Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.Louis D. Brandeis
To many this picture is just a piece of barren land. And yet it hold many dreams in its custody. The dream of ensuring that a bunch of forsaken souls can live and die with dignity, the dream of safeguarding the work started a decade ago, the dream of securing the morrows of many children born without any. This land is hallowed ground as it this where planet why will one day see the light of day.
It has been eighteen months since this piece of land has being lying barren, braving heat and cold, and hoping for the first brick to be laid. It has been eighteen months since I have been trying to share this dream with one and all. Eighteen month since I have been attempting to make people believe that every child has the right to a great future and that every child is worth fighting for and investing in. Eighteen month since I have been hoping that Manu and his pals will be safe forever. It has been eighteen months since I have received a string of letters stating: your idea is a worthy one but unfortunately does not fit in our programmes, we wish you luck or the present economic situation makes it impossible for us to… It has been eighteen months since I have quietly filed these without showing my disappointment to any one, hoping against hope that the extra strand of white hair or the barely perceptible stoop is not seen by anyone.
Yes the past eighteen months have been hard. The dream I refuse to give up on seemed to be slipping away and yet I knew I could not give up on it though I found myself surreptitiously making impossible plan Bs and Cs. Everyone seemed to have something to say against my dream: too expensive, too large, in a word: impossible! And yet all I asked was the price of flowers or a bucket! Yet I held on to my impossible dream praying for a miracle.
And it came today. Not as a cheque with the required zeroes or a promising letter but in a mail from a young girl that simply said: I have some good news, I have been talking to several teachers at school, the head of charities and the sustainability group teacher. I know that Planet Why is going to be environmentally friendly so I approached Miss Browne (head of sustainability at my school) to see if we could do some fundraising for Planet Why as part of a sustainability group project (which I am part of.) She thought it would an excellent idea and has seen the information about planet why from the website. Hopefully this will help towards the building of planet why which i am determined to help happen!
I was no more alone. There was someone else who believed in my dream and was determined to make it happen and somehow I knew it would one day.
I was recently asked what may seem an innocuous question: what makes you joyous and what makes you blue. The answers should have been simple and yet the question turned out to be an existential one. And the reason it became so was that the enquirer was not one to be satisfied with a superfluous answer.
My mind went back to the famous song from the musical Sound of Music as I set out to seek what would be my brown paper packages tied up with strings. No favourite song or treat came to mind. No place I would like to travel to again. No particular person I would like to meet with again. I felt strangely at peace and content. What brings me joy today would be looking at the video above and seeing young Bittoo hug little Radha. Again an innocuous image and yet such a blessed one. You see Bittoo is locked in a silent world and Radha battles to survive in spite of her brittle bones. They should and would have never met but for pwhy. Today they are classmates and live from one day to another, stealing whatever happy moments they can lay their hands on, unaware of what tomorrow holds. As I look for more happy images, I find myself flooded with similar ones: a child proudly holding his report card, Manu sitting at a table, Sohil dancing… Simple images that fill me with joy and peace. and yet, as I look on, the same images fill me with fear and sorrow. Will I be able to ensure a morrow for all these little souls?
Strange how over the past ten years the lives, hopes, joys, fears, tears of once unknown little children have managed to obliterate my own. Strange how today when I want to conjure moments of happiness it is their little faces that spring to mind. So let me once again try and think of my very own raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens and I would say a pizza shared with a little boy on PTM day, a bright pink school painted by a bunch of kids, a little girl dancing with her heart. These are but a few. There are so many more safely tucked away in my memory.
And as for bee stings and dog bites, they simply happen when I realise the fragility of all these happy moments and the need to try and make them live happily ever after.
A couple of months back I got a mail from Denmark. It was from a high school teacher and simply said: We have with great interest read about your Project Why. My colleague and I are going to New Delhi in October with a group of 23 students. For a long time they have been working with social and political conditions in India. In that connection it would be very interesting and relevant for the students to visit your project and talk to one of your representatives.
The idea of having 25 people at project why was daunting. Project why was such a tiny place, where would we fit so many people. Nevertheless I wrote to say they were welcome. As the visit was still some weeks away we somehow forgot about it. Last week another mail informed us of the impeding arrival of our young visitors.
On Monday morning as the clock struck 9, the young students and their two teachers reached project why. I must admit that 25 young people take a lot of place. They wanted me to present project why and we decided to move across the street to the foster care as there was a little more place there, or so it seemed. Soon we were all packed in a room. I had thought of giving then a short presentation and then send them to visit some of our centres but somehow the eagerness of these young souls made me tell the the project why story as I had lived it, straight from the heart. I spoke for a long time recalling small details. They listened almost mesmerised. As the story went on and we talked of Manu I could see a few hands surreptitiously wiping a tear. When I had finished there were many moist eyes and they has still not seen the project or met the children. I must admit I was taken aback and moved.
It was then time to start the visit and the first stop was at the special section. Shamika introduced the children to them and told them each one’s story. Soon the tears turned to sobs. Many of the young students were crying unabashedly. Many were surprised but I was not as I understood that they were looking with their hearts.
I wondered what touched these young people who came from the land of the plenty? Was it that suddenly all they had taken for granted till now seemed undeserved? I do not know. All I knew was that nothing would ever be the same for these young persons.
Seeing with your heart can be dangerous as it may entail unexpected changes in your life, changes you did not anticipate, changes that could make you a different person altogether. Perhaps that is why many of us resist seeing with our hearts.
It has been a long time since I have taken you on a tour of project why. Somehow the picture of little Komal peeking through the balcony inspired me to do just that. True that from the pwhy building balcony you simply see another building but that is when you look with your eyes. Try to look with you heart and suddenly everything changes.
