by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 2, 2005 | girl child
look at this lovely face.. it belongs to Durga, our very own Utpal’s half sibling, and his only family!
this morning I was shocked to see large welts across this beautiful, innocent face… she had been beaten by her mother..
Durga’s story is what movies are made of.
Many years ago her mother, a child herself, was ‘married’ to a man in a remote village in Bengal. The man left the woman and never recognised the child. Another man wanted the woman but not the child. So Durga was left to the care of an ailing grandmother and a reluctant uncle, while the mother decided to live her own life..
Durga grew fromm child to ‘ little woman’ and somewhere along the way the grandmother died. The uncle was not willing to take on the responsibility of a young girl and Durga was packed to Delhi, to a family she never knew.
In the small room where they live, this young girl brought memories that the mother did not want revived, and the new ‘father’ found more ammunition for the unkind words hurled in drunken anger.
Yesterday, Durga was beaten, for being born, for being alive…
Did anyone hear her when she whispered: But I never asked to be born
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 28, 2005 | girl child
a child will get a new heart, two little girls may be able to live a normal life, a bunch of kids people had given up on cleared their Xth boards with marks as high as 75%, a little girl who could barely hold her head two years ago at age 5, dances and laughs..
and we do feel proud today…
because we never gave up, because we never turned anyone away, because we always took on challenges and above all because we learnt how to kneel so that we also could stand tall!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 26, 2005 | girl child
everyday, when I leave for project why, I always wonder what will happen, as every day I learn something new that often makes me change my ways…
It can be something a child says or does, some wondrous achievement that fills you with delight and joy, it can be a mishap that makes you hare down in many directions..
But sometimes nothing prepares you for the encounter of the day… like today!
Preeti and her sister had not been coming for many days. The family had recently shifted to a make shift camp nearby, the father being a construction worker, but normally the children did come, even if it was a little late..
We had been a little worried and tried to find out why the girls had not come.
One of our staff members was sent out. Hew came back and told us that little Preeti’s finger had got stuck in the fan…. what I never could have imagined is what I heard next. When the father was asked how the child was, the answer was: the blade of the fan broke…!
A thousands thoughts crossed my mind: how bad was the hurt, was a tetanos shot given, had infection set in… Tomorrow we will find out what happened and we will see that Preeti is given the care she needs..
Later I sat back thinking at how those words uttered by a father showed the total lack of concern about a girl child, particularly the second girl… that she was probably in pain did not matter, that she needed medical attention did not cross anyone’s mind.. some dirty rag would have been tied, and the god of lesser children would have, once again to work his miracle!
