by anouradha bakshi | May 8, 2018 | Anou's Blog
I have been using an auto rickshaw as my unique mode of transport for almost two decades now. It ferrets me from slums to page 3 happening event. I have travelled in it in the scorching summer heat and the biting winter cold a wet cloth on my head dealing with one and an extra layer with the other. I have never felt the need of changing mode of transport. My three wheeler is also my reading room and I must have read hundreds of book while zipping across the city. This was the best way of handling road stress! I love my auto.
We have recently shifted into a new colony as our house is being rebuilt. Imagine my surprise when an irate Radhey (my auto driver) came up to tell me that the security guard of the colony had told him not to park his auto in front of the house as some resident had complained to the secretary of the colony. Complained about what! I was not breaking the law in any way. The auto is normally parked in the assigned parking that comes with the flat we have rented.
I gave the guard my visiting card and asked him to tell whoever had a problem to call me. I would deal with the matter. No call has come as yet.
What I fathom is that the auto sticks out like a sore thumb in the midst of SUVs and BMWs and mars the socio economic profile of the colony. I wonder with amusement at whether we have also fallen a few notches in the eyes of the neighbours.
But when you think of it a little deeper you cannot but feel saddened at such an incident. It reflects who we have become as a society where we judge everything by the colour of money. Hence anyone who travels in an auto cannot be my peer! And the auto cannot sit next to my BMW. It is infra dig.
How can India change if we are not ready to accept the other if the other does not look like us.
Think about it.
by anouradha bakshi | May 1, 2018 | Anou's Blog
A leading opposition party observed a ‘day long’ fast for communal harmony; laudable indeed as communal harmony is often threatened. Fasting is also par to the course in a land where the father of the nation adopted this path to secure freedom. But there is a huge difference between version 1940 and 2018.
My maternal grandfather was a nationalist and freedom fighter and as a child I heard many stories at his knee, some about the indefinite fast he participated in when he was in prison and when the protestors had to battle force feeding with every ruse in their books, even that of eating chillies so that their throats would swell and the feeding tube not go through; fasts that laster weeks taking a toll on your health.
Version 2018 is quite different. You can observe a day long – read few hours – fast after making sure you have gorged yourself before. This is sufficient to get the needed headlines, the social media exposure and score some brownie points.
Today, I would like to speak about another kind of fast, longer than the token fast of today’s politicians: it is the one many of the ones we dismiss as ‘poor’ are forced to take everyday. I have seen many women waiting for their men to come back at the end of the day with the day’s wage that would allow them to buy what is needed for the evening meal. And if the man has stopped by the drinking hole, then in all likelihood everyone will sleep on an empty stomach. For many children this is far longer than the ‘token’ fast as their last meal would have been the midday meal given in government schools. These children often have a watery cup of tea and a ‘fen’ (small price of low quality puff pastry) for breakfast. The time between breakfast and the midday meal and the small midday lunch if longer than the one of the token fast.
Before we began the Yamuna Centre, the children would eat one meal in the morning and then toil on the fields with their parents, help sell the vegetables on the roadside and then eat their evening meal consisting of the unsold vegetables and some flat bread. You can work out the length of their ‘fast’!
It is sad that aven after seven decades of Independence 5000 children die everyday of malnutrition related disease. No one ‘fasts’ for them.
by anouradha bakshi | Apr 24, 2018 | Anou's Blog
So it is true: no maths retest for class X which also translate into no maths for all Project Why Kids, Utpal and Babli and of course me! Hallelujah! What a relief! Cause for celebration.
For many maths is a dreaded subject! And yet we as parents and guardians push our kids to study subjects they do not like. The children do their best. For some the best is not good enough.
What we forgot is that each child is born with a talent, a skill, a gift from God and if given a chance s’he can excel. However it is not always what we adults would like it to be.
I was recently introduced by a dear friend to a software ProMyTheus that ferrets out the hidden skill in every child. It may seem puerile and naive but it is not quite so. We tested a few kids both at CSKM and Project Why. The results were unexpected to say the least: a quiet and seemingly withdrawn kid had talent for Performing Arts; a shy girl with sparkling eyes was your bon comedian and a happy go lucky kid was actually a financer/accountant who actually liked to save and not spend!
Utpal was inventor material, the kind that does not need a big degree to invent a a game changer. He also has the skill to make people laugh; the proverbial entertainer. I am glad I came to know of this before I began my pushing saga. I had my dreams for him. They were not his.
Utpal will be taking humanities for his Boards. No science, no commerce! You should have seen the change in his body language and the beaming smile I got. Reminded me of another smile from another child: my own when I agreed to accept her dream of working with special kids. What a relief it was for both of them. What we fail to understand is that children have their own soul plan and they are there to teach us one thing only: unconditional love.
