by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 6, 2010 | Uncategorized
Yesterday I got my first monthly report from BiharWhy. I sat a long time reading the two neatly typed pages, my eyes moist and a lump in my throat. Was this really happening? Somehow it all seemed to good to be true but true it was. All the years spent trying to empower people and make them believe in themselves had borne fruit. Even the gentle prods on the wisdom of taking the road back home and reversing the migration seemed to have worked. It almost seemed I had come full circle, even if it was in a tiny way.
I was reminded of the umpteen staff meetings where I had urged my proteges to walk the extra mile and fly on their own wings, and where I had despaired at the sullen or at best blank looks I got and yet I had never given up. I guess that is the one thing I personally learnt at pwhy: never to give up!
Today I stood vindicated and somewhat liberated. BiharWhy was not some pipe dream of seeing the why spirit soar in the land of my ancestors but a vibrant reality. And Chandan who I must confess never seemed to be the one to take the lead and had made this dream come true. And as I read his report I saw that this quiet and sometimes sullen looking young man had learnt his lessons well. In a month he had managed a parents’ meeting (something we still battle with), filled admission forms, made time tables, held a painting competition and taken a monthly test! What warmed my heart was that he had even convinced 18 parents to come for adult education classes. Soon he will be starting computer classes and even stitching ones. Wow!
His report ended with a simple statement: We are taking the classes in Bihar why project without roof. The words were pregnant with meaning: they need a roof on their little heads and I hope you will help us give them one.
Please take some time and look at these pictures: they speak volumes.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
Got a call yesterday. It was all the way form the USA. The caller was a passionate young Indian who wanted to make a difference. He had been deeply disturbed by the hunger that still prevailed across our land and wanted to help alleviate it. A young professional, he had quit his lucrative job to follow his heart. A young man after my own heart! He had been given my number from another young man who thinks with his heart and I was all ears.
We chatted for a few minutes and then the young man stated: My ambition is to somehow work to appease issues of hunger in Delhi. Wow! That was a stunner. Millions of images zipped through my mind and though some were undoubtedly of hunger per se, most were of the enormous amount of wasted food I have seen over the years I lived in this city: be it the humongous wastage one saw at up market dos – weddings, parties of all hues, religious functions etc – but more than that on the streets and garbage dumps in slums. I remember an instance a few years ago that made me write a blog entitled morning after! It was the site we saw the morning after a wedding that took place in our street and the wise words of a little girl who simply said: why did they not give the food to the cows.
Rewind to 1986. My first visit to an Indian village. It was a godforsaken village in the Jehanabad District of Bihar where I had gone for some developmental work. What surprised the most when I visited the home of one of the poorest family of this village was the pristine cleanliness of this small mud house: no flies, no garbage, no filth. Everything was spotless; it was the perfect example of recycling you could think of. The leftovers ,if there were any, and the vegetable peels were fed to the animals, the dung turned into cakes and used as fuel, the ashes used to clean the few utensils that sat sparkling on a small shelf, next to the Gods. Voila! No need for garbage bins, plastic bags and all the implements essential to urban life.
Forward to 2010 and after. On the sights that greets us each and every day is wasted food lying helter–skelter on the street, in the slum lanes, in garbage dumps, just about everywhere. You see there is always a wedding, a birthday party, a jagran, a religious do, you name it and it is there and at each and every venue there are heaps of plastic and thermacol plates still filled with good and clean food. It is just strewn on the ground till the cleaners sweep it away and carry it to the dump. But food is not only wasted during festivals or special occasions, it is wasted every day in every home as if throwing food was a way of stating that you had reached, that you had graduated from the rural to the urban status. It seemed the be the new mantra of success in the slums. I see it every day. In every home I go if it is meal time every member of a family will leave something on the plate. But come to think about it, this was not the case a few years back. In the same household no food was wasted and children were chided if they did not finish their plate. So what had changed.
The family in question had bettered its plight. More members had jobs now and thus the household income had taken a quantum leap. The advent of credit had enabled the family to buy two TVs, a refrigerator, coolers and many household items. In other words they had arrived. Their rural antecedents were laid to rest, the young adults of the family were all to the city born. The parents ere the only ones who still remembered the ways of village life with nostalgia and no one to listen.
