by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 17, 2009 | manu
Every new born child is a message from God that he has not lost faith in man wrote Tagore. The quote was sent to me by a dear friend upon the birth of Agastya Noor. I guess even the cynics would admit this, particularly when you look deep into the eyes of a young life. At that moment not a thought is given to what is to come. All you see and feel is the joy of a new life and the incredible feeling that all has to be right. And perhaps what Tagore says is true: it is a message from God, only we humans fail to understand it.
I have been blessed in more ways than one. Over the last 10 years I have witnessed many messages compelling me to believe that even if things looked dark and bleak and even hopeless, God had never lost faith in man. In my book Dear Popples I wrote about the big picture, the one that was always bright and beautiful and near perfect but that we humans were unable to see fully as it extended beyond space and time. Being only able to see bits of it we hang on to the dark parches and hold them as true. Yes I have been blessed in more ways than one as I have been able to see glimpses of that perfect creation time and again: in the little boy who should have died but is today alive and kicking and ready for class II, in the four little children who should have joined the ranks of child labour but are soon going to walk into the portals of a boarding school, in Manu who does not wander the streets and rummage through dustbins but sleeps in a warm bed.
The list is endless and the big pictures enfolds itself in front of my eyes one with almost obsessive regularity. I see it in the reports cards held proudly by those who were once failures, in the first sound uttered by one who never spoke, or the faltering step taken by one who never walked, in the spirited gait and beaming smiles of pwhy teachers who were once only considered good enough to clean homes… actually in each and everyone of what is now known as the pwhy family: a motley crew of young and old who should have lived in the shadows but have reclaimed their place in the sun.
Seems huge and it is undoubtedly. And yet when I look back at the years one by I realise how absurdly simple it is and well within the reach of anyone willing to keep their eyes wide open and see with their heart. The big picture is there withing the reach of each and every one of us. It waits to be discovered and savoured. One simply has to be willing to look beyond today and believe in tomorrow as God has not and will never lose faith in man.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 3, 2009 | manu
We humans love having an escape route at all times. It allows us to get out of situations that could become uncomfortable, or leaves us the option of changing pour minds without feeling shamefaced. Such escape routes are often vague and poorly defined notions and yet they do the trick when used.
The latest one is recession. Today everything is being validated by the simple use of the word recession. Even those who do not quite know what it means manage to hurl the word at your face in sometimes quite ludicrous ways. I am not in anyway suggesting that things are tickety-boo and that all is well around us. Far from that.
My heart goes out to those who have got pink slips and those living with the fear of losing their jobs. I understand the despair of those who gambled on the stock markets and lost. I feel the pain of those unable to pay their mortgages and who live with the fear of seeing themselves without a roof on their heads. These are real situations. What I am referring to is the unreal ones where people use recession as a possible escape route for the future; when people bluntly tell you that they may not be able to meet their paltry commitments in the future because of recession. What irks me no end is the general attitude of gloom that we all sink in rather than try and analyse why things turned from bad to worse, why we did not see it coming, and above all whether we are responsible for them in anyway. No we simply seem to be grateful for having found a way to explain our own inadequacies.
I was horrified when some time back I heard a young couple take a huge loan to go on holiday to some exotic destination. Both had landed themselves grossly overpaid jobs and though they were still on probation but the hubris was such, that they felt secure and safe. I would have thought that the collapse of things would have got us to soul search and redefine our lives rather than hold our heads and mumble the word recession ad nauseum. I would also have liked to hope that the situation we all find ourselves in would have made us look at life through different glasses and retrieve the lost values that withstand the test of times for the crisis we face is a moral one.
If we think about it, what is it that sends us chasing impossible dreams: a feeling of emptiness that we need to fill. For the past decades we have been trying to fill it with material things and our greed was such that we did not see the writing on the wall and the debt trap we were getting caught in. When the house of cards came tumbling down we were again faced with a huge void.
It is time to fill this void and this time to do it wisely. Perhaps it is time to assess what our needs are and ensure that we do not confuse them with our wants. And then if there is still a huge hole we need to fill, let us try and fill it with the right things, the ones that withstand all storms. I am not pontificating. There was a time when I too sought escape routes and material pursuits to fill the gaping holes of my life. I was lucky to stop in time as I stumbled upon one who did not have the luxury to dream of wants or needs but simply held on to life: Manu. The rest is history. I had found the road to my grail and the way to fill all the holes in my life. I did not need any more escape routes.
So life in the times of recession means holding on to the dreams of many souls and ensure that they do not die.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 8, 2009 | manu
For the past one year now a motley crew of six have been sharing a home. For the past one year they have learnt to live together, love and respect one another and have shared some unique and wonderful moments. Funnily of all our programmes and projects this is the one that never got a proper name: from foster care, to children’s chance, to happy home each always falling short of what it truly was. Even its genesis was complex. Does it lie in the dream conjured silently almost a decade back when I first lay eyes on Manu, or in the almost clinical vision of social change foisted upon us by a potential saviour who came and went leaving unfulfilled dreams in our custody. Or perhaps in both.
