has been looking forlorn fro some time in spite of our best attempts and we decided that we needed a mural there. The two artists have set to task however there is one proviso: mural work only on Tuesdays which are Rinky ‘s off days from her beauty parlour where she works in the afternoon.
The theme has been decided: animals walking up the stairs and I must say the artists have done a lot of work in just a day. Now the tiger, the elephant and the giraffe are patiently waiting for next Tuesday to dawn.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 21, 2008 | fostercare
Whenever I have had the slightest doubt about the judiciousness of having begun the foster care programme though as many know it was a case of force majeure something has occurred to validate that decision and blow way the once held doubts.
A simple meal was enough to prove that the children were happy and Manu’s joy is visible in more ways then one. But there is still a long way to go.
Many still feel that taking young children away from their homes to give them a better chance in life is not quite the right thing to do. This kind of reaction does often come from those who do not know the situation that prevails in India. The most startling and heinous example of thsi is the present baby swapping case where none of the set of parents wants the baby girl! A DNA test has been ordered by the Court but even though it will determine who the biological parent of the girl is, she will never be truly wanted and one wonders what her life will be like.
Aditya, Vicky, Babli and Nikhil did not have a great future in heir homes even if they did have parents who loved them as best they could. Next year of all goes well they will be in boarding school. Another decision that many think is not the best. But a recent incident did rest some of my doubts.
Last Sunday Xavier went to visit Utpal. The children were busy playing and quite thrilled to see Xavier as they all ran up to him and smothered him with hugs and words. All eyes were of course on the fancy biscuit packet he held and once it was handed over to Uptal they all surrounded him each professing to be his best pal or even his brother. Soon Xavier was forgotten and the little band busy planning the next move.
Utpal the survivor decreed that the box would be opened by Dolly Ma’am. The kids spent some time talking to Xavier but one could feel that they were raring to dash off to look for Dolly Ma’am.
Utpal is the same kid who once lived a lonely and abysmal life. He is the same child who was packed to an unknown place at the tender age of four and who cried his heart out each time we went to see him and had to leave. And today he barely has time for us so busy is he with his pals, his ma’ams and his school.
I know our little pioneers of the foster care will be just like him. So never mind the occasional doubts, there is a whole new world waiting!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 20, 2008 | Uncategorized
As we were travelling last week across Delhi to show our the planet why land to some friends our vehicle often stopped courtesy the mind boggling traffic jam that Delhi is experiencing these days with the construction frenzy that seems to have taken over our city.
At many of these stops the children of constructions workers waived at us with broad smiles and innocent faces. These kids live in the tiny tents pitched around the sites. They are often brought from far away states by exploitative contractors who find these new migrants easier to manipulate than the local ones. They live under abysmal conditions and barely get enough to eat. Their children never go to school. The average of children in these families is 4 and soon they join the ranks of child labour so rampant in our shining capital city.
Each of these kids will be left without education and will follow the pattern of their parents: early marriage and multiple children who will in turn remain illiterate and so on. It is not difficult to imagine the multiplier effect on the population of India.
According to the HRD Ministry’s own figures, almost 90 per cent of India’s children drop out of school and never even make it to higher education. In the light of this the situation starts looking apocalyptic and India will remain the country with the largest numbers of illiterate in the world.
All education policies have failed and the state of government run schools is deplorable. While political honchos are busy redefining creamy layers of so called backward communities, children are simply dropping out. One of the so called solutions often proffered is to privatise education. This is absurd in a land where the Constitution guarantees free education and compulsory education to all children between the age of 6 and 14. (86th amendment).
The plight of India’s children is lamentable. Here are some facts from the 7th All India Education Survey, 2002
- Less than half of India’s children between the age 6 and 14 go to school.
- A little over one-third of all children who enroll in grade one reach grade eight.
- At least 35 million children aged 6 – 14 years do not attend school.
- 53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate.
- In India, only 53% of habitation has a primary school.
- In India, only 20% of habitation has a secondary school.
- On an average an upper primary school is 3 km away in 22% of areas under habitations.
- In nearly 60% of schools, there are less than two teachers to teach Classes I to V.
- On an average, there are less than three teachers per primary school. They have to manage classes from I to V every day.
- High cost of private education and need to work to support their families and little interest in studies are the reasons given by 3 in every four drop-outs as the reason they leave.
- Dropout rates increase alarmingly in class III to V, its 50% for boys, 58% for girls.
- 1 in 40, primary school in India is conducted in open spaces or tents.
- More than 50 per cent of girls fail to enroll in school; those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12. 50% of Indian children aged 6-18 do not go to school.
