to sir with love
The class XII results are out and once again all the pwhy kids have cleared the dreaded Boards! This is now the nth time in a row! There was a time when I remember spending a sleepless night before result day and pacing up and down till I was given the news. In those...
remembering them
This blog is not meat to be a personal one, nor is it meant to be one for reminiscing the past or delving in nostalgia. Yet today I beg your indulgence as I take a brief pause to remember Ram and Kamala on this day that would have celebrated 59 years of their...
a losing battle?
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...
education for all
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...
a deafening why
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...
we just assume it is written for someone else
"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...
the new gym on the block
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...
post partum blues
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...
we believe in miracles
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...
Finding its feet and its wings
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...
But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her
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...
making memories
''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...
Invisible India…
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...
a frightening common denominator
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...
where are you rakhee…
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...
Butter would not melt….
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...
think twice before…
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...
and never the twain shall meet
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...
popples a true hero
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...
my dream catcher
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...
Dear Popples
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 18:19Thus 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...
borrow a person
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...
And motherhood dragging a doll by the foot
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...
what have they done to the earth
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...
kids under a hot tin roof
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...
the tiger, the elephant and the giraffe
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...
There is a whole new world waiting
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...
Think about it
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...
to the manor born
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...
Rinky, Saheeda, Pooja can hear us
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...
walls visible and invisible
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...
Donna
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,...
hope and despair – an India song
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...
quotas revisited
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...
where are we going…
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...
Why am I being worshipped?
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...
what is the solution
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...
not a fairy tale
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...