In a few days or weeks at most, four of these children will leave the safety and comfort of their little home and begin a new life in boarding school. And in a few days or weeks at most we will need to find a new option for their their three remaining roomies: Manu, Champa and Anjali. And as they enjoy the last days of their time together, I find my pondering about the year gone by. Was it only a year back that I sat vehemently opposing the idea mooted by our erstwhile potential funder who wanted to include what he called a foster care cum scholarship programme in our planet why vision? As he juggled numbers and worked out projections, I sat stunned wondering how anyone could play with children’s lives in such a way. To me the whole approach reeked of social engineering, something I could and would not accept. But beggars cannot be choosers and at that precise moment the person in question was willing to back our own dreams and vision for the future. One had to find a via media, and one did: a small trial programme with four carefully selected children in order to assess the viability and validity of the proposed project.
Things did not turn out to be what we had hoped for, and the person disappeared leaving us holding the dreams of these four kids in our hands. There was no going back even if we could not even begin to fathom how we would pull this one through. We walked into uncharted territory boldly and bravely if I may say so. The little foster care programme began in earnest. The four children – Babli, Vicky, Nikhil and Aditya – were sent to a small prep school where they learnt was would be needed to take the big plunge in a world normally reserved for the privileged. They surpassed themselves and past the litmus test: their entrance examination to the boarding school. Today they are all set to join it, once we manage to muster the funds needed for them to do so.
While the children played by the rules and never faltered, we began the uphill task of finding people who would help us fund the education of these incredible kids. Easier said than done as we came up against unbelievable opposition. What we were doing was crossing the invisible line and that was anathema to many. But we have not given up hope as to us it would be anathema to send our little slumdogs backs to the slums. Wish we had a millionaire show where we knew all the answers.
The story does end here. As we sat wondering about how we would manage the days ahead, we realised that once the four kids have left us, our present premises would be too big for the remaining three inmates. The obvious choice would be to rent a smaller flat and hence save some pennies too but oh daring yeh hai India and people do not rent homes to disabled human beings and Manu, Champa and Anjali belong to the kind our society rejects and would like to wish away. For the past weeks we have been looking in vain for alternative accommodation. It looks like we may not be able to find any.
As I sit in what looks like a twilight world I ask myself a simple question: where do they go now and wait for a miracle to come my way!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 23, 2008 | fostercare, manu
I am really livid! i was hoping that my mellowed mood of the day before would have lasted me this festive season and gently pushed me into the next year but that was not to be.
This morning a worried Prabin, the house master of our foster care programme walked into my office and informed me about a late night knock that came to disturb the peace of our little haven: a posse of uniformed men who romped in noisily as apparently they had been told that we were running a lucrative guest house!
A very lucrative guest house indeed where the permanent residents are 7 lost souls, given up by all and who pays us in smiles, stars on their copy books or a pile of neatly folded clothes. A very lucrative guest house indeed where the most unlikely roomies learn not only to live together but to respect and care for each other; where a half orphaned boy climbs on a chair to help his disabled roomie comb his hair! A very lucrative guest house indeed where simple meals of rice and dal are shared amidst laughter and chiding, where the TV runs for only an hour and all huddle in one room at night to keep electricity bills lows. I think it is time to redefine the word lucrative!
What makes me livid is the fact that someone found it necessary to go an complain to the authorities. What makes me livid is that everyone on the street knows what we do and yet the cops reached our door. What makes me livid is that over and over again we are bothered by uncaring and heartless authorities, even ten long years d won the line.
What makes me sad is that even ten years down the line, in a country where every one knows what the other is doing, one cannot carry the simple work one is doing in peace. If you want to repair the roof of your crumbling building, before you have even knocked off the first brick, a swarm of uniforms descend upon you with their hands lasciviously held out. If someone kind souls form faraway lands make the effort to a simple gift to the children a cryptic sign language greets you as you again wonder where you went wrong.
I wonder when the prowling predators will knock. I wonder if they were able to see the reality as they pussyfooted across our little home or were they too blinded by their greed. I do not know why I feel desecrated. The peaceful life we had crafted with so much effort and love in spite of the innumerable problems we had faced stands violated. The dream to give Manu a warm bed, or to secure Champa’s morrows or to give four desperate children hope now lies exposed.
And as is always the case in such moments, we find ourselves compelled to wonder where we went wrong.
I am incensed and terribly sad.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 21, 2008 | fostercare, manu
As I was browsing the innumerable pictures that sit on my computer, I came across this one, taken a few weeks ago by a friend who had dropped by. I guess she must have snapped the shot as she was leaving and the children and staff waved her farewell from the rooftop. I do not how, but I had missed this one till today.
