by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
I got a phone call last week. It was from a local ladies’ club who wanted to honour me as part of their women’s day celebrations. I asked them quite candidly how they had heard of me and the answer was as candid: one of their friends had met me at the boarding school and got quite impressed by the fact that we sponsored children in the school. At first I was a little hesitant as I have always been weary of people who want to lionize you without even seeing your work, but then remembering the dire straits we were in, I decided to accept. I must admit I had no idea what I was getting into as this was a world I had always shunned. Maybe time had come to get over my disquiet and take a peek over the fence.
So yesterday afternoon I donned by best attire and set off to be honoured! The meeting was happening in the home of one of the ladies and when I reached the appointed place, I was greeted by a dozen of upmarket ladies in their best attire that made mine look somewhat paltry. The ladies were all smiles and very warm and we were given a cold drink as we still had to wait for some arrivals. Then it was time for the meeting to begin and it did with a bang: a lamp was lit, a bell rung and everyone stood up to hold hands and sing a bollywood song of the yesteryears that extolled the virtues of walking together. I was to say the least a little bemused but there was a feeling of bonhomie that prevailed and made it all acceptable.
Then it was speech time, a little pompous as everyone was greeted by their club titles. Then it was my time to speak and I did from the heart, telling them simply how pwhy had begun and what it meant to me. Everyone listened and some ladies wanted to know more. Then I was given a shawl and a gift. The President said they would come and visit us and help in whatever ways they could. A few more speeches and then the meeting closed with the singing of the National Anthem and the ringing of the bell. We were then invited to a cup of tea, which turned out to be nothing less than a feast! I took my leave, leaving the bunch of ladies to their festivities and returning to my side the fence.
My peek into this world had been a welcome experience and I was glad I had accepted the invitation. Though I did remain a little skeptic as my past exposure to the likes of these ladies had not been happy. How could I forget the umpteen times when subsequent to a phone call we were have been landed time and again with heaps of rubbish in the guise of donations, how can I forget the outrage of two such ladies when they heard about our boarding school programme, how can I forget the broken toys delivered with great fanfare. All said and done my forays across the fence had not been pretty. And yet these ladies seemed honest and genuine when they said they would help us and somehow I believed them. True we would have to wait for the right time, for their social calendars to have an appropriate window and so on. But wait we will.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 9, 2011 | Uncategorized
The appeal to save our women centre has not gone unheard. Of the 200 commitments needed we have 75. This is great but still not quite enough. It may give us some breathing time but not save the centre! We do need to reach the 200 mark. My decade and more long experience of panhandling has shown me that all appeals get a spontaneous response and people do come forward, often with more than solicited. This is indeed heartwarming but often not quite sufficient.
Let me explain why.
The money we seek from you this time is what is needed to run our women centre. This money is needed every month to pay our staff – all of which depend on this salary to live – to pay our rent, to pay our utilities bills – none of which will wait – to pay the material and educational aids that are needed to teach and so on. So to save the women centre long term we need to reach the magic figure of 200. Anything short of that would simply delay the inevitable closure. What has seen us through 11 years is the regular commitments, however tiny, that reach us every month and allow us to meet our needs. And this is what we are asking from you.
The amount we seek is one that can easily be spared. One movie outing, one coffee at a coffee house. It is not much and I know that we will be able to raise it. We just have to keep trying.
I got some very touching mails from people willing to walk instead of taking cars! Bless them.
I would simply like to reiterate what this small sacrifice would ensure. It would allow 300 children to remain in school and what is most important is that some of these have painstakingly reached class X after having been failures for long. It will allow batches of 60 women to learn a vocational skill in our six month courses. Many today are able to supplement their home budgets, it will allow 20 people to retain their jobs, jobs that have allowed them to feed their families. So is it not worth your sacrifice!
Please help us save our women centre.
And to all of you who have already done so, a big thank you!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
My appeal for help did not yield the expected results. At this moment I do not want to begin wondering why. The situation is too critical to allow me that luxury. I simply need to conjure a miracle or take the dreaded decision about which part of pwhy will face the axe. In case of the former I can only pray. For the later I guess I will have to apply some logic that works. It is not easy to decide which part of you to amputate. After much thought and deliberation I have come to the conclusion that if we have to close some part of pwhy, then it should be the part that was the last to see the day of light and by that logic it would be the women centre.
This centre came into being way back in August 2007 and was dedicated to the memory of Kamala, my mother. I feel terrible of even thinking to close it. It is almost as if I was letting this incredible woman down. And yet I do not see any other way.
The women centre today is a vibrant and spirited centre where over 300 children, most of them girls study; where over 60 women are taking their first steps on the road of economic independence by learning new skills; where 20 persons from deprived homes are earning their livelihood. Closing the centre would mean shutting the door on the morrows of all of them. Sounds terrible but unless that miracle comes through, it seems to be the only option we have.
This post is my last ditch effort to save our women centre.