We parents are stuck in a time warp that is now obsolete. We are still want to make our kids doctors, bureaucrats, engineers and so on. By the time they grow up and enter the job market robots will be performing surgeries and 3D printers will be manufacturing things. Adidas is already planning to ‘print’ its shoes by 2020. New times requires new skills and new skills require us to let go of our aspirations for our children.
Let our kids be writers, painters, inventors, comedians. They have to compete with robots or rather do what robots cannot. It was a delight to find out that Utpal is a born artist with a propensity to make/create!
Education as we know it is passé. Sadly it will take a log time to reform it and make it relevant. Our role as parents becomes crucial if we want our children to succeed and above all happy.
So listen to your child, even if what s/he wants to do the exact opposite of what you dream for her. Follow her dreams, not yours for her!
by anouradha bakshi | Apr 17, 2018 | Anou's Blog
In the wake of the horrific rape, brutalisation and murder of two children, one still unidentified, India is outraged and many want action NOW! How do we keep our girls safe TODAY is the question being asked. Alas the answer is not simple.
On the one hand the clamour to HANG THE RAPISTS is growing by the minute but that is easier said than done as the wheels of justice are painfully slow. The killers of the brutal Nirbhaya rape in 2012 are still of death row. Moreover to hang the rapists, the victim has to come forward and be subjected to unimaginable and debasing interrogation and cross examination which makes many victims desist from coming forward. Even filing a simple FIR is accepting to be raped over and over again. What were you wearing? Where did he touch you? What di de do? Then of course the family honour and code of silence comes into the way of any justice as perps are often known persons.
I have first hand experience of this as I have seen how the ‘family’ gathers to protect the perpetrator and malign the victim, even if she is a mere child. She is isolated while everyone gangs up on anyone who dares take her side. That is the sad reality.
At best we can get justice for all the reported cases but how do we stop the pernicious, surreptitious ones, the ones committed everyday endlessly.
How does one stop this hydra headed rape culture where rapes happen every 15 minutes?
What is needed is to try and understand, if understand one can, why men rape!
Madhumita Pandey decided to do just that post the Nirbhaya case. She interviewed 100 rapists for her doctoral thesis and what she found out was that they were ordinary men. She writes: “When I went to research, I was convinced these men are monsters. But when you talk to them, you realize these are not extraordinary men, they are really ordinary. What they’ve done is because of upbringing and thought process.”
Now this is both disturbing and somewhat reassuring, disturbing as we would like them to be monsters; reassuring because upbringing and thought process can be worked on. The young researcher was keen to get to the bottom of the question and find out WHAT prompted men to behave in such barbaric ways.
The search for answers led her to look at the homes and how men and women exist within the home. Whatever your social profile the first thing that surprises you is that the woman rarely calls her husband by his name setting the stage for an unequal relationship. This is where it begins. Rapists are not aliens, they stem from the very society we live in. I do not mean to say that every one is a rapists or a abuser but that the possibility exists because of the submissive nature of the woman and the misplaced power of men.
Add to that the so called value system that makes sex taboo. Parents never ‘educate’ their children about sex, let alone answer any question about body changes. The child has to grow up alone, finding his own answers. The advent of the Internet has created more confusion in the minds of young people dealing with raging hormones. No one talks about bodies let alone vaginas and penises. You bathe with your underwear! This was quite a revelation for me. And masturbation is a no no as it weakens your body.
Sex education is left out of the school curriculum as legislators feel such topics could “corrupt” youth and offend traditional values. What they do not understand is that age appropriate sex education is a win-win situation: it helps the potential perpetrator understand his body and take control and the potential victim protect herself and learn to say NO!
Few rapists are repentant. Most try and find excuses or simply blame the victim. That has to stop too. Blaming the victim is an inherent part of the patriarchal society we live in. It is always the woman’s fault. Even if she is a child! That has to stop and every law enforcing officer has to be taught to treat victims with sensitivity and respect. This is again not as simple as it sounds as where does the officer come from but the same kind of home as the perpetrator.
Then there is consent. Few if no Indian men understands what consent means and that is why marital rape will not easily be accepted as a crime.
Pandey says: “Everyone’s out to make it look like there’s something inherently wrong with [rapists]. But they are a part of our own society. They are not aliens who’ve been brought in from another world.”
She is so right. This is something we tend to forget. Some rapes do have political and religious undertones, but the majority happen within the four walls of a place where the victim should be safe: home!
It is from there that the battle has to be launched.
by anouradha bakshi | Apr 14, 2018 | Anou's Blog
She was eight.