Think about it.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 19, 2008 | fostercare
I had written a post a long time back when I had been touched by a simple unexpected gesture coming from a little boy. One does not expect such acts by children belonging to what is called poor homes! And yet one does need to be born in a manor to have impeccable manners.
Yesterday morning Xavier and I went to the foster care to share a cup of tea with the children. AS we arrived they has just finished breakfast and we pulled up two chairs and set with them. Soon the tea arrived. Manu who sat as usual at tho head of the table was a tad fidgety and one could not fathom why as he has been all smiles since he has moved into his own place!
Before I go on I must explain to you the lay out of the veranda of the foster care. In the center there is a dining table and in one corner are two easy chairs with a coffee table.
After a while Manu got up and walked to the easy chairs. He cleaned the table with his hand and then gestured to xavier to come and sit in one of them. As I was busy talking he loudly called out Ma’am yahan a (ma’am come here) pointing to the other chair. I did as told and carried my cup of tea with me. He then pulled up a dining chair and sat with us a huge smile on his face.
Manu has spent most of his 36 years roaming the streets. He was what one may call a beggar. His own family was rather uncouth and coarse and most of the people who crossed his path were the same. Yet the day he gets a home, Manu the mentally and physically challenged soul behaves like a perfect host!
I wonder what it takes to be to the manor born!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 18, 2008 | Uncategorized
Tommy can you hear me sang the Who in their famous rock opera way back in 1970! Soon we at project why will be singing Rinky, Saheda, Pooja can your hear us! These were the words of an earlier blog written about four months back.
Today we are singing with pride and emotion: Rinky, Saheeda, Pooja can hear us! Yesterday they were fitted with their brand new digital hearing aids and could hear for the first time in their lives! There have been many blessed moments in the project why story but this one was one of a kind.
Rinky, Saheeda and Pooja are fantastic girls. With help from no one they learnt to get over their impairment and not simply survive but live life to its fullest. Rinky today works part time in a beauty parlour and has her very own clients! Saheeda is multi talented and will soon be starting training as a beautician. Little Pooja is endearing, bright and full of potential. They have all evolved their own sign language and can communicate with any and everyone and are all mean dancers who can fool anyone as nobody would believe that their perfect steps are done to music they cannot hear.
When they were fitted with their hearing aids they were first perplexed but then all smiles as they heard their very first sound. We are all moved to tears. However we know that this is just the very first step and there is a long way to go. They will need to learn to make sense of what for quite some time will just be incomprehensible noise disrupting their once silent world.
It maybe easier for little Pooja as she is still young, but for the older ones the journey will be an arduous one, with frustrating moments and we will have to be with them all the way. But somehow I know that these three exceptional girls will overcome all obstacles and come out as winners.
Today they spent a long time with two wonderful souls Jo and Dagmar who started on the thrilling journey of teaching them basic sound. It was moving to see them try and voice the sound that come so easily to us but that often became simple shrieks or groans. Yet they kept smiling and trying as if they were driven by a frenzy to make up for so many lost years.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 18, 2008 | Uncategorized
It is a sad but unequivocal reality that there exists two Indias. In spite of all talk of unity and integration the truth is that we are a fractured society in strange and multiple permutations and combinations. There are the rich and the poor; the ones that speak English and those who do not; the one that belong to one caste or the other; the rural and the urban; the traditional and the modern; the ones that belong to one faith or another. The list in not only endless but mind boggling as it follows no logic at all but seems to suit different vested interests at different times!
I am still watching with utter helplessness the building of the 2 kilometer wall that will soon encircle the homes of many of our kids and that is being erected to block out the slum dwellers from their middle class neighbours! Wonder what it will take to see this wall fall. In Satara it took a threat of suicide by 100 dalit families and three years to bring down a 150 meter wall that was erected to confine them to one part of the village.
In both cases the wall was built by a court order!
Even policies meant to bridge differences turn out to be quite farcical as they too tend to crate further walls and often seem to be steered by hidden political agendas as is the case with the present debate on the creamy layer that is undoubtedly giving many a sleepless night to politicians.
Yesterday for the first time I traveled in a luxury tourist bus coach. We were taking some friends to see our plot of land. To my utter dismay I found another wall! The driver’s cabin was separated by a glass door from the rest of the coach. The coach was air conditioned to almost freezing temperature but the driver’s cabin was not. It simply had a small fan and was incredibly hot. I was shocked to say the least as to my mind it is in the drivers hand -quite literally – that lay the safety of his passengers and not having a door would have made scant difference in the comfort of the passengers.
