Sometimes you do not have to look far to find things to celebrate. You simply have to look with your heart. I sometimes kick myself for not taking time to simply stop and savour things around me, more so because I'm blessed to have Project Why which is a constant...

Child labour is cheap. A child is submissive, and can be made to work under poorly lit and poorly ventilated spaces.A child can be used for stitching, embroidering, weaving rugs and carpets, making matchsticks and firecrackers, and rolling beedis in backbreaking...

There is so much to celebrate at Project Why each and every day, but this week was a very special celebration: Utpal's 14th! To the uninitiated it would have looked like any birthday with cakes and candles and singing and cheering. However, Utpal is a very special...

The project Why WomenProject Why is primarily a children's organization yet right from the beginning, we instinctively reached out to women, the true game changers. No wonder then that it was a woman who helped me seed Project Why.Mataji, the formidable local healer...

I am thankful to Damyanti for having  introduced me to Lexa's blog Celebrate the Small Things. For the past sixteen years I have been 'celebrating' the small and big joys of life. I run Project Why, an organization based in New Delhi, India, that reaches out...

I came across this bunch of happy kids right in front of our Okhla centre at Project Why. They were shy at first, but then it took no time for them to smile and perform for the camera. They made faces and giggled, just being kids!Street children break my heart: the...

Is it possible for a child from the slums to shine at an exclusive boarding school?It sounds like a rude question, but wait till you’ve heard about the Project Why Power Girls.Meet Meher, Manisha and Babli.MeherMeher, who topped her class is a third degree burn...

We all want to be happy; the question is whether or not we achieve this goal. In a recent post Damyanti Biswas, an Indian writer based in Singapore and friend of Project Why, shares how a bunch of very special souls gave her an insight into how to find happiness. She...

Anna Ma'am and her boarding school stars: from left to rightManisha, Aditya, Vicky, Utpal and Yashstanding: Babli and Nikhil The quota debate is back. A statutory government panel has advised enacting legislation that would make it mandatory for private companies...

Recently, Project Why received a donation from a school in broken cartons and torn plastic bags.We received books with pages missing, copybooks with not a single blank page, and unwearable clothes. The clothes were not washed let alone ironed and some were...

The past days have seen many Indian dreams smothered before time.Three young girls ended their lives by jumping in a well. A young Dalit scholar ended his life in the hope of rekindling his battle. These lives were sacrificed at the altar of our...

In the biting cold of the city is is funeral pyres that have come to the rescue of the homeless in the city. A heart wrenching news item aired today showed how many homeless persons huddled around the funeral pyres burning at different cremation sites. I wonder at the...

The new education policy(NEP) is on the anvil.  A fancy website invites citizens to participate in its formulation. Consultations and meetings are being held from village to State level. Every one and anyone is invited to the show i.e the drafting of the...

Light up a Child's Smile is a new campaign launched by the Mamagoto restaurants across India. This wonderful venture is the result of  serendipitous synchronicity. Yesterday when I received the long anticipated call tell me that WE WERE LIVE, my thoughts...

I recently read the review of a children's book titled The Avrah Stories by Abu Abraham. What caught my eye and I guess my heart was the closing line of the review: and he teaches his little readers a lesson that you are never too young to learn: the importance...

“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness.Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and...

2015 will go down in the annals of Project Why as a challenging yet comforting year. All ran perfectly on stage! Backstage it was a year of wake up calls and critical quests but also of new beginnings. Seems perplexing but please bear with me. If all is not well...

It has been a long time since I wrote this time not for want of thoughts to be shared but rather because of an onslaught of emotions that needed to be processed to make any sense at all. All this was further compounded by the blues that sets in each time a year ends,...

Don't lose faith in India were the dying words of my father who left me twenty three years ago. He died a few days before the destruction of the Babri Masjid. I am glad he did.Over the years I have held on to the words of a father I adored in spite of all adversities...

I am still stunned! It has been almost six hours since a phone call from my daughter informed me of the terrorist attacks on Paris. I am still trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps writing the thoughts that are choking me will help assuage the turmoil. As I hear the...

It is Diwali time. A time to rejoice and be merry. It is also that moment in the year when Hindus pray Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth beseeching her to grace their homes. This is a ritual taught to me by my mother and one have followed over the years diligently. But...

Henry Brooks Adams wrote: "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops". This is something we seem to have forgotten. Yet this is so true!I understand the third National Education Policy (NEP) is about to be drafted. It's mandate is...

'Don't lose faith in India' were the dying words of my father when he breathed his last almost a quarter century ago. He was 80+. He was the descendant of an indentured labourer who had left his home land in the late XIX century. The reasons for his departure are as...

The horrific rape of two toddlers, one age 4 and the other a tiny 2 has once again brought to the fore the disturbing issue of child abuse. I do not know how many posts I have written about this monstrous reality. One time is too many. Each time I sit down to pen my...

A four year was most brutally raped and left to die a few kilometres from where I sit to write this post. I need to be graphic today in the hope that the horrific details may awaken our benumbed consciences and deadened souls that too often remain mute when faced with...

The struggle ends when the gratitude begins wrote Neale Donald Walsch. We tend to forget this indubitable truth. Come one even I whose email signature bye line is: I am busy being grateful, don't remember to be: grateful! Grateful to the one who gives unabashedly...

I have borrowed the title of this blog from Harsh Mander's hard hitting book: Looking Away. The author himself summarises his book with the following words: it is about the need for people to care for each other, in other words not look away! The cover is stark and...

For the past 10 days we have been flooded with the twist and turns of a high society crime , twists and turns which would beat the imagination the most prolific crime writer. And it is nowhere ended. Wonder what other skeletons will pop out of dark cupboards. It...

As you know I have had the expected meltdown that I had been dreading for quite some time but I must admit I was on such a adrenalin high, that I did not expect it to happen to me. Come on am I not the control freak superwoman who battles it all! So I can control my...

You might wonder why I'm sending you a photograph of a tin is how the email from a very loved friend and die hard supporter began and then she added: it's much more than that! As I read on the mystery was unravelled. This beautiful box was given to them by two of...

A few days back a young friend was sharing his dilemma about shifting homes. He lives in one of the what is known as 'posh' colonies of South Delhi and has a floor in one of the stand alone houses which are the hallmark of these colonies. I live in one too. His wife...

Kids speak out on religion is a video everyone must see with their heart and imbibe in case one still has an inner child. Kids of all hues were asked a series of questions like what is religion? What is means to you? What is you religion? Do you have friends from...

Doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans wrote George MacDonald, and many a times I find myself doing just so. It has been some time now since I have shred my hubris and tried playing God, as we far too often do. I have now reached the...

She is 48. She hails from Bihar, a state that sadly connotes poverty and true to that conception she belongs to an extremely poor family. Her husband is a poor Brahmin who survived by being the local priest. His flock belongs to the poorest of the poor. I presume she...

He has four degrees but works as a garbage collector screamed the headline of a news item. This is the story of a man born on the wrong side of the fence who thought that education could free him of his shackles. So he set down to get educated and acquired...

I do not know at what age I had my first party, the one where you incited boys too! Though I am a child of the sixties and a rebellious one for that, my rather older  and a tad traditional doting parents did not quite warm up to the idea and I must have been in...

Look at these kids. They are kids just like yours and mine born in the same country, protected by the same Constitution and having the same rights. But that is all on paper. These kids have no rights, are not protected by any laws and come to think of it do not even...

Mom! What a wondrous word and more than a word a fuzzy feeling no matter which language or abbreviation you use. Mom is the place real or virtual you seek when you are hurt or in need of comfort. It is the one you call when is despair or the one you remember in your...