On a cold winter morning she went to graze her ponies, just as she did every day. One of the ponies strayed and she went looking for it when a man offered help. Innocently she followed him unsuspecting, trusting like any 8 year old. He was part of a sinister plan that had already been hatched. When she realised that she was in danger, she tried to run but was forcibly held and drugged. Then the rapes began. She was taken to a temple where the Gods were not hers. She was raped again and again for days and nights, her cries unheard, raped in a a temple where Goddesses are worshipped by men who worship little girls like her. She was not worshipped but abused and tortured by old and young. It was party time! You too come and join in the rape! An endless nightmare. When lust was satisfied, or maybe when she became an impediment the ‘men’ decided to kill her but not before raping her one last time.She was then strangulated and as if that was not enough, her head was smashed with stones, her brutalised body cast away in a forest.
This is little Asifa’s story.
Law took its course but for a short time, as it was soon realised that the perpetrators belonged to the majority community and she to an inconsequent minority. Tables had to be turned. The perps had to be protected and the big guns cames out. After the Gods it was society that failed tiny Afisa.
The news took months to percolate down but it did, it has! The ball has landed in our court. You cannot escape. Now what! Do we sit in silence and wait for the next child to be raped. It will happen more than once in the time taken to read this post. Do we hear the deafening cries of this child, cries no one heard then but cries we can hear now as you read her story. This is not just an abhorring crime against a child committed by a sick mind, this is a well planned machination aimed at scaring nomadic families like hers, families belonging to a minority religion. Making sure that they do not settle in your backyard. It is a sordid game of vote banks and political agendas. It is a sick cover up game by politicians and law officers who are standing in the way of the law of the land, the law that is meant to protect all Indians.
Asifa was an Indian citizen too! So who gave anyone the permission to usurp her rights.
Today as her picture is flashed on screens, can we look into her eyes and promise her justice. Can we accept her as ours or does such brutalisation only affect us if the victim fits a certain mould, one that makes us uncomfortable, one that is too close to us. A poor child belonging to a nomadic tribe is almost alien to us. Yes we will march, we will light candles, we will rant and rave on social media, we will express our horror in conversations wit our peers. Then we will move on till another child is raped.
Social outrage is short lived.
An article came my way this morning and sums it all. It is entitled: How India reacts to the Kathua perversion will determine if the nation’s moral slide can be arrested.
This is the first time perpetrators have received official and public backing because they belong to a particular religion. This is a dangerous precedent and we must ensure that it does not succeed. The perpetrators whatever their religion or caste or political affiliation are perpetrators first. Little Asiya had no religion. She was every God’s child and yet they failed her. Close your eyes and listen to her cries in that temple hall. Let them sear your soul and conscience. This is the time to make Asiya ours. She was eight. That alone should wipe out all else. No eight year old should be treated this way. If as a nation we do not understand that, then there is no hope left.
Feel the weight of Asiya’s tiny coffin. Hear her cries. The only thing you can do for her now is get her justice.
by anouradha bakshi | Apr 10, 2018 | Anou's Blog
When class ends at 4pm, Neam and Tejender’s day does not. They take over the vegetable road ‘stall’ their parents run and run it till lights permit. But that is not all. They carefully carry their books and copybooks to finish their homework. The patch of road becomes shop and classroom at the same time. It is their space to study.
Both brothers are students of our Yamuna centre, and this centre is the only ‘school’ they know. They instinctively understand that this is also their road to a better future. They take their studies very seriously. They know that once back ‘home’, in their tiny thatched shanty they will not be able to study. The space is overcrowded, smoky and poorly lit. So they have created their own space on the road.
This picture not only speak volumes but is very moving. At a time where there is a furore about leaked exam papers, cancelled exams and a new exam looming large, the issue of adults letting down children is in everyone’s mind. For once the subject of debate has broken all social barriers. A strange way to unite India.
I ask you to spare a thought for the millions of children lie Naem and Tejender who too have been let down by everyone. They simply fall of the net. Before we came, none of these children, whose parents are agricultural labour, went to school. Even if they would have wanted to, there is no government school at walking distance. Their life consisted and helping their parents on the fields and waiting to grow up till they would tend to the fields, marry and have children whose plight would be the same as theirs.
I do not know how far will we be able to go, but it is a matter of pride to know that 4 of our students are preparing to sit for their class X Boards through the Open school. We will continue to soldier on as long as we can. We know the precarious nature of their parent’s livelihood on the flood plain of the Yamuna. But as long as we are there we will ensure that as many children as possible learn as much as possible. The benefits of literacy are not contained to examinations and professional courses and jobs. Literacy helps in learning about schemes and programmes that could be of benefit; of accessing bank loans and thus being free of loan sharks; of reading about better agricultural processes. We also plan to introduce them to computers and the world wide web!
We will not let them down!
