by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
I entered the world of disability quite by accident. In hindsight it seems it was preordained. My first encounter with the Giri Nagar slums was for purely personal reasons. I had gone to meet Mataji, a healer, with the hope that she would cure me of the depression I had allowed myself to seek in post the demise of both my parents. She did much more than that. She was a true changemaker. But that is another story waiting to be told.
I often spent long moments sitting on the step of Mataji’s home watching the world go by, a world I felt strangely comfortable in. Perhaps it was because it was so very different to mine. Anyway it is while sitting on the doorstep which was on the street that I first saw Manu and got my first exposure to the plight of one who is disabled. Manu touched a deep chord in me and stirred emotions that I find hard to describe. Let us simply say that even today when I think of that instant I am covered in goosebumps. At first I just watched too frightened to ask any question. But then mustered the courage to hear a story that was heart wrenching. I do not know how it happened but I heard myself making a silent promise to myself, one that no one heard but me: One day you will have a home Manu.
The journey had begun. It took years to build the home pledged. And a very circuitous route with many milestones: a spoken English class, a day care for special kids – you see Manu had to have his set of pals – after school support, early education and so on. Till one day we had enough strength to open our residential facility for special people. Manu had his home. It is there that he spent the last days of his life and passed away gently leaving me completely lost. It is then that I realised how much Manu had given me and what an special soul he was. If not for him project why would not have seen the light of day. He proved beyond doubt that NO life is futile and worthless.
Over the years I have pontificated about the plight of special children and adults, about how tenuous their morrows are, about how insecure their life became once they lose their parents, about how little society has done for them, about how much they need to be accepted and loved. And it was for them that Planet Why was conceived. You can understand my dejection as I slowly begin to grasp the fact that Planet Why may never see the light of day and my special children may have to face indignity and disrespect.
All these sombre thoughts have been running in my head as I slowly watch the quietus of planet why and I wonder whether I truly gave it my best. Had I pushed the project adequately? Had I put my heart and soul into it? Was I paying for my new found reclusion that resulted in my isolation from the rich and famous? Should I have shed my disdain for page 3 soirees and slipped into my my high heels more often? How I regret not knowing those who have money. I know that I could convince them were I able to cross their threshold. But what is the point of lamenting now when it is too late. Or is it?
A few weeks back I lost a close one. Strangely this demise came with a rider. It is was not one that could be dealt with an adequate amount of tears and eulogies. This untimely death came with a deafening question: can you walk the talk! Let me elucidate. The one who left us also left a younger sister. She is challenged though no one ever accepted that reality. She lived all her life in a golden cage, jealously protected by those who loved her. No one was willing, as is often the case, to accept that she was special and thus needed special care. All her life she had been made to believe that she was like all others and kept away from the world, as her close ones built one for her within the confines of four walls and peopled by a handful only. Everything in her life was controlled and managed. She had no say whatsoever and the ones who ran her life had no knowledge whatsoever of the needs of a special person. We too never intervened as one would not have been heard and sometimes it is easier to let things be. But the God of Lesser beings had another plan. He took away her close ones in a short span of time leaving her alone but strangely also free. The question was would anyone help her enjoy her freedom.
One could have left her with what remained of her family and done the bare minimum: a few visits, a small gift thrown in, some hugs and comforting words not really meant. But as I said it was time to walk the talk, to remember the spiel on dignity and respect, on care and love. It was time to act and let the long imprisoned soul free. So barely a few days after the departed had been laid to rest I decided to get her out of her walls and into the big world. She would come to project why and be part of our special class. I must admit a little sheepishly that I was a tad apprehensive at first. How would she react? How would the others react? Would she like it? What can I say: she took to the project like a fish to water. She was all smiles and everyone took to this new aunt, for want of a better word. For the first in her life of almost half a century she had something that was really hers: a place to go to every day, friends to interact with, dance it, share a meal with and above all laugh with. I cannot describe how humbled I feel and how overwhelmed.
Was it time to make a last ditch effort for planet why!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 8, 2011 | Uncategorized
We are again on the look out for a spoken English teacher as Smita our Okhla English teacher is leaving us next month. The search is on and we know it ain’t no easy task. We need someone whose spoken English is good and who is willing to work in a reclaimed garbage dump and who loves children. We remember how tough it was last time.