I looked at the picture for a long time and somehow it set the mood for some muted musings, something that had not happened for a long time as one seemed always hijacked by some crises or the other. The silhouettes of the kids etched across an almost pristine blue sky seem to echo to the T the mood I find myself in as the year draws to a end.
It has been an eventful year to say the least. From our terrible struggle to salvage our land, to the continuous one to keep project why and its new avatars alive one had been on one’s toes, not having even a moment to take a back seat and simply enjoy the incredible happenings that have dotted the year.
I do not know how and when the women centre grew from a tiny handful of 5o kids to almost 300. I did not have time to pour over the regular reports the foster care kids brought home and count the stars they proudly displayed. I barely had time to dance with the special kids or play with the tiny ones. Like the proverbial character in the song of sixpence, I just seemed to have spent the year in my counting house simply trying to ensure that each day flowed in to the other. Days flew by, each with its tiny miracle that went unnoticed, at least by me. Children quietly moved from one class to the next, two batches of women got their tailoring certificates, our hearing impaired girls got their hearing aids and heard their first sound, Manu took his first bath without help, and 7 super kids learnt the art of inclusive living. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. If I were to list all the marvels that dotted the year gone by, I would need to write a book.
I had not realised it till this very moment but the year gone by was one that saw the realisation of long cherished dreams: the one that was conjured silently almost a decade back when I first lay eyes on Manu and dreamt of a soft bed for him, or the one barely evoked by a teenage girl. And it was not just the fulfillment of personal dreams but also of those barely mouthed by desperate souls, be it the sightless woman whose husband’s life was at stake, or the little boy whose mother was in danger.
It has been an incredible and blessed year. And I am glad the picture that had passed me by came to the fore today as it allowed me to remember all I had to be grateful for. Sure the sun will rise again, and the muted silhouettes will become sharp and distinct reminding me of the struggle that lies ahead, but today I just want to revel in my muted musings.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 19, 2008 | fostercare, manu
Yesterday our four little foster care kids celebrated their first annual day in their little prep school. While the three older ones were dancing, little Aditya was an elephant in a Panchatantra tale. Babli, Nikhil, Vicky and Aditya are incredible kids. For the past 8 months they have been living with their very special pals Manu, Champa and Anjali. And they all are truly a terrific seven!
A year back they lived dreary lives and barely knew each other. In a few months they will take their first step in brand new world when they join little Utpal in his boarding school where a a whole new world await them.
These four kids have done us proud. They have secured excellent marks in their terminal examinations and have truly walked the talk! Yesterday, as I watched them get ready for their big show my heart filled with pride. How little it took to change the world of a child. Their willingness to accept new ways and excel in them is truly touching. They seem to know intuitively that what is happening to them is special.
My thoughts go back to the days when the whole programme had been put in question as support we thought we had secured was withdrawn without an explanation. I remember the sleepless nights I spent wondering how to salvage the programme at least for these four kids. I recall the reactions I got from those I approached for help. To many, giving quality education to slum children was anathema. And yet I could not send back these kids to their homes; I could not take back dreams that their parents had conjured.
Thank God, there were friends who felt the way I did and soon a wonderful network was created to try and help these children. Asha Seattle and Asha Canada have adopted this project and others have promised to help.
One must remember that this is a long haul. The children have to be able to complete their education that they are just beginning. It is also a long term commitment and one does not know what awaits us. It is not simply a matter of funds, for the next decade or so these children will depend on us at every step. One will have to be there at each PTM, smooth bruised egos , laud every achievement, chide when needed and heal every hurt. We too embark on a new journey, one we know will be filled with wonderful moments but also challenging ones.
My mind again travels back to the time where I first laid eyes on each of them. The day Babli told me herself that she needed an operation but that the family did not have the money. And then long after the operation the terrible day when I found out that Babli had stopped going to school. My mind also goes back to the very first time little Aditya walked into our lives a lost child with his huge eyes filled with questions. or the day we first moment I saw Vicky in the arms of his mother as we visited his family? Children whose dreams had been put on hold by seemingly insurmountable circumstance. And yet the god of lesser beings had his own plan. One that took many twists and turns but ultimately brought these children together under one roof and salvaged all dreams just as he had done for little Utpal.
In a few months these children will fly to another coop. We will miss them but for them it is the only way to go.
Every new born child is a message from God that he has not lost faith in man wrote Tagore. The quote was sent to me by a dear friend upon the birth of Agastya Noor. I guess even the cynics would admit this, particularly when you look deep into the eyes of a young life. At that moment not a thought is given to what is to come. All you see and feel is the joy of a new life and the incredible feeling that all has to be right. And perhaps what Tagore says is true: it is a message from God, only we humans fail to understand it.