There are walls everywhere, visible or invisible!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 17, 2008 | Uncategorized
This painting is one of a set sold by Iride, an Italian artist, to help sustain project why. I have never met Iride and she has never visited project why. She came to know about it through a volunteer who spent a few weeks with us.
Of all the paintings that she sent, this one entitled Donna touched me the most. Somehow it depicted the sum and substance of project why: an eternal quest for answers to all disturbing questions that come our way. The painting in its evocative strokes spells hope and belief. The faceless donna represents to my mind all those still waiting for a better morrow.
Iride is also one of those wonderful souls that have reached to help project why without finding it imperative to check antecedents, balance sheets etc. She was just touched by what she heard and maybe saw through pictures and followed her heart.
Donna also symbolises all the hearts the world over who have reached out and helped us all along. I am often asked, usually by the media, where our funds come from. The answer all expect is some well defined and established entity: an organisation or institution. But that is not the case with project why and I am often at a loss to find the words to explain the source of my funds as they come from the heart something that seems to have become terribly unfamiliar in the world we live in. They ask for numbers but how can I make them understand that a tiny amount or a huge one has the same value when it comes from the heart.
Iride’s painting touched my heart!
You can see some of her other paintings here
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 16, 2008 | two indias
India is a strange brew of hope and despair. It has often been defined as unity and diversity. Sadly I hardly see the unity but thank heaven there is some form of diversity as portrayed by the two stories of two girls lying in hospital beds in two cities.
In a hospital in Aurangabad lies a smiling girl. She is mentally and physically challenged and was dropped at outside the hospital six months back. Since that day the hospital staff took care of her with love and tenderness. They also thought it necessary to find a Government run home that would adopt her as they felt she needed appropriate upbringing. Sadly no one responded and the few who did simply said they did not have the resources to care for such a child. Thank God as knowing the state of such institutions , little Soni is better off in a place where she is treated as a human being and smothered with love. We all know how such institutions are! Is that not why the idea of planet why came to us. And seeing Manu in his new home blows away even the slightest doubt that one may have.
In another city a father is trying to sell his son to save his daughter! Sixteen year old Babita needs an open heart surgery and the poor father has no way of raising the 300 000 Rs needed to save his child. By heart went out to this family as pictures was flashed across the screen of the father, mother and son wearing boards around their necks and walking the streets. The image seared my very soul and though some cynical minds may call it a stunt, for me it was a picture of despair. Maybe after the story has been aired someone will come forwards. Anyway we intend to find out the details and try and help!
Both these stories highlight once again the disparity between the two Indias and the total failure of government policies be it for the challenged or the poor.
Incredible India! The slogan acquires a totally new meaning.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 15, 2008 | Uncategorized
In 2006 I had written a post about the total ignorance of most OBC parents about reservations in education. Sometime later I had highlighted he quasi impossibility for genuine cases to get the prized OBC or SC certificate and the absurdity of government forms.
Last week the Supreme Court confirmed reservations for OBCs excluding the creamy layer. Something that seemed acceptable to many but even before copies of the said judgement left the precinct of the Court a hot debate had begun about redefining the creamy layer in order onec again to protect vote banks et al!
The indubitable truth is that without a ‘proper’ definition of the creamy layer few OBCs will reach the portals of higher learning. And the debate will continue endlessly and aimlessly. No one is interested in improving government schools, containing drop out rates to ensure that deserving candidates have a chance to reach the gates of IITs and IIMs, while youngsters like Shiv will find their place in the sun.
A recent article highlights this in no uncertain terms. 90% of India’s children drop out of schools! These are figures of the HRD Ministry. And what becomes clear form this is that the first aim should be to ensure that children cross the boundaries of school. Sadly instead of cleaning up the mess existing in primary education our politicians are now busy redefining the creamy layer as the SC judgement defined the creamy layer or elite as defined in 1993 where the slab was put at annual incomes not exceeding 250 000 Rs.
The exclusion of the creamy layer did satisfy many anti reservationists but does not ensure political benefits and hence the debate will continue and the plight of children 60 years after independence will remain the same.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 14, 2008 | Uncategorized
Saturday in the dead of night a 12 year mentally challenged girl was raped by a neighbour. A day before hat a 6 year old was raped by an acquaintance, and on he same day a 3 year old was raped by a neighbour!
Child abuse is the worst kind of crime that exists. And yet more often than not the accused get away with minor sentences while the child is left with scars that never heal. I have often asked myself what makes a man rape a child. What frustration, sick need, pervert desire makes a man commit this heinous act. It does not seem to be simply a disease as many think as the numbers are too high. There seems to be a rape an hour of not more and statistics show that over 60% are rape of minors and often many such cases go unreported. Even in this case the police registered the FIR hours later. By that time the rapist had fled.