From a people who worshiped food and deified it, we have turned into a nation that wastes with impunity and alacrity as we feel that we have all arrived! But have we? Look around and there are still people rummaging for food in garbage dumps but that is not all and believe it or not every 8.7 minutes a child dies of hunger while mounds of grains rot in the open. But we seem to have got inured to every and any thing. Have we really? I urge you to click on this link and look at the picture of a little three year old from Madhya Pradesh who weighs the same as a three month old healthy baby. It is not trick photography but stark reality in a land where 3000 children a day die of malnutrition. The picture of little Neeraj should be enough to make us think twice before we throw any food in the future. But will it? I do not know. It seems we have put our conscience on hold while we are busy arriving!
In the light of the above I wonder what to answer my young friend when he writes : My ambition is to somehow work to appease issues of hunger in Delhi. True there is hunger in Delhi but there is more wastage and disrespect for food then ever before. Should we mot address those issues, or at least find a way to address them first. I am at a loss.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jul 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
After more than ten years of working with the less privileged, I often think I have seen it all and am now inured to things. But that is not quite so. Yesterday we went to Manisha‘s home to talk to her mom about her going to boarding school. Yes you rad right our little Alien is off to boarding school sooner than we thought! We had hoped to catch her mom at lunch time but that was not to be as she was still out picking rags and was not expected till late afternoon. However the little home was not left unattended as Sonu, Manisha’s elder sister, was in charge. She is just eight years old.
Sonu welcomed us with a serious smile and asked us to sit down. We did and looked around.
Manisha’s home is not bigger than a store room and yet what struck us was that it was spotlessly clean and well organised. Everything seemed to have a place be it the little school bags in one corner or the mom’s sarees that hung in another. A tiny plank set on two bricks in the third corner was the kitchen and well organised. To beat the incredible heat a table fan was tied to the wooden beam that held the low tin roof of the house in place. One could see that in spite of all odds Manisha’s mom had tried to give the best she could to her children. I cannot find the words to describe what we felt: awe, respect, bewilderment laced with anger and even helplessness. This was the world of the survivor, one we could only salute.
We sat a while talking to Sonu. She told us she was very happy Manisha would be going to a big school and then little a true little mommy she turned to Manisha and told her quietly in a tone way beyond her years: you must study hard and do well! We asked her whether she too would like to go to school and again she relied with a wise smile: how can I, who will look after the baby, she does not stay without me. Those simple words summed up the plight of so many little girls across India. Here was a little girl, one who should still be playing with dolls, who had become an adult overnight. If she did not look after the home, the mother would not be able to earn and no one would survive. She knew it and what was killing was that there was no resentment or bitterness in the girl, it was simply her life.
As I said I thought I had seen it all but this little girl moved me beyond words and was a stark reminder of how little we had achieved and how much more needed to be done.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
A few months back one of our regular and committed donors came to visit. We of course discussed future funding and in the course of conversation he quite candidly admitted that it was easier for him to market individual stories. Finding funds for larger projects like primary classes was more difficult. He wanted me to ‘find’ more possible candidates for boarding school as he felt that was something donors ‘liked’. I must admit I was a little vexed but did not let my feelings show as beggars cannot be choosers! And though I told him that it was not easy to find parents who would hand over their kids and even if they did then it would open flood gates we would be unable to handle, I also promised to look into the matter and find him a suitable candidate.
The one child that came to mind was little Mehajabi. Would it not be wonderful to give this little girl a good education. It would transform her life. So sure were we of this possibility that we wrote to our funder friend and he was all set to send Mehajabi to boarding school. But that was not to be. Her mother who at first accepted came back a few days later telling us that she would not send her child away. And when mothers decree one cannot but follow. We did try to gently tell her that this was a one in a lifetime chance for the little girl but the battle was uneven: the mother won. Nothing we would say could change her decision. We had to let it go.
I must admit we all felt sad and even a little unnerved. More so because we knew that mommy’s was jeopardizing the little girl’s morrows. But we did not have the arguments to bat for her. The mother’s logic was simple: she stated that after the heart surgery she could not bear to be parted from her child. Never mind if food was scant, if the roof leaked, if there was no money to pay the few rupees needed to send her to school. She was adamant and we were helpless. No logic could counter the almost irrational love of this mother. We knew what awaited Mehajabi: a few years in a third rate school and then perhaps she would join her mom in cleaning other people’s home just like her young aunt did, till a suitable match was found. Then her life would simply mirror the one her mother was living. On the other hand Babli who also had an open heart surgery was busy making up for lost time and excelling in school. Her mom’s love had not stood in her way.