So let us talk a stroll through pwhy. It is 8.45 am. The office is abuzz with activity as most of the teachers have come to sign in after their early morning spoken English class taken by Jillian our long term volunteer. Instructions are given and everyone sets out to their respective class. By 9 am the office is empty. A walk down the stairs and we reach our creche. The toddlers are still coming in and little shoes are aligned in a straight row. Some kids are already settled. It is toy time and every is busy with hos or her toy of the day. We tiptoe out and walk own another flight of stairs and are greeted with a loud Good morning ma’am. It is the special class and morning exercise time. Whether you walk or not, hear or not, comprehend or not does not matter, morning gym is for everyone and everyone loves it. The music is blaring and everyone is happy.
A walk across the street and a climb up two flight of stairs and we reach our erstwhile foster care. The foster care kids are now in boarding school but their special roomies still lie there. Manu, Champa and Anjali still live there but while they are in class the space gets used for other activities. We walk through the second creche and the prep class. Every one is busy settling down. We leave them to their taks and peep into the junior secondary class. A score or so of boys are busy revising for their exam.
A short drive takes us to Govindpuri Nehru camp. We alight from the three wheeler an walk through a maze of lanes and reach the tiny jhuggi. A class is going on in earnest. We continue our journey and reach Okhla. About 100 children are busy studying. Two volunteers are also taking an English class. The teachers share their concern about a wall that has cracked after a truck banged into it. The matter is serious and we will need to find funds to redo the wall. A quick drop at Sanjay Colony and we are back to Giri Nagar where it all began almost a decade ago. Today the little street is host to our senior secondary and our computer centre as well as our library which also doubles up as a primary class. Everyone is busy and we quietly walk away.
A drive takes us to the women centre. We are surprised to see how choker block it is. Over 50 women are busys with their sewing and beauty class. A few children are left in the creche waiting for their parents and over 150 kids are packed on the terrace all lost in their work. It is impressive, 150 kids almost pin drop silence. You only hear the teachers!
Yes the walk has been virtual but it reflects the reality and fills me with a sense of pride and deep gratitude.
It was I Day celebrations at pwhy! And a very special one at that. It all began with a request from the special section teachers to drop by their class before I left the building. I was in a for a big surprise. The children had planned an entire show with many items. As I entered the room I was greeted by a warm good morning as all the children sat at one end of the room, with wristbands in the national colours. Manu held a small flag in his hand. The other part of the room was the stage. The show began with some individual items. A song by Champa and two dance items: one by Anjali and the other by Preeti.
Champa’s song was touching. Here was a girl who can barely look after herself and yet who manages a perfect rendition of an old devotional song. It was awesome. Then came Anjali and she danced with her heart and soul, her awkward body moving with perfect harmony to the tune of a Bolywood hit. But that was not all, the next dance was Preeti’s, the girl who walks on her hands. She danced with her soul and spirit, her arms swaying and her expression perfect. After the individual performances we were treated to a group song: the children sang Bum Bum Bhole from the film Tare Zameen Par, a song celebrating difference. Every one sang, the one who did not hear and the one who could not speak. They sang with their heart, soul and spirit. I sat silent, a knot in my throat and tears welling up my eyes, watching these children of a lesser God. They sang with abandon, as if every dream of theirs was fulfilled, living the moment to its fullest, without a though of what tomorrow held.
The show ended with a very special rendition of the national anthem, one that suddenly acquired a new meaning and lifted all doubts about tomorrow: just for these special souls pwhy had to carry on so that every I Day would be theirs to celebrate.
The Okhla children too celebrated I day, in their garbage dump. A flag was proudly hoisted and songs sung. A poignant reminder that every child of India deserved to be free.
…it has not been considered as eligible due mainly to the fact it can be assimilated to a guest house were the words chosen by an MNC to convey their inability to fund our sustainability project a.k.a planet why. We had approached this particular organisation because they promote green and sustainable energy and planet why is first and foremost a green building with negligible carbon emissions.
It is time to explain a few things.
Planet why is certainly a guest house, but it is a guest house with a difference. The much maligned guest house forms only a part planet why which is above all a safe haven for lost forgotten souls like Manu and for those who like little Radha have become a burden to their families. It is a place where they can live and die with dignity, cared for and tended to with love and compassion. The guest house has a dual role: one is to enable us to earn the funds we need to carry on our work and the second is to give to our children of a lesser God a platform where they can be useful by taking on the plethora of small tasks any guest house entails: gardening, kitchen work, housekeeping etc. For how would they live with dignity if they did not feel useful.
It is after much thinking and many false starts that we zeroed on the idea of setting up a guest house as means to sustain ALL our activities. I know it may sound preposterous to many as the word guest house reeks of business and commercial enterprise a far cry from charity and CSR! But I urge you to once again look at the planet why guest house with your heart. I hope and pray it is a huge commercial success when it does come to be! Because every penny earned by it will go in securing the morrows of thousands of children and ensure that project why does not die a natural death, one that would be intrinsically linked to that of its founder.
The much maligned guest house is pwhy’s road to freedom: freedom from the fragile and tedious mode of financing it has known till now: the famous virtual begging bowl! True that the figures look daunting: planet why will need the equivalent of what is needed to run project why for 7 years and that is certainly huge but once it is in existence then pwhy can arry on its present activities and much more without any outside help.
Planet why is a sound proposal, a healthy social enterprise that CSR programmes should look at. Maybe we need to package it in a different way to make it palatable. Maybe we should find a new name for the guest house? I do not know. All I know is that we need another miracle to come our way.
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.Louis D. Brandeis