Last week a young woman came by for an interview. She was armed with certificates, one being an English Hons degree. She seemed a little shy and hesitant but was quick to tell us that this was a her first job interview and she was very nervous. As Smita is still with us we decided to try out this lady as an understudy and take a final decision in a week or so. No week was needed to realise that in spite of her degree, her English was abysmal and non existent. The class was learning opposites and when asked to write the opposite of fat one of our kids confidently wrote THIN on the white board. The new teacher decreed this was wrong as there was a letter missing. Every one was nonplussed: the children, Smita and even the other primary staff. The new teacher then added a G. You can imagine every one’s reaction. At the end of the session students went to the supervisor to tell her that they did not think the new lady could teach them anything. The die was cast. And to crown it all the young woman was constantly mixing yesterday and tomorrow. We knew she had to go. The hunt for an English teacher was still on.
This post is in no way meant to belittle the young person in question. Far from that. My heart actually goes out to her. Imagine the hard work she must have put in, the sacrifices the family must have made so that their daughter could study, the joy she must have felt when she passed her examination not to forget what she must have felt when she was told the job was not hers. This post is meant to once again expose the state of education in our country, particularly education of those who are born on the wrong side of the fence. If you come from a non English speaking home then your only encounter with the language is in school. Now if you go to a Government school it is very likely that your teacher does not speak the language well. I can never forget my first brush with what transpires in an English class in a secondary school. One of our students came to me one day way back in 2001. She was in class VII. She handed me her book and asked me to help her. It was an English course book that was a compilation of essays and extracts from known writers. The page was open on an extract from Oscar Wilde’s Happy Prince. The girl brandished a pencil in my direction and asked me to underline the text. You can imagine how perplexed I was. I sat her down and asked her what she wanted me to do. She repeated: Underline! I then asked what happened in class and she told me after some prompting that the teacher sometimes read the lesson, or sometimes didn’t and then explained the meaning in Hindi then told the students to underline the answers to the questions that appeared at the end of the text. The students then learnt the lines by heart and could answer the questions in examinations. Needless to say none of them really knew what the underlined lines meant. As she had been absent for some days she needed the lines underscored so that she could learn them for the test on the next day.
That is what goes on in an English class and if you mug your lines well, as the young teacher must have done, you got good marks, and if you got good marks you could apply for a university course in English (correspondence or evening classes as their marks are never enough for an admission in a DU college) and get your degree. This is what happens to many students from poorer homes and it is when they apply for a job that they often face a reality check. You may wonder what happens to a rich child who does not have sufficient marks. Well he has s/he has many options: a private university or the option to go abroad and sit for a school leaving again. Needless to say these options come at a hefty price and are out of reach for students from underprivileged homes. Yet all the children of India have a right to education, and I would assume a good one. But that is not what happens. The divide exists perennially.
You may wonder how children from humble homes would fear fare in a rich school. Believe you me they would do exceedingly well as they are survivors who know intuitively what is good for them. And I speak first hand as we have 8 such children in what could be called a good school. All eight are top of their class. So if given the chance they deserve, all kids would shine. It is time we thought about them and did something.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 6, 2011 | Uncategorized
The recent success of the F1 tamasha proved once again the terrible and growing divide between the rich and the poor in our country, a divide growing by the minute. A thought provoking essay in a leading magazine poses the question that we all need to ask ourselves: Is India doing marvellously well, or is it failing terribly?
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to realise that India may look well to some but is in a abysmal situation for a vast majority. The incisive article throws some disturbing statistics. Believe it or not Bangladesh has overtaken India in terms of a wide range of basic social indicators: life expectancy, child survival, fertility rates, immunisation rates, and even some (not all) schooling indicators such as estimated “mean years of schooling”. Not something to be proud of. And that is not all. We in India have the highest proportion of underweight children in the world! Something that should make us hand our head in shame particularly when one thinks of the food fiestas we see on the other side of the fence be it at nuptials or holy festivities. And what about the enormous quantities of nourishment that finds its way into the garbage of many.