We wrote to our funder and told him that in spite of our best efforts we were unable to convince the family and thus Mehajabi would not be joining the other pwhy kids at boarding school. He wrote back telling us to find someone else as he really wanted to. We promised him we would do so. A few days later, Vinita our early education coordinator suggested Manisha’s name.
Manisha is a quaint child. She is spirited, vivacious and her little puckered face and uneven teeth makes her look like a little endearing ET. Her teachers fondly call her ‘alien’. But this child’s story is heart wrenching and her future as it stands today very bleak. Manisha comes from an extremely poor family of migrants from Bihar. She has 2 brothers. Her father is a drunk. He is abusive and violent and does not give a single penny towards the running of the household. All they get is blows. Her mom has learnt to survive. She is a rag picker. Every morning she sets out with a big bag and ferrets through garbage heaps trying to salvage anything that can be sold. What she earns from her effort determines what the family will eat.They live in a sunken, dark, dingy hole with a tin roof which is their home.
Manisha six though she looks four. She has been in our creche for 2 years but soon it will be time for her togo to school. Given her circumstances we know that she will never make it to school as school though free requires some resources. Today it is because we go and fetch her that she comes to pwhy. If that did not happen she would turn into mother’s little helper be it with home chores or rag picking. No one invests time let alone money in a girl child. Her life will simply clone her mother’s. Yet Manisha is bright and intelligent and had a hunger for learning, a hunger we see in many children like her.
We have asked her mom whether she would be willing to send Manisha to boarding school. Unlike Mehjabi’s mom, Manisha’s mom was quick to see that this was a one in a life time chance for her daughter, one that would free her from the invisble bonds she was fettered in and maybe give her better morrows. We hope that this will happen though we know that we will need to be with her each step of the way.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 23, 2010 | Uncategorized
It is absolutely inane that as a society we have reached the sad day when we need to debate the issue of whether, what I can only call a cool blooded murder, can be viewed as socially acceptable and be called honour killing. I have listened with horror to the recent debates where those in favour – and yes believe it or not there are such monsters around – try to justify taking young lives to protect some misplaced value system.
There has been a spate of such murders in our city in the past few days and those who committed and/or favoured these barbaric acts justified themselves by saying they had no choice or it was inevitable! The story goes like this: if a young girl dares fall in love with someone of another caste or from the same clan then it is taboo and needs to be dealt with and deal they do: they simply kill the child. And to crown it all instead of downright and vehement condemnation by all we hear muted voices that say things like: we do not condone murder but… The but is too loud and unacceptable. The but reeks of vote bank politics, of misplaced and medieval and feudal ways, of weak minds and of rigid ones that refuse to bend. No one is willing to address the situation head on be it within the family, the society or the vote seekers.
Winds of change are blowing and will keep doing so. There is nothing you can do about it. And each such murder is simply paving the way for the next one as politician and law makers remain silent or split hair in ways best mastered by them. So instead of addressing the core of the problem they simply hover around the periphery in the hope of protecting their vote banks. The perpetrators get bolder and bolder and all hell breaks loose. Murder gains acceptability and is even glorified once you call it honour killing!
Since time immemorial parents have opposed their children’s choices but it is almost inconceivable to think that a parent would kill or order the killing of its child. Even in the recent cases the dastardly acts have been committed by brothers helped by their friends and the reason given is to salvage misplaced honour. I have seen this at work.
The incident happened when we first began our work at pwhy. In those times I had no real knowledge of social norms and aberrations. There was a birthday party in the street where we worked and we had been invited. As is often the cases part of street had been covered with a tent and there was a music system in attendance. As is also the often the cases though the birthday party was that of a one year old child, the guests were mostly adults: the entire neighbourhood and a plethora of relatives and friends. And again as is always the case there was a lot of booze though it remained invisible. The party was in full swing and spirits were a tad to high. Bollywood dance numbers screeched through the bad quality speakers and people danced. A young girl, she must have been seventeen then and was one of our staff, started dancing too with her friends. She is a mean dancer and she twirled with abandon. One must understand that young girls rarely have the chance to dance, and parties and weddings are the places where they can show their talent. Her parents where there too seated on the chairs that are part of the decor. Every one was having fun. Suddenly her two brothers appeared and dragged her away hurling abuses. She was dragged to their house where the two lads started beating her. I followed and screamed at them but to no avail. All I could here was the word izzat – honour – shouted repeatedly, as well as – jaan se mardege – we will kill you. Soon the parents came and the beating stopped. The poor girl was in tears and deeply humiliated.
