by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 25, 2009 | Uncategorized
It is Xmas morning and I pondered a long time about what would be the subject of my Xmas post. Silly of me as the answer was evident, it had to be Lolita.
Lolita landed on our little planet some weeks back and from the moment she stepped into our lives and hearts she brought with her the true spirit of Xmas: compassion, generosity and above all huge dollops of love. From the instant she walked everything was imbued with the magic of Xmas as we fell under her spell. Everything that had seemed impossible became incredibly easy and miracles after miracles sprung out of her invisible bag.
Lolita is someone who can only see with her heart and that makes her truly remarkable. You just have to murmur or wish or actually simply think it and it is fulfilled.
As I sit on this blessed morning I am filled with a deep sense of gratitude. I have far too often complained and whined about the puny obstacles that have come in the way of this extraordinary journey called project why and never sat down to think of the wonderful and abundant occurrences that have made this journey possible. Today I realise how fortunate we have been as every little impediment was the door real life Angels took to enter our world. And there have been so many. Lolita is one of them.
From this day on, when Xmas morn dawns on project why, we will always remember the pure unadulterated love that this incredible woman showered on us
To Lolita and to all the Angels that have landed in our lives I say Thank You!
Merry Xmas to all!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 23, 2009 | Uncategorized
Will I be safe tomorrow, is the question every little girl in India is asking herself today. The reason are the weak laws that protect them from abuse and ignominy. Almost two decades ago a young 14 year old was molested by a powerful man, someone she looked upon to as he held the key to fulfilling her dreams, that of being a sports star. Twenty years later the molester was handed over a sentence: 1000 rs fine and six months imprisonment. But the story is not that simple: in the twenty years the powerful and heinous support system had tried every trick in the book to protect the perpetrator and ensure that his life goes on unhindered. Young Ruckiha’s family was hounded, she was tormented and persecuted till she took the extreme step, that of ending her young life.
Today a nation is in shock and determined to see that Ruchika’s tormentor is brought to justice and I like everyone else want to see that day dawn. But the story does not end there. Every day, in homes and elsewhere young children are subjected to abuse by powerful predators and no law or kind heart is there to protect them. The powerful wheels of our patriarchal system are set in motion and again and again the perpetrator is protected and shielded while the victim is isolated and more often that not condemned. The child after a few feeble attempts that are met with suspicion and disbelief, locks herself in a abject solitude carrying scars that will and can never heal. Some, like Ruchika take an extreme step and put an end once for all to a life of torment. Others simply carry on nursing scars no one cares to see as protectors have turned predators.
Yes we want justice for Ruchika, but we also want to see all our children safe. We want justice for all those who have no voice, for all those who are thrown into a well of loneliness by an insensitive and feudal society who thrives in protecting misplaced notions like honour and reputation. We want a legal system that understands the damage an apparently innocuous gesture can do to a child and protect that child. But why do I feel that we still have to wait a long time.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 20, 2009 | Uncategorized
It began like any morning. It should have been a quiet Sunday but that was not to be. I sat with my morning cup of tea hoping to catch up on some innocuous reading. I picked up the latest issue of a well known magazine and flicked through its pages when my eye caught a picture that almost looked like the project why creche minus children. The title: Ghost Lullabies and the bye line: Babus milk a national creche scheme for Rs 350 cr on false claims, sent a chill down my spine. Thr story was that of another scam and by now one would think that one has become inured to the words like scam, fraud, swindle living in a land where corruption has almost acquired a respectability or has been accepted as a belief system.
Is that not what I so brazenly stated during