One again does not have to be a rocket scientist to see that at one of the spectrum India is going richer by the second: glitzy malls, seven star hotels, opulent homes, luxury hospitals, fancy schools are some of the visible indicators of this fact. Yet at the other end of the same spectrum schools are pathetic and health care practically non Growth growth can be very helpful in achieving development, but this requires active public policies to ensure that the fruits of economic growth are widely shared, and also requires—and this is very important—making good use of the public revenue generated by fast economic growth for social services, especially for public health care and public education. So if all had gone well the growth that is so blatant should have entailed significant development. But here once again our rulers have failed us completely. What we seem to be witnessing is the opposite. As the rich get better schools, schools for the poor get worse and worse. As the rich get swankier hospitals the poor are left with quacks and overcrowded ones. And so on.
Growth that should in an ideal situation have promised marked improvement in social indicators seems to have done nothing of the sort. Quite the contrary. The article cites how biscuit manufacturers attempted to hijack the government’s midday meal programme and though they have not managed to get what they sought, they are still at it and despite much vigilance and resistance from activist quarters (and the Supreme Court), they seem to have made significant inroads into child feeding programmes in several states. The share of the pie is too tempting to let go.
Why has there been such a massive neglect of the interests of the poor is the question that needs to be asked. The authors offer some insight: could it be a reflection of the good old inequalities of class, caste and gender that have been around for a long time though it does seem that these are diminishing. Or could it be the growing influence of corporate interests on public policy and democratic institutions does not particularly facilitate the reorientation of policy priorities towards the needs of the unprivileged. A good example would be the growing medical insurance business and the private hospitals nexus. I guess it is both. But I also think that there is another cause for neglect of the poor and this is first hand knowledge. It seems that greed and money power have leached us of all compassion and sensitivity and turned one slice of Indians into heartless and unconcerned souls. We encounter aberrations every day and turn our face away. It could be a child begging, a child working and we simply turn our face away. But will the fragile castles we have surreptitiously build stand the test of time. I wonder.
The authors conclude by saying; There is probably no other example in the history of world development of an economy growing so fast for so long with such limited results in terms of broad-based social progress…. Food for thought.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2011 | Uncategorized
I know the clock is ticking and it will soon be time to lay planet why to rest. Yes we have just 2 months left. 31/12/2011 is D day. This was something decided upon some time back. I had written about this at the beginning of the year and left it in the hands of the God of lesser beings. And I know I must walk the talk.
For the past year we have put our best foot forward and tried to ‘sell’ planet why to the best of our ability. For me it has always been first and foremost a home for my special children. A haven where they can live and laugh their way through life. A place where their dignity remains intact no matter how disabled they may be. A place where they would be cared for till the very end. The remaining part of Planet why was always secondary: what was needed to make it all happen. I wonder if I too had forgotten my priorities while pitching for planet why. Two poignant occurrences brought me back on course.
The first was consequent to the demise of my cousin last week. His sudden and untimely death was most felt by his younger sibling who is mentally challenged. With her brother gone she has no one left in the world, no one to love her. True there are some who will take care of her because of duty or fear of social reprisal but not with their hearts. And who can blame them: the sister is middle aged, not pretty and can be extremely demanding. As long as her mother and brother were alive, she reigned supreme, today she is relegated to a corner as what was her home is now her sister in law’s and her kin’s. This is a situation I have often talked about whenever children with disabilities are the subject of conversation. Today the situation is at my doorstep. We have stepped in and the orphaned sister now comes to our special class every day. Needless to say the family was more than eager to send her. But it is not easy for someone who never stepped out of her home let alone meet people with disabilities to leave the only safe environment she knew and step into a world that has always been kept away. Poor soul she is trying her best to adjust. Maybe she knows deep in her heart that this is the only option she has. Planet Why was conceived for people like her.
The second occurrence was a message on FB urging me to read a note written by the mother of a special child. I have never been so moved as I was reading the poignant piece entitled: will you let him drink the wind. I urge you to read this brave and moving piece where a mother shares her angst at the plight of her child. It is an extremely raw, powerful and passionate picture of the reality of one who lives and loves a special child. It reflects the utter helplessness of a parent who cannot begin to imagine what would be the future of her child when she is gone. Something she cannot bear. So the ultimate cry, the ultimate entreaty to God: You take him, God, before us. Well before us. Before we lose the strength in our limbs to care for him properly. Before by his constant never-ending demands, he leaches away our love for him from our souls. You take him. I can only say Chapeau Bas!