What must have happened is that some drunk guy must have passed a leering comment and the brothers instead of defending the girl who was doing no wrong, decided to salvage the honour by punishing her. It was the same kind of reaction as the one we witnessed in last weeks incident where the murderer brother stated in an interview that he was facing regular humiliation because his sister had married outside her caste and was constantly taunted by his friends. So male ego is hurt and the only thing to do is to eliminate the cause once for all. Never mind if the cause is your sister, the one you played with, laughed with or shared moments. In a split instant all that is forgotten and all the remains is misplaced honour that has to be restored ,so off with her head!
As an eminent lady journalist said recently: that in such cases the daughter’s body has become the vessel holding the family’s honour. She is not considered an individual with her own dreams an aspirations and her own rights. And this cannot be particularly when girls even from extremely traditional families have now stepped out of their homes to taste the world outside.
It is now a matter of choice. Many girls may still accept old ways and this has to be their choice. But if one of them does decide to do otherwise those who love and care for her must understand her choice and accept it. The young girl who danced many moons ago is today an empowered young woman who has been able to get her family to accept her choices. She is aware of the so called honour of her family and I know she will respect it but in her own way and manner and her family has accepted it, in their own way. The battle between generations will go on as it always does and solutions will be found. Murder is not one of them.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
When I decided to start project why many years ago a host of supposed well wishers came out of the wood work to dissuade me to do so. There were the hard core cynics, the gentle detractors and the over anxious friends and relatives. I guess they were all stunned by my decision to sink a large chunk of my newly acquired legacy to as they said: help the poor!
The arguments used to discourage me were varied: what difference can you make in a country as big as India; you know nothing about running an NGO; you will waste you resources and be disappointed; you must be mad; what would your parents say if they were here; you are hijacking your children’s future; you cannot change things, it is a big bad world and you will not survive and so on.
At that time I must admit I had no defense to proffer. All I had was a deep intuitive feeling that what I was setting out to do was right and a stubborn nature that would ensure that I do it ans succeed. It was imperative that I do so and prove my detractors wrong. I set out on my journey with just one thought in mind: if I could change one life it would be worth it.
In the past ten years we have changed many lives and I will not subject you to a string of examples or try to blow the pwhy bugle. But I can say without hesitation that I have been vindicated on all counts. But what really struck me today as I looked at the two little sisters in the picture above was that when you change a life you set in motion what can best be called a ripple effect. Let me explain what I mean. Kiran and Komal are the nieces of Rani, a young woman who today practically runs our field operations in Govindpuri. She first joined pwhy as a unpaid volunteer way back in 2000 but soon graduated to the princely honorarium of 500 rs a month. A school drop out – not for academic reasons far from that but because she was beaten for not paying her fees and her mom decided that enough was enough – she joined us as part time volunteer but slowly she just became indispensable! Today she practically runs project why. Along the way the managed to pass her class X, XII and is now doing her BA second year. Along the way she also became computer savvy and even crossed the seven seas to go and root for pwhy! You must admit her life did change. But that is not all. Along the way two beautiful little girls were born in her family and that is when the ripple effect set in motion.
Today K and K are both in an upmarket school, the kind you and I would send our kids too. Tre admissions are not easy when you have a slum address but Rani never gave up. She wanted to give her little nieces everything she never had. The very best. But it was not easy. However all hurdles were overcome and the two little girls are now in school and doing exceedingly well. What is amusing is that we are all a part of this exciting journey helping with home work when needed or with the inane holiday projects children are subjected to. I must admit that when I watch them laughing and giggling I feel terribly proud and wonder what would have happened had I meekly listened to my detractors of yore years.
So today let me be a little cheeky and address all the barbs thrown at me a decade ago: you can make a huge difference even in a country like India; even if you know; nothing about running what is called an NGO, you can do so if you do not lose heart, your resources are never wasted if they can bring a smile on the face of a child; I guess one had to be a little mad to walk the road less travelled; my parents are surely proud and have walked with me every inch of the way; my children’s future was never hijacked but got better; things changed as the ripple effect set in and the world is not so bad when you learn to look with your heart. I have not only survived but thrived!
