by anouradha bakshi | Jan 14, 2020 | Anou's Blog
January is the first month of the year when you make resolutions and plans for the year to come. January 2020 is the beginning of the 20th year of Project Why and I sit and wonder how it will enfold for us. Before I move ‘forward’ and try and define what awaits us, I would like to take a moment and look back at the two decades gone by. What began as an almost hesitant journey undertaken to find a way to give Manu a dignified future, took a life of its own and became what every knows as Project Why. Way back in 2000 I would have never imagined what it would turn out to be.
The magic lay in its name: Project Why, where the why stood for every question that begged for an answer, an answer that needed to be found. And somehow the heavens conspired to make that happen. Every ‘why’ thrown our way found the answer sought. Nothing seemed impossible. So what began as a tiny spoken English class for a handful of students mutated into primary and secondary classes, early education, day care for special needs, skilling programmes for women and the handful of beneficiaries grew exponentially to more than a thousand.
The last 20 years were not easy and we had to face many challenges but somehow each one was met with success and the trials and tribulations soon forgotten. The only thing that mattered was to carry on. And we did just that.
We can be proud of what we have achieved. But what does tomorrow hold?
In an ideal world we would hope to be able to continue our work unhindered but sadly that is not the case. In spite of all our efforts we were unable to raise the funds needed to meet the shortfall due to the loss of one of our main funders. Come April 2020 we are short of almost 50% of our needs. This is nothing short of scary and as I write these words I wonder how will we be able to find the missing numbers in less than three months. The alternative is a real Sophie’s choice.
I need to remain optimist. I need to keep on believing in miracles as so many have come my way in the past twenty years. I need to petition the Lord with Prayer. I am reminded of a prayer I wrote six years ago when I found myself in a similar situation and hope the Lord will hear me.
Dear Lord,
I humbly entrust the morrows of Project Why to you
I beseech you to show me the way forward
To tell me what I need to do to fulfil the dreams of the children entrusted to me
To secure the future of all those who have stood by me since the beginning
To give me the ability to take the right decisions
And the strength to implement them even if they are painful
As I know that every step I have taken
Every success that has come my way
Is only because You chose me to do so
And for that I am eternally grateful
Amen
by anouradha bakshi | Jan 7, 2020 | Anou's Blog
It was on this day, nine years ago that Manu tiptoed out of our lives. I had seen him earlier in the day and he was his usual self, complaining of the cold but not losing his smile. I had given him a hug promising to come and see him the next day with biscuits, his all time fav! He waved good bye as I left the room. A few hours later he simply gently moved on to light. He had asked for a glass of water and his teacher gave it to him and went on to get him a cup of tea and his beloved biscuits but by the time he came back Manu was gone. Just like everything else he did, he left our world without fuss, without a sound.
His death was a huge shock. Somehow Manu had always seemed invincible having weathered so many storms. I could not believe the news. I rushed to his side, sat beside him, stroked his brow, murmured sweet nothings hoping he would wake up and give me one of his lopsided smiles but that was not to be. His saintly soul had moved on. Only a broken shell remained. I too tiptoed out of the room knowing that no matter what, I would always carry a part of him in my heart.
Today nine years later I still feel his presence, at times I even feel that he will appear at the corner of the street mumbling to himself and breaking into his endearing smile. But reality hits hard. There will be no Manu. He has fulfilled his amazing soul plan and moved on.
You may wonder what soul plan a mentally and physically challenged soul born in abject poverty could have. Most of us would have brushed him away as yet another wretched beggar had we come across him wandering his street, dirty and half clad; his heart rendering cries would have seemed an irritant that we may have quietened by throwing him a coin. I still do not know why I did not do just that. Maybe everything was preordained. I stopped and looked at him with my heart and my life changed forever. There was no looking back. Manu’s life mission was to set me back on the right path. He was a mirror to my soul.