What would it take to save the centre. Well barring a miracle that would conjure a sponsor or benefactor that would take the centre over, we would need about 200 persons willing to part with five hundred rupees or ten dollars a month! This is not even the price of an outing or a movie. Now that should not be difficult to find for one who has hundreds of friends on social networks and mailing lists of over a thousand. But past experience has proved otherwise. You see, past appeals have never worked. And yet one does not give up. All I need to do is to see the pictures below. How can I let all these wonderful and innocent souls down.
So today more than ever, I need a miracle, or need to find 200 persons who can look with their hearts.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
A leading TV channel and a mega multinational have launched a campaign called ‘support my school’. Do click on this link and you are greeted by titles such as girls dropping out of school because of lack of toilets or too many students all else to little. Click on the later. You will be told of a school in North Delhi, yes in our own capital city, where there are 1800 students, where roll calls are taken in the open and last for a whole hour, where teachers admit only being able to check the home work of 15 out of the 80 students in their class, where all students do not get a bench to sit own. It is nothing short of a nightmare and far from the enabling environment needed for children to bloom.
Yet all the children in this school and in hundreds like them have gained the right to education, albeit as late as 2010 when the said Act finally came into force. Children in free India had to wait sixty two years to gain this right. Speaks volumes, does it not! The state of schools is nothing short of abysmal. This is the enabling environment we give our children and hope they will bloom into great adults. But how can they, many will never finish school for no fault of theirs, and others will muddle through into mediocrity.
When will we realise that primary education is the cornerstone of any self respecting society?
Believe me, it does not take much to turn things around. We have done this at pwhy for the past 11 years. With unskilled staff and scant resources we have ensured that every child that walks into our premises remains in school and graduates with success. The magic potion if any was tons of love that would make every child believe in himself and oodles of patience to ensure that every child ultimately comes out a winner. No rocket science required. This translates into a sad reality: it seems he powers that be are not really interested in educating the poor.
Are the rich better off? Not quite if we are to go by the nightmare of recent nursery admissions. Toddlers are being rejected school after school for again not fault of theirs: no sibling in school, the wrong gender or address, no alumni parents and so on. So where is the right to education we so blatantly talk about. Every government school building carries a sign saying; no child can be denied admission. yet what is the point of stuffing schools till they strangulate and die. Classes of 80 plus is not an acceptable option. Is education is to be a constitutional right then it is time the State took matters in hand and loosened its purse strings. It is also time we all started accepting the idea of a neighborhood school for all. Government schools still have prime property often unused. Why not built spanking schools on them instead of the pitiful barracks in existence.
Private school fees are running berserk. A friend of mine recently told me that the school fees of her 5 year old amounted to 30 K a term! Primary education has become a lucrative business and the insidious privatisation of education will ring the death knell of education for the poor. True efforts like the one mentioned above are laudable, but that is not the answer. The real answer is a change in policy but we all know how high education ranks in the minds of those who rule us… our present education minister had been handed an added portfolio which seems to be taking all his time!
Millions of little children are waiting for a chance to excel, and many of them can do too! Look at our little boarding school stars who shine in their enabling school. When will all the children of India get a similar opportunity.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 26, 2011 | Uncategorized
It was PTM day last Thursday! This was a an open house working PTM, a little different from the customary ones. This time we were all shepherded to a classroom where the Principal, we were told, would address us. We were given a paper to read, one that listed the school’s achievements in the past year and plans for the one to come. I must admit many of us felt that this was a preamble to a fee increase and were a tad apprehensive.
After a long wait as parents were few and slowly trickling in, the Principal arrived and the meeting began. I must admit that we all wished be very short as we wanted to be with the kids. They of course kept passing in front of the opened door trying to catch our eye. But we kept sitting stoically our faces serious. The young Principal began by highlighting the past year’s achievements that were many and laudable: the school had been awarded the Best Boarding School in Delhi award and many of its children had won cups and prizes. Then it was time to know about the coming year. We were told that there would be a new gymnasium, a reading and resource centre, space technology classes, vedic maths, tennis football and more. We were also informed about the fact that soft skills would be taught from class III: table manners, telephone etiquette, anger management and more. That is when the Principal gently told us that there would be no added costs and believe you me every one in the room heaved a sigh of silent relief.
The meeting ended and we were offered some refreshment. But we wre all in a hurry to go and hig our kids. It was then time to get the term results – as always the children had done exceedingly well – meet the teachers and staff members, click the customary snapshots and then finally steal some time with the kids. Most of our children’s parents had also arrived and everyone sat in the winter sun with their little ones. I too rewarded myself to a few moments with Utpal who was busy playing with my grandson Agastya. We played a little, ate the goodies we had brought and soon it was time to go.
