by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 29, 2009 | manu, okhla, women centre
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.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 15, 2009 | manu, okhla
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.
Share some of these very special moments here:
by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 2, 2009 | okhla, women centre
For the past three weeks Project why has again be touched by the magic of the SARI Kids. These are a bunch of young students from an ivy league business school in France. They come each year and spread their own brand of love to the children of project why for a whole month.
Sophie, Daphne, Justine, Yves, Ted and Simon landed in Delhi on a Tuesday morning and were all set to start their work the very same day. This time we were a little better organised and had made plans for them before their arrival. Two of the four would go to the women centre and live there, and the remaining four would work in our different centres. What never ceases to amaze him with these kids is the ease with which they slip into the role assigned to them. As if it was something they had done all their lives. Never mind the heat, the language barrier, the cultural differences they are here to conquer everything with their hearts.
But that is not all, this unique bunch of kids had spent the whole year raising funds for us. We were tickled to learn that Simon had even made chicken tikkas and mango lassi at the many sales they organised. Armed with their bounty of love they set out to work. This year it is Okhla, the creche and the prep class that are the chosen destinations. Nothing is too forbidding. Never mind the heat, the flies, the torrential rain or the spicy food, these kids mean business.
Within no time at all they have comfortably set into a pattern. Every week the duo that sets out for the women centre changes. Those who go to Okhla set out with the teachers and travel by bus to the centre. Soon bonds are created with the children and the staff and smiles and giggles abound. Plans are made. The bigger children will be taken to an outing this time to the planetarium. The smaller ones will go to a park.
But that is not all. Sophie the President of the association tells us that they would like to buy us things we may need. More plans are made. The women centre decide to spent the money of extending their class by making a new shed on the terrace. Other centres want books, toys, mats, plastic stools a cornucopia of things that would make everyone happy. So it’s shopping time and we are again touched by the generosity of these very unique youngsters.
As I watch them go about their chosen tasks I cannot but wonder at what makes these kids from well to do homes and privileged lands take a whole month off their holidays to come and spread joy and love to a bunch of slum children in India? They do not have to do it, they chose to do so. Just a look at them is enough to know that they do so with their heart braving all the challenges that slum India throws at them each day. And as I watch them I wonder why youngsters of privileged India do not walk the same road. If that did happen things could be so different.
In less than a week the SARI kids will leave us and go their way. They will leave in our hearts an indelible mark and the comforting feeling that all is still well in our world.
God bless them.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 27, 2009 | okhla
In Valencia a little town in Spain live three wonderful people: Andy, Irene and Mike. Andy and Irene are old friends. They came some time back and spent a few days at pwhy and helped us build a brand new floor for our Okhla project! I guess they got touched by what I call the magic of project why as form that day onwards they have always been there for us. Running a race or sending regular mails filled with words of support and hope, Irene and Andy have taken us to heir hearts. A few days back Irene wrote tehse simple words: I’ve just read your post on the web site – surviving on promises. Every time I visit the PWhy site, I wish I was rich and could help you more, but I’m not so I just continue to do what I can.
And they did just that: convinced their good friend Mike who runs the sale where Irene and Andy run the book stall to support project why! This morning when I opened my inbox there was a warm mail that simply said: We had a wonderful time spreading the Project Why message this morning. One of our neighbours has promised to circulate details to everybody in her email address book, and another has donated four boxes of books, CDs etc for our August stall, so as you can see, PWhy is reaching out into the Valencian community.
Whenever I am down and out and wonder how pwhy will survive, there always comes what I call a message from God. Irene’s mail was just that: a blessed missive reminding me that I cannot give up as pwhy is not just another organisation, it is one that has been woven with threads of love and hope by people who feel for it and want it to live. True the road may sometimes look difficult but it is the one less travelled, the one I have and will always walk as it is filled with exciting surprises and wonderful people like Irene, Andy and Mike.
God bless them all.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Apr 6, 2009 | okhla
What kept me going so well yesterday wasn’t only down to training. I kept reminding myself of the reason I was running, which was ‘Anou and the women and kids at Project Why’, and it gave strength to my legs to know that you were thinking of me.
These were the words written by an incredible woman who ran a 5 km race in Valencia just for us. She ran the race in 28 minutes and came 270 out of over 4000 runners. Irene started running late in life, when she was well above half a century and this was her first big race that and she ran it for us!
Irene and Andy came to project why for a short week last year and helped us rebuild the floor of our Okhla centre. Since then they have kept in touch and been regular donors to our cause. When Irene decided to run her race we truly thrilled. The creche children made a huge pink poster for her that said : Go Irene. And on the day of the race our thoughts were with her in spite of the thousands of miles that separated us.
When we saw her pictures we were overjoyed. It was really a special and precious moment. Over the past ten years pwhy has been helped and funded by heartwarming individual initiatives and that is what makes us unique. To some these may seem paltry and inconsequential but that is because they look with their eyes and not with their heart. We were terribly proud of Irene and cheered her with all our heart. You can even see her win the race here.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 26, 2009 | okhla
India celebrates its 6oth Republic Day! All day long there will be ceremonies and parades in different parts of the country. In a remote corner of its capital, on top of a reclaimed garbage dump a bunch of children celebrated Republic Day a day earlier. Two tiny flags on top of a battered speaker marked the occasion. If the props were few the spirit was high. Every child has prepared an item for the occasion.
Little Mithi danced with gay abandon. Her little feet tapping to the beat of the music, a huge smile on her face. There were songs, poems and skits all performed with utmost seriousness and concentration. Yes the little Okhla children celebrated republic day with aplomb! The same happened in other pwhy centres too! I could not be present at all centres and as is often the case lived the moments by proxy courtesy the innumerable photographs taken on the occasion. What was touching is that in each and everyone of them the children were beaming and happy.
These were children of India, protected by the very Constitution that was being commemorated today, the one that was meant to guarantee them a string of rights: justice, liberty, equality words that had scant meaning for these little children. Most of them belonged to extremely poor families, their parents having often fled a flood or a drought or some other calamity to seek greener pastures but sadly found themselves in situations often worse then the one they had left. The pot of gold that they sought remained a chimera.
The children sang and danced oblivious of what awaited them. They were still protected by the innocence of childhood when everything is possible. Tomorrow little Mithi will come to the centre her school bag in tow and will follow her lessons and painstakingly complete all tasks assigned to her. What no one knows is how long it will last: the arrival of a sibling may just put and end to her childhood and her school days. Is this not the plight of many a girl child?
Mithi’s rights are not protected by any Constitution. They simply depend on the vagaries of the reality of her life.
As we celebrate our Republic, my thoughts goes to the millions whose lives hang by a tenuous string in this country that is getting polarised by the minute. As one part of it grows by leaps and bounds to meet a glitzy destiny, the other seems to be sinking with the same rapidity to darker abysses. And yet this is the very one that infuses energy in our lives, the one when hope still lives in the tiny feet of a child dancing, the one where values still rule the day. The one that the world toasts today in a celebrated movie.
If one India is busy debating whether schools should be allowed to increase their already high fees, the other is wondering whether their overcrowded and only school will be sold to build a mall. That is the sad reality of how things as we celebrate yet another Republic Day. I wonder how many more will come and go before all the children in India will the rights enshrined in the very body being honoured today.
