by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
Not so long ago the nooks and crevices of our house were regularly home to sparrow nests. At that time we often consider this invasion a nuisance though we never destroyed any. I cannot remember exactly when the sparrows stop nesting. I cannot even remember when we actually stop seeing any sparrow at all. But come to think about it it has been a long time since one has laid eyes on that tiny bird, one that once was an intrinsic part of our lives. When a friend told me that new urban designs were responsible for the disappearance of the sparrow, I accepted the fact quietly and learnt to live without our little friends. It was one more instance of man versus nature and man had won again.
Last week an article in a magazine brought back my little sparrow to life. It seemed that it was not architectural designs but cell tower radiation that had spelt the death knell of not only sparrows but of bees and other creatures. The article makes frightening reading. The cell towers with seem to be proliferating on the skyline with obsessive regularity seem to be the cause not only of the disappearance of little creatures, but of illness and death in human beings. EMR (electromagnetic radiation) seems to have invaded our cities and homes and we are helpless.
In the span of a short decade the cell phone, which was once the prerogative of the rich, has become an essential commodity for all. Look at people walking on the streets, every second one has a cell phone. I was surprised to find out that everyone that works in my home has a cell phone, the maid, the cook, the gardener. Our washer man who comes once a week has one too and so does the plumber, the electrician and everyone who rings the doorbell be it the courier boy or the delivery man of the local grocery store. Look some more, children of all age are proud owners of cell phones. And to meet this exponential growth in demand, cell towers have mushroomed everywhere. For many allowing a cell tower on one’s roof is simply added income. According to the survey done by the magazine even hospitals and schools have offered their rooftops to house cell towers. One can safely say that we are in the throes of a new invasion!
And yet there was a time not so long ago when we managed without them. I belong go the generation that grew up with one fixed phone in the house. Often, as was the case at home, the lone phone was placed in neutral space like a corridor. The phone had a short lead wire and I remember how one use to try and tug at it to get behind a door for those private phone calls that are the prerogative of every teenager. That was the only privacy one got. I also remember how one paced the corridor at particular moments of the day so as to be the one who picked up the phone, or how one glared at anyone else on the phone if that was the time one was expecting a call. The lyrics of an old favourite come to mind: Time it was, and what a time it was, it was , A time of innocence, a time of confidences, Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph, Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you (Bookends, Simon and Garfunkel). Come to think about it I have no photograph just fading memories.
I also remember the advent of the cordless phone and how it spelt an new kind of freedom. Never mind if there was a limit of a few meters, one was freed from having to pull and tug at a wire. When the first cell phone came it was way beyond every one’s reach and we all looked at it with some kind of wonder. We could have never thought that in the span of a few years
everyone would own one.
Bees are not your irksome insect that needs to be shooed away. Their hum is a comforting reminder that all is well on planet earth, that the plants will be pollinated in time and food will reach our table. The silence of bees is frightening and the harbinger of terrible times.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
Every time one feebly attempts to try and listen to those who extol the elusive virtues of the Commonwealth Games, heralded as the panacea to all our urban woes, as the magic wand that will transform our disorderly yet cherished city into a world class one, an aberration appears and calls us back to order. The latest was a news item on the front page of a leading daily. Vendors to be evicted in Games clean-up screamed the headline.
The vendors in question are part of the life line of our city. The local roadside cobbler that one rushes too in times of need, the lady who irons our clothes each and every day and has been doing so for decades now, the vegetable vendor who is an intrinsic part of every colony. They are the heart and soul of our city, people we depend on and cannot do without. My ironing lady has been ironing my clothes for the last 30 years. I have seen her children grow. She comes every morning to collect the day’s clothes and her smiling face is something I have got use to seeing. It somehow makes my day. When I was in Paris for 3 years and had to iron clothes myself…ugh… I remembered Phoolmati with fondness and realised how much we depended on her and needed her. The husband’s shirts were always ironed to perfection on so where my crisp cotton saris of yore years.
Many of our parents are such vendors. They are brave and proud people who left their homes many years back to come to the city in the hope of giving a better future to their children. Today their children are working in swank places but they still continue to labour and toil long hours, come what may. This is the only life they know, and quite frankly the only one we know too. I shudder to think where I will now have to head to get my shoe repaired or or to buy the missing element for the nights dinner! And the idea of not having well pressed clothes to wear is nothing short of abhorring.
Vendors, the powers that be say, are a security risk. I find that difficult to fathom. Gentle Phoolmati cannot hurt a fly, nor can our poor old cobbler. Then why this inane decision? The street vendors are the heart of the city and a real necessity. Why be ashamed of them? These small marginal economies are needed in a country with a population like ours. They help the poor survive. But then who cares about the poor. Off with their heads seems to be the order of the day.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 3, 2010 | Uncategorized
Last week as I drove to the project down our little lane, I saw a small posse of men standing on the street in front of our centre’s door. There were about 3 or 4 of them, and one held a sheaf of papers in his hand. They looked harried and worried and I knew at once what was happening. It had to be another broken heart that needed to be fixed. I must confess that my initial reaction was one of mild exasperation: not again were the words that fleeted across my mind. We are just barely recovered from the tragic death of brave and beautiful Heera. I really did not feel we could quite face another ordeal. But of course I did not let any of my thoughts appear on my face: the show had to go on.