As always the ride back was in silence. I was lost in my thoughts. Just a few years or months ago the eight project why wards that were today thriving and blooming in this school, lived in abysmal conditions. In hovels where you barely had space to move, where manners and tables belonged to another world and you were lucky if you had a plate and here they were all set to learn table manners and etiquette. Wow! What a miracle! My thoughts wandered back to the day when two socialite ladies had expressed their outrage at our nerve to be sending slum kids to a proper school. I wished I could tell them that not only were they in school, but were all set to learn dining manners and table etiquette! Would love to see their faces!
Yes we had made the right decision and selected the best school. These slum kids were on the way to conquering a new world and I knew they would succeed. I must admit I felt smug and could not help smiling.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 21, 2011 | Uncategorized
The danger of being good is the cover story of a leading weekly. Do read it. It is scary. Yet it paints a dark and accurate picture of present day India where to be good is not to be foolish but foolhardy. And yet some chose to do so no matter what. The article relates the stories of some of the bravehearts. It ends with these words This cover story is an alarming reminder that what should have been the norm has become the exception. Doing one’s duty is no longer an imperative in India. Nothing governs us as a society now except the miracle of individual choice. We are secured by the fact that some people choose to be good, no matter what. But there are myriad dangers in that. There is not just the might of the State to confront. There is also the temptation at every turn to just give up, part the skin and slip over into the silken side where one half of India is living a charmed life. If you don’t fight the ugliness of the State, it will behave in benign ways with you. That is one of the hardest lessons being good in India teaches you.
To all those mentioned in this article and to those like them who continue to make the right choice I say Chapeau Bas!
I too made a choice ten years back. To me it was not simply the right choice but the only one. And though my work is puny and insignificant compared to the stories related in the article, I too have faced the wrath of state and society. True it may not be as blatant or glaring, rather it has been insidious and surreptitious. The author of the article makes no bones about the state of our society when she says …just this small handful of stories will make you balk at the depraved society they reveal. Corruption in every pore: … Nothing is safe. Greed is the only propeller. We are not a society really: we are a termite nest, eating at ourselves. This is a far cry from the dying words of my father: have faith in India! I would still like to hold on to those words even if everything screams to the contrary. I would like to believe that things will change though how is a million dollar question! A recent ad on TV urges the Finance Minister to find some black magic to deal with black money. That is how desperate we are.
Coming back to my choices and the ire they leashed out, I would like to share some incidents that till date had remained hidden in some deep recesses of my memory. The article did make them come to the fore. I remember how outraged a local politico had felt when he realised that many pwhy students could read and comprehend English. That day I had become the enemy. You see the poor had to remain poor and illiterate and committing the cardinal sin of empowering the poor had to be arrested. What ensued was veiled threats, the bulldozing of our school in the park, public slander where I was branded a thief as I supposedly pocketed huge amounts and just doled out a few pennies to espoused cause. Even till date the said politico does not mince his words when it comes to me. I guess what vented his fury was the fact that many of my staff exercised their right not to vote in elections. I had crossed the line. Since I have reined myself a little, not because I am scared or intimated, but in the larger interest of pwhy as I felt it was more important to carry on helping the children and the community rather than proving points.
Running an honest ship is not easy in our day and times. Corruption lurks at every corner. You get hounded by the electricity department, the water department, the municipal authorities, just about every one. Each time you need to renew your tax exemption certificates or file your returns, greasy palms appear from everywhere and if you decide to ignore them then every nook and corner of your soul is scrutinised and probed and you are viewed with suspicion and mistrust. The state does not like people who make individual choices.
One would hope that society at least would be kinder and more generous. You soon realise that this is not the case. For one who had been voted Citizen One in 2005, the city has given little. Every attempt to secure funding has failed be it the one rupee a day pitch or the individual attempts at getting funds. What has hurt me more than anything is the total disinterest that people show when one shares stories from the other side of the fence and how can I ever forget the total outrage expressed by two socialites when they heard about our boarding school programme: what was left unsaid and yet so audible could be translated as: how dare you send these children to what has to remain our hallowed turf! So be it state or society you were branded enemy if you dared disturb existing social patterns.
And yet you do not succumb to the temptation of giving everything of, of slamming the door and losing the key, of slipping into the silken side where one half of India is living a charmed life. You carry on doggedly facing every scorn and obstacle and finding ways out. Sometimes you wonder why and the answer comes to you loud and clear: because there is no other option, because you have made a choice and because you still have to look at your face in the mirror and like what you see. Ans above all because of all the little smiles that greet you every day and the dreams you hold in custody.
So help me God!
I got a phone call last week. It was from a local ladies’ club who wanted to honour me as part of their women’s day celebrations. I asked them quite candidly how they had heard of me and the answer was as candid: one of their friends had met me at the boarding school and got quite impressed by the fact that we sponsored children in the school. At first I was a little hesitant as I have always been weary of people who want to lionize you without even seeing your work, but then remembering the dire straits we were in, I decided to accept. I must admit I had no idea what I was getting into as this was a world I had always shunned. Maybe time had come to get over my disquiet and take a peek over the fence.