My ardent desire to do something for him led to my having to set up Project Why in the very street he was born and where he was once loved but then shunned. Setting up our first outreach programme allowed us to start caring for him. Manu had a home. But this was only the beginning. Project Why would grow and expand and reach out to thousands of kids, all because of Manu. The biggest lesson Manu taught me was that no life however hopeless it may seem was futile. Every life was blessed and needed to be celebrated. Manu was the perfect example.
When Manu died, I was lost. I realised that Manu had been my guiding light and given me the strength to carry on. With him gone my feet faltered and it almost seemed as if I too had reached the end of the road but then I felt his presence and understood that to honour his life Project Why had to carry on. It has till now.
Today we are at crossroads again having lost a large chunk of funding and not knowing where to look to replace it. It would be easy to close the door and lose the key but I can feel Manu’s spirit urging me to soldier on as the light at the end of the tunnel is just a few steps away, steps that I have to take for Manu.
I will continue to honour his memory while Manu stays safe in my heart.
The many moods of Manu
by anouradha bakshi | Dec 31, 2019 | Anou's Blog
A generation, some would say.
And yet, when I look back at the journey of Project Why, it sometimes feels as though it all began only yesterday.
I can still hear Manu’s cries.
They had shaken me out of the almost catatonic state into which I had sunk after the death of my parents. I had been rudderless, with no idea where life was taking me.
Today, I understand that Manu gave me a second life.
He gave me another chance—not only to live, but to do something that would honour the lives of those I had lost.
That was how the journey began.
There was no roadmap. No instruction manual. No carefully thought-out plan.
There was only one child, an overwhelming desire to help him, and a question that demanded an answer.
And then, as so often happens in life, one question led to another.
And another.
That is how Project Why began.
Taking care of Manu meant entering a world I barely knew existed.
It was a world on the other side of the invisible lines drawn by society—the lines that separate one class from another, one life from another.
I had grown up far away from this world. And yet, as I began spending time in the lanes of the slums of Delhi and entering the homes of the families who lived there, I found something strangely familiar.
I found the India my parents had lovingly described to me as a child growing up in faraway lands.
It was not the India I had known.
But it was a world filled with warmth, humour, resilience and an extraordinary capacity for love.
The love and acceptance I received made it easier to overcome the many hurdles that came my way.
And slowly, almost without my realising it, that world became mine.
In the winter of 2000, Project Why began in a small mud jhuggi across the road from where Manu lived.
There were barely forty children.
We had a few volunteers, a small spoken English programme and absolutely no idea what lay ahead.
We certainly did not have a blueprint for the future.
But we had children.
And we had questions.
The first class was soon followed by another.
Then a special educator arrived at our door with a few children who had nowhere else to go. Their school had closed its doors, and she wanted to know if we had a class for children with special needs.
We did not.
But the answer was an immediate yes.
It was one of the first deafening ‘whys’ that Project Why had to answer.
And so, almost before we knew what was happening, our special needs class began.
Some of those children who arrived on that cold winter morning are still part of the Project Why family today.
Taking care of Manu meant entering a world I barely knew existed.
It was a world on the other side of the invisible lines drawn by society—the lines that separate one class from another, one life from another.
I had grown up far away from this world. And yet, as I began spending time in the lanes of the slums of Delhi and entering the homes of the families who lived there, I found something strangely familiar.
I found the India my parents had lovingly described to me as a child growing up in faraway lands.
It was not the India I had known.
But it was a world filled with warmth, humour, resilience and an extraordinary capacity for love.
The love and acceptance I received made it easier to overcome the many hurdles that came my way.
And slowly, almost without my realising it, that world became mine.
In the winter of 2000, Project Why began in a small mud jhuggi across the road from where Manu lived.
There were barely forty children.
We had a few volunteers, a small spoken English programme and absolutely no idea what lay ahead.
We certainly did not have a blueprint for the future.
But we had children.
And we had questions.
The first class was soon followed by another.