This time the little heart that needed to be repaired was that of Kajal all of six years old. Kajal is a tiny little girl who hails from Bairi Aghu a small village in the Beghusarai village of Bihar. She has one older brother age 8 who is in school in class I. Her father earns 2500 rs a month and her mother stays at home. This is their sole income. The family does not won any land or property. When she fell sick last month the family took her to the local dispensary, then the hospital who referred them to Delhi and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. They came to Delhi, and took a little room on rent @ of 1000 rs and set off to get the little girl checked. They wanted to do everything they could for their little girl. They were told she has a hole in her heart and would need surgery. The cost a whopping 70 000 Rs, almost 3 years of the father’s wage. They were stunned and did not know what to do. Someone told them about pwhy and that is why they stood in silence clutching their papers on that hot morning with hope and fear in their hearts.
My mind was working on overdrive as I alighted from the three wheeler and braced myself to meet them. At that moment I did not know whether we would be able to once again raise the needed funds. Our erstwhile heart fix supporters had long vanished and getting funds now was a long and tedious process. I could imagine myself composing the appeal, posting on the net an hoping for the best.
Not wanting the family to have too much hope. I told them quite frankly that we would do our best but that I promised nothing. I added that I needed a picture of the little girl and that I would get in touch with them as soon as I had some news but it would not be before a few days. I remember the early days when one spent time with the families, trying to talk to them and counsel them. This time there was nothing like that. I was taken surprised at my dismissive behaviour. Had I become inured at the pain of others. Not quite. In hindsight I realise that I was apprehensive and did not really know whether we would be able to live up to the family expectations.
Some time later we had the photograph of the little girl and I set the operation in motion. The first appeal was posted on the pwhy page of facebook. At that time I did not even know the little girl’s name. I wondered how long it would take to garner the needed funds.
I had forgotten that pwhy was a place where angel’s do not fear to tread. A short time later a response appeared on our page. It asked a simple question: how much would the surgery cost? I answered and a few instants later, thanks to the magic of the net, from thousands of miles across the globe I got another message: I will sponsor the surgery. I was stunned. It was all over. Kajal’s little heart would be fixed. It was only a matter of time. The God of Lesser Beings had hear, listened and acted. One of his angel’s had appeared.
This angel is a very special one as she has often appeared in our lives. I remember the first time many years ago when we were battling to survive, she came out of the blue and took charge of things and settled everything right. And since she has always been around, watching us form far. And yesterday she knew we needed her and there she was dispelling all clouds and making the sun shine again. God bless her.
Yes, pwhy, is truly a place where angels do not fear to tread!
Note: we have the funds for surgery but do need some more help to ensure that Kajal gets all her medication and proper nutrition to make sure that all goes well.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 1, 2010 | Uncategorized
Delhi’s flood of deaths that don’t matter screamed the headline of the morning paper. The writing was on the wall: 10 homeless persons die every day in our soon to be state-of-the-art capital courtesy the Commonwealth Games! The article makes scary reading. A third and soon half of India’s population will be living in cities unprepared or unwilling to build support systems. Solutions are “simple”: Shelters, affordable housing and hundreds of community kitchens. “But we aren’t making these happen,” says Harsh Mander to which the Minister in charge quips back: Delhi didn’t have the resources to build shelters.
Well said! We have zillions to build infrastructure for the upcoming games, to pave , unpave and repave perfectly good roads but cannot put up a shelter for those who have been rendered homeless to make way for these hubristic endeavours. But that is not all. The article also states that 93% of the deaths – 3381 souls – are due to starvation. That too in a city where every garbage can is replete with castaway food of the rich, where every wedding is a free for all in food waste, where milk is poured on stone deities and then runs free in the drains.
And it gets worse: men who die aka the homeless are not old and decrepit, but young working people.
A leading newspaper decide to track hunger. Do visit their home page. Browse the statistics of malnutrition of children in our country and if you have the guts browse the titles of their previous articles: mud for meals, 405 million poor by 2011, where tribals kill hunger with flowers, hot rod horror brands children in Jharkand and so on. I did and sat for a long time stunned and shocked. True I have seen more than many. But in spite of that the sheer magnitude of the issue is staggering. Where are we going? Where is compassion and care? Why have become inured to every aberration?
I know first hand how difficult it is to gouge a coin out of people to help others. I have been in the business for ten long years: the business of knocking at hearts and hoping they will open. But they rarely do, particularly in this city. Everyday more people become homeless. We have been silent and helpless witnesses to the destruction of slums, to people losing their homes and lives, to the silent human tragedy that no one sees. I have listened with seething anger to the reasons given for such acts and yes I know how illegal most of these homes are, but then why were they allowed to come up and not only that why where they tolerated for decades and why above all where people dwelling in them given voter’s IDs and ration cards. For political reasons of course as they were large vote banks that could be easily manipulated. Then why do the said politicos disappear when the bulldozers come!