My mind goes back to our Ghaziabad girls, many of whom were mentally challenged and had been sexually abused for years while in the care of a so called ashram. In spite of our best efforts we could not get much done. The abuser is on bail and the girls in some institution or the other where one annot even meet them.
How do we put an end to this? Are we going to allow children to be raped and abused ad infinitum. I guess this is not a vote bank and hence political parties will remain uninterested. But are we as a society doing? And how many times are we going to get away by saying: I hand my head in shame!
When is it going to stop!
What we all forget is that as Herbert Ward said child abuse casts a shadow the length of a life time.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 13, 2008 | Uncategorized
Little Lali is just little over a month old. She was born with a rare medical condition that gave her two eyes, two mouth, one chin and one pair of ears. When you look at her picture she just looks like any child, sleeping without a care in the world.
As soon as news of her birth was heard ritual India woke up once again and heralded the reincarnation of Goddess Durga. And as the news spread religious frenzy was out at its best. And little innocent Lali became the centre of a media blitz and even war. The family started minting money! News channel fought for exclusivity, people offered money, there were even those who wanted a temple built in her name! The world wide web was buzzing about her and all kind of questions were being fired: is she one or two individuals? does she have one or two souls? Only one thing seemed to be clear. Though she seemed to be all right, having two skulls fused together makes surgical intervention impossible.
For those who want more information on Lali a search on Google is ample. This post is not intended to throw light or sensationalize Lali’s story. There is enough of that. I simply want to highlight some issues which seem to have taken a back seat amidst all this frenzy.
In India we have just ended the 9 days of worship to Durga, the Prime Goddess. This happens twice a year. People fast, go to temples, and make offerings and on the last day worship little girls. Almost three years back I had written about this very ritual in a post entitle: Why am I being worshiped today?
To be born a girl in India is not bed of roses. What awaits you is a akin to a game of Russian roulette. The number of girls killed before they are born is chilling and the policies that the Government comes up with are zany and amidst all this our little girl child simply survives.
But let us get back to Lali. One God knows how long this little endearing little soul will survive. Her plight reminds me of that of circus freaks of the XIXth century or the Elephant Man so beautifully portrayed in a sensitive David Lynch film. As a friend said maybe little Lali with two brains has exceptional qualities and intelligence. But would these ever be honed and allowed to bloom. The way things stand in India she will never attend a school, or be allowed to live the normal life of a child. Her odd appearance will always stand in the way of every step she takes. How long with the family so willing to accept her now, will continue to do so? How long with the press so eager to get their exclusivity continue to consider her TRP worthy? How long will the people flock to her home to worship her a throw few coins her way? How soon will she be forgotten? How soon will she become another medical case to experiment on? How soon will someone decide that she is not a Goddess but a demon? I have already heard such whispers.
My heart goes out to little Lali who looks so innocent and unaware of what is going on around her and wonder what plan God has for her. My heart goes out to Lali as I sit wondering what one can do to make her life simply normal.
Sadly I cannot at this moment see any solution.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 13, 2008 | sustainability
Haves versus Have Nots – what is the solution? Do we have the courage to look the problem in the eye and commit time, money and energy to really think about it and solve it one step at a time? Or will be just safely jump to either extreme of ignorance/arrogance on one hand or deep, unrealistic sympathy on the other????
This was the comment posted by a friend in response to my post out in the open. This after some interesting comments we exchanged. Some of the comments were harsh I must confess, particularly when I read them the first time. But I have since long curbed my instinctive urge to react immediately and take time to read things over and over again. And then one sees things in another light altogether and this helps makes to one again make one of the now innumerable course corrections needed.
Two comments struck particularly hard.
If I was to extend your sympathy equally to all mankind a lot of human crime could be justified... I sat a long time wondering whether this could be true. Right from the outset of pwhy our effort has been towards attempting to empower people to stand on their own feet and take charge of their lives. That is why we chose to give jobs to local people, mostly unqualified, tried to hone the skills they had and show them that they could rise above their present station in life. Today over 40 people have been able to do so and not only that have been able to perform exceedingly well. My class IX drop outs are today primary teachers who ensure that all children under their care pass their examinations year after year! And our dream is to try and instill in our students the desire to go back to their place of origin with new skills and expertise and share it with others. My harangue against the wall was in no way a justification of people illegally occupying land, but against those who have allowed it to go on for decades to garner ever increasing vote banks; against those who have looked away for a the few pennies dropped in their bottomless pockets!
As far as extending sympathy equally to all mankind, that is an impossibility for any human and I am not supernal. I fully agree with that people are not born equal as my friend puts it, but at the same time all Indians are protected by a single Constitution that does give them some fundamental rights!
