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...

Yesterday the recluse was forced out of her hole. It happened like this. Some people were meant to visit the women centre and Yamuna Project to initiate an adult literacy programme that would be taught by our senior students. They were to swing by place first and I...

You can't regulate child labour; you can't regulate slavery. Somethings are just wrong wrote Michael Moore. And yet our Government has 'tweaked' the child labour law and now children under 14 can 'work' in family enterprises and the entertainment industry! To give...

This may look like a very mediocre and even gauche piece of art. And yet for me it is priceless; more so because it landed in my life at the end of a tedious and annoying day.  Let me tell you why. True this piece or art, as art it is, looks like a banal copy of...

The picture you see is one of our new 'classroom' in the Yamuna Project. Classroom is a misnomer even by our standards. Actually this space was a shed made for two jersey cows who have now gone to greener pastures. If you look carefully you will see that the walls are...

I was taken aback this morning when I opened my mailbox to see a mail with the subject being: child labour. Imagine my absolute horror when I opened it and saw a petition to ask the Government to drop a proposed amendment to the child labour laws that would allow...

 If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice wrote the German Mystic Meister Eckhart. It is almost frightening to see how easily we 'rush' to pray when faced with adversity often not quite knowing what to pray for...

The new project that was inaugurated last week has been christened! It's Godfather is none other than our staunchest supporter and the name he chose was: The Yamuna Project. I am so glad he did as I got a bit lost and over the top with options like: 'in the fields' or...

Normally I have no problem in writing about any and everything that comes my way. But yesterday for the very first time I was overwhelmed by a surge of emotions that I was unable to process, let alone put down in writing. It is now time to share this unique experience...

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light wrote Norman Rice. Around the ides of March 2003, I did dare do so. It was not a little hand but two beautiful eyes that defied all the burns and bandages and met mine. It was love at...

Rani got married yesterday and before I go any further this is not a picture from her wedding! So as I was saying Rani got married yesterday and needless to say I was there. But as is the hallmark of all Indian weddings, I barely got to see her though we did manage a...

Sadie Sadie Married Lady is the song from Funny Girl that for some God forsaken reason  always comes to my mind when a girl gets wedded. The last girl I married was my first born and tomorrow someone I also consider as my child ties the proverbial knot. She is...

A hurried call from grandson yesterday - yes he nows knows how to call; today's kids are incredible - informed us that he was running a marathon and had his 'number'. He put the phone down before we could ask anything further. I  thought that it was some race for...

The only child celebrated her 63rd last week. You guessed right the only child is me! Being an only child is not easy. Being an only child to older parents is again not easy particularly when you come after a child who did not make it. The fear of losing you...

Forgive the rather disgusting picture that illustrates this mail but there is a method to my madness. This picture was taken close to the Chhattrapur Temple located not far from Utpal's school. He wanted   to buy some sweets and this was the closest market. We...

Utpal on his 13th birthdayMarch 12 2015This picture was taken last week on Utpal's birthday which we celebrated in his school with cake and samosas. He is 13! A teenager! How time flies. He was the perfect host and made sure all his friends got enough to eat and...

Ram Persad Singh Goburdhun 1880 1949Upon his return from yet another trip, this time to Mauritius, my husband handed me a book. It was surprising,  as though I did not expect the customary bottle of perfume - the ubiquitous gift you expect from a man - as...