The city is clearing away the poor to make place for the rich: slums get raised to build malls, road side stalls that feed the needy are destroyed to make the city more appealing to look at and yet the so called poor and now homeless are the ones who are busy toiling in the heat and dust to make rich dreams a reality. Something is wrong and we cannot simply be silent and mute spectators. We need to act or at least open our eyes and start looking with our hearts.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 30, 2010 | Uncategorized
Charity needs to be sustainable was the headline of a recent article in a leading magazine. Needless to say it caught my eye and I hastened to read it. It was an interview with a top honcho, a lady at that, who shared her view about CSR about charity. For her charity was a redundant term because it is a ‘one-time’ gesture and unsustainable. More power to you lady! I read on and could not but smile as once again it seemed our tale of forgotten biscuits was being revisited.
Ms Bali wants to make her biscuits healthier by fortifying them so as to fight rampant malnutrition ‘covertly’. Hence everyone who consumes the biscuits made by her company, and they are consumed by a large cross section of society, would be ‘healthier’! As she says: Our products are available throughout India. And, by fortifying them, if we are making them accessible to a large mass of people, we are not solving India’s malnutrition problem, but we are contributing to alleviating it. That is what she means by social corporate sustainability a new mantra I presume. Good wishes to her. I will not debate the issue here as this is not the aim of this blog. CSR has always been my ‘bete noire’ and I am yet to comprehend its true motives. I do wonder how enriching biscuits that are then sold amounts to CSR. But I agree with Ms Bali on the fact that charity has to be sustainable and not a one time gesture.
When we sought help to launch and sustain our nutritive biscuits programme, targeted mainly at the beggar children of our city, we were hoping to address the child beggar issue by making the business of begging non-sustainable. If one gave a biscuit instead of the expected coin maybe the handlers and mafia would look for other more lucrative ways. In the bargain you also gave nutrition; a real win-win situation. But sadly it did not work out for reasons I am yet to fathom.
The same happened with our rupee a day programme where we hoped to tap in the one perennial resource of our land: the numbers of people. What we asked was something that each and everyone could part with as one rupee got you nothing, not even a cup of tea. The idea was to make everyone a donor and make everyone participate in bettering the morrows of others. And it seemed so doable as all we were looking for at that time was 4000 such donors. In a land of a billion it seemed simple. But again we failed. And again I do not know why. It seemed so logical.
This has been my battle for 10 long years, a battle I am still nowhere near winning. Right from the outset, when I was handed over my first donation, I knew that this was just a temporary phase and that we would have to look at long term sustainability. The idea of depending on others is neither acceptable nor feasible. Planet Why still seems very elusive as we wait for the expert validation. And where it to go our way, the whole project is daunting in more ways than one. The other side of the spectrum is the tried and tested corpus fund, something I have always abhorred. But has not pwhy been a personal journey of getting over my own bete noires. What is at stake is too precious: the morrows of children and their dreams. So help me God!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 26, 2010 | Uncategorized
When Ruchika’s tormentor was handed over a laughable sentence some months back, the nation was outraged. Television channels were replete with debates on the issue and everyone wondered how the matter would end. It had taken many years to nail the elusive perpetrator and all one got was a suspended sentence and a paltry fine that any one could pay. I too had vented my anger and sadness in a blog entitled will I be safe tomorrow!
Today, six months later, the high profile molester is behind bars. he has been there for a week and will spent at least three more weeks there. The law has caught up with him in spite of all his contacts, his connections and the power he once yielded. That it took over two decades is another matter. It took a public campaign to get him nailed. When young Ruchika was molested there was no 24 hour TV, no activism, no public outcry. The family could just knock at various doors that failed to open. And battle lines were drawn with one side playing dirty. The family was humiliated and scorned. The young girl took her life. Justice remained blind. Even today the accused is behind bars not for having caused the child’s death, but for having molested her. Whether he will pay for the bigger crime remains to be seen.
There are millions of Ruchika who suffer in silence every day. They often lock themselves and loose the key. They know that they will not be heard, believed , let alone protected and vindicated. They are far too aware of the reality that surrounds them. They know the might of the adversary and what is often worse is that they often have to continue sharing the same space as most of such cases are perpetrated within the so called safety of one’s home. They just suffer in silence and try to perfect the art of becoming invisible, living in fear day after day. How does one protect such children? How does one protect the little girl abused by a kin? Who will ring the bell for her?
I hope that Ruchika’s case will help us open our eyes. I hope parents and caretakers will begin to look with their heart and see the reality as it is. That they will reach out to the child who sometimes slowly and almost imperceptibly begins to ‘change’. That they will find the time to listen and believe and not be swayed social or other pressures. Till that day does not come little girls will never be safe from lurking predators who prowl secure in the knowledge that no one will dare challenge their power.