The other comment that struck me was: There is no doubt that India cannot be a decent, forget great country, if its children and its impoverished are not given help to rise above their limitations and earn a dignified living but allowing them to illegally occupy public property is NOT a solution…it is the kind of wishful thinking we need to avoid so we come up with more realistic, sustainable, solid answers…
This is exactly what I have been harping about for 9 years. And sadly those who are meant up to find the realistic, sustainable, solid answers have failed totally. It seems that no one has the courage to look the problem in the eye and commit time, money and energy to really think about it and solve it one step at a time?
This is evident in string of supposed solutions proffered with obsessive regularity by the law makers: a wall to solve a habitat problem, the have a girl leave her to us to solve female infanticide, designer uniforms to solve the abysmal state of government education ans so on. It is time that we as civil society reacted and made our voices heard. Just being armchair philosophers and not even moving out of it to exercise our franchise will perpetrate the state of votes for a pouch of hooch and governments that will continue their hidden and wily agendas.
India’s problems cannot be solved by a flick of a magic wand. It also needs all approaches and between extreme arrogance and unrealistic sympathy lies a middle path that tries to extend positive help and also attempts at trying to shake people out of the state of inertia they have allowed themselves to sink in.
In a land when Bhakti and Karma are both ways to reach the sublime, I guess our approach is also valid.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 13, 2008 | fostercare
Once upon a time there was a young man named Manu. The Gods had not been kind to him as he was sent to earth almost 40 years ago with a fractured mind and a wobbly body. His mom like all moms did tend to this odd child with care and love and he spend his early years in security.
But the Gods intervened again and took his mother away. Manu was left to the care of two small sisters who did show him some compassion. But as all young boys he too wanted to discover the world and venture out of the four walls of his tiny dark hovel.
True the sun was bright, the winds soothing and the roads full of new things waiting to be stumbled upon. But Manu did not know that he did not look like others as he crawled on his useless legs and did not understand that beyond the sun, the wind and all natures bounty existed people who were never kind to anyone who did not look like them. But Manu’s spirit was indomitable and he set out to find out what life was.
Soon his sisters got married and the little love that could heal the day’s scorn disappeared. In its place came a daunting sister-in-law whose bards were worse than those he had to bear with. The one safe walls became threatening and Manu started spending his night roaming the streets. His drunk dad had no time for him. His clothes got tattered, his hair unruly, and is body infested with wounds. Kids threw stones at him just to hear him scream, car drivers revelled in scaring him and sometimes hit him.
Sometimes a kind soul would hurl abuses at the family and Manu was given a bath and his head was shaved. Poeple fed him as you would an animal, if we got too hungry he would rummage through garbage dumps. People would shun him. His sister in law would send him to beg at the local temple and promptly appropriate the few coins that would be in his torn pocket. Everyone would commiserate on is miserable plight and wish him to die wondering what sin he must have committed for such a life.
But he soldiered on, weathering all storms, spending nights in the bitter cold, lying alone after a severe epileptic fit, dehydrated under the scorching sun, bearing all abuse and not giving up life as if he knew that it was not yet over and that something would happen the next day. God ways are mysterious and he had a plan for him. Manu the seemingly useless, pathetic, forsaken soul had his own mission, one that still needed to be unravelled and though he could not express it, he knew he had to carry on.
Then one day someone came his way and stopped. In his eyes and the beginning of a smile she saw what she was looking for and felt that this was a blessed moment for both of them. In her mind flashed an image: Manu in his own home, having his own bed and living a life of dignity and hope. But the road to that dream was to be a long one. And all along the way many lives would be transformed. Manu’s life changed slowly. And though he was safe during the day, his nights were still spent roaming lonely streets.
Soon he had friends just like him who reached out to him. Warm meals came his way as well as a daily bath. He learnt to dance, to sing, to learn basic skills. He went for outings and birthday parties and even the movies. But the final destination seemed still a chimera. Then some time back the idea of foster care home emerged and it was with incomprehensible fervour that all worked towards its creation.
Two days back Manu had his home. A soft bed, a TV, roomies, caretakers who became pals. Everyone wondered how he would react to this new life so different from the one he had lived for years. But all fears were set aside as he spent his first night sleeping like a baby after having watched TV and eaten a warm meal. Yesterday evening Manu even took charge of his home as he ordered the evening meal of potatoes and rotis, his favourite treat and even asked to call Shamika and tell her what he had done. Like all fairy tales, this one too must end with: and he lived happily forever!
I must confess that after that telephone call, both Shamika and I wept like babies!