Then a special educator arrived at our door with a few children who had nowhere else to go. Their school had closed its doors, and she wanted to know if we had a class for children with special needs.
We did not.
But the answer was an immediate yes.
It was one of the first deafening ‘whys’ that Project Why had to answer.
And so, almost before we knew what was happening, our special needs class began.
Some of those children who arrived on that cold winter morning are still part of the Project Why family today.
Years later, I found myself standing in that same place, hoisting the national flag at the Giri Nagar centre.
The sight of it took me back to the winter of 2000.
The little mud jhuggi was gone. The handful of children had become a large family. And yet, standing there, I could still feel the presence of the beginning.
This was where it had all started.
This was where Manu’s blue plastic chair had once stood.
This was where I had shared countless meals with him, sitting on a little red stool and dipping pieces of flatbread into the dal he loved so much.
To me, those simple meals were manna from the gods.
As I stood there, listening to the children sing the national anthem, I felt overwhelmed by the passage of time.
Twenty years had passed.
And yet, in that moment, it felt as though I had come full circle.
I was standing in the place where Project Why had begun.
And somehow, I could almost imagine Manu at the end of the road, as though he might appear at any moment.
From that tiny beginning, Project Why grew.
The forty children became hundreds, and then more than a thousand.
The small spoken English class grew into primary and secondary classes. The special needs class grew into a family of its own.
We began working with women, helping them learn skills that could give them a measure of financial independence.
And slowly, the small lane where it had all begun was no longer enough.
Project Why spread to other parts of Delhi.
Centres opened in different parts of the city. Children came to us. Women came to us. And along the way, so did many other challenges.
Some were expected.
Many were not.
A child needed an open-heart surgery.
Another had survived terrible burns.
A family needed help.
A child needed protection.
There was always another question waiting to be answered.
And somehow, we kept trying to answer them.
We were not always sure how.
But we had learnt something very early in the journey:
If a child stands before you and needs help, you cannot simply turn away because the problem was not part of your original plan.
But that is only one side of the story.
The other side is made up of the incredible people who reached out and made all of this possible.
They came from different parts of India and from across the world.
Some donated money.
Some donated their time.
Some came to teach, to help, to paint, to organise or simply to sit with a child.
Some believed in us so deeply that they even set up organisations in their own countries to raise funds for Project Why.
Each one of them became part of the story.
Each one of them became part of the Project Why family.
And then there was the team.
The people who showed up every day.
The people who dealt with the difficult days, the impossible problems and the endless questions.
The people who stayed.
Over the years, they became the cornerstone of Project Why.
Together, we faced one challenge after another.
There were successes, failures, moments of despair and moments of extraordinary joy.
But somehow, we kept going.
And that, perhaps, is what a family does.
When I look back, I find it difficult to believe how far we have come.
Twenty-five years ago, I began this journey with no roadmap, no instruction book and no idea where it would lead.
I was, in many ways, alone.
Today, I have the largest family I could ever have imagined.
The children of Project Why.
The team.
The volunteers.
The supporters.
The people who believed in us when there was no reason for them to do so.
Each one has left a mark on my life.
Each one has a special place in my heart.
And then there is Manu.
The child who began it all.
The child who gave me back my life when I had almost stopped living it.
I began this journey because I wanted to take care of one child.
Somehow, along the way, that one child led me to thousands.
And every one of them taught me something.
I began by trying to answer the questions life placed before me.
I soon discovered that there would always be more questions.
There would always be another child.
Another need.
Another ‘why’.
And perhaps that is the real story of Project Why.
Not that we found all the answers.
But that we never stopped asking the questions.
I feel humbled by the journey.
I feel grateful beyond words.
And I feel incredibly blessed.
Twenty-five years later, I still have no roadmap.
But I have a family.
And I still have dreams in my custody.
I hope and pray that we will continue to fulfil them.
And somewhere, I like to believe, Manu is smiling.