Reading those words was by far the most heart wrenching experience. I sat stunned and silent for a long time. She had by her words brought to light all the issues that had been tormenting me since the day I decided to throw open the doors of project why to special children. What would their morrows hold and how did one safeguard them. Or could one really do so. That was the question thrown by this moving appeal. Had I been too naive or daring thinking I could. How small I feel and how humbled.
Maybe it is time I said : you take care of them God.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 31, 2011 | Uncategorized
This picture was taken at the Diwali evening puja . My grandson praying! Watching him was a truly special moment. Such innocence and belief. I wonder what the barely three year old was asking God. I would have given so much to get into his tiny head. I am sure that God heard this very special petition. But it will remain a secret between Agastya and his special God. Was it a visit to the toy shop or his favourite pasta for dinner? Keep guessing grandma you will never know. And come to think about it is better to keep the mystery, it makes it that much more precious.
But do the Gods listen to adults when they petition him. Jim Morrison felt otherwise if you remember the opening lines of the Soft Parade. Are prayers useless and superfluous. I do not know. All I know is that there are times when I send my entreaty to someone I call the God of Lesser beings. And since project why began I believe I have been heard more than once.
Over the past decade we have had some very challenging moments, moments that left me no option but to pray for a miracles. And they occurred one after the other. Children got their heart surgeries, Utpal found a school and a home and above all we kept running day after day, month after month. I asked and He gave. It was as simple as that.
Yet for the past months or even more I have been praying for planet why and this time I have received mixed messages. Sometimes it seems just around the corner. But just as we think we are home, something happens and we are back to square one. Is there a sign I am not comprehending?
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 30, 2011 | Uncategorized
Our gang of eight are back to school after their Diwali break. They dropped by on the way to fetch Utpal and say hello! Boy they have grown. It is truly amazing. They looked happy and eager to go back to school with their quilts, their warm clothes and many stories to share. Yash even had a burn on his leg courtesy Diwali crackers and proudly showed it to me as if it was a battle scar. I refrained from any comment to avoid being a wet blanket.
Manisha was all smiles though she waylaid them for the snap. She was happy to go back to school and meet her friends. Meher was her ebullient self and had her own tales to tell. Nikhil has lost some weight and seemed more active. That is good as I was a little worried about him. Babli was serious as usual, much the big sister responsible for the brood. Aditya and Vicky were poker faced a far cry from their habitual naughty selves, guess it was to impress Ma’am.
Utpal of course was a busy body, making sure all packets and bags were loaded in the waiting car, very much the man of the house. And why not, the only home he has now is mine and he is entitled to after all he has been through. He has truly earned his right to reclaim all he has been denied for long.
There they were with their dreams and hopes. I watched them pensively. Maybe I was the only one to realise how fragile and tenuous their dreams were. They all depended on my ability to secure them. The thought frightened me. It was such a huge responsibility. When the journey began with Utpal it was just a case of force majeure. We had no other option. Then came a man with his set of dreams and four more kids joined Utpal. The man walked away without a word and I was left holding the baby. They became five. Three more were added again because there was no other honourable way. What future did Meher have with her scars and Yash who had been abandoned by all. And when a kind man came offering a future to little Manisha could we refuse. Had we done so instead of being top of her class she would have joined her mom picking rags on the street. So we became eight.
True there are kind people who ensure the fee money. But over the years the fees have increased with the cost of living and fees alone do not meet the needs of a growing child. Those who have kids will understand me. There are shoes to be brought as feet grow at the speed of light and clothes winter ones and summer ones, toiletries, uniforms, books, school bags and more. They have to be fetched and dropped at each school break necessitating two vehicles now. All this adds up, yet all this is needed. And to the cynics before they materialise I would like to say that yes they deserve the best even if they happened to be born on the wrong side of the fence. When you assume a responsibility you go all the way. Selective benevolence does not exist.
It is with our eyes wide open that we decided to educate these children and nothing can or should come in the way of our commitment. So help us God!
I entered the world of disability quite by accident. In hindsight it seems it was preordained. My first encounter with the Giri Nagar slums was for purely personal reasons. I had gone to meet Mataji, a healer, with the hope that she would cure me of the depression I had allowed myself to seek in post the demise of both my parents. She did much more than that. She was a true changemaker. But that is another story waiting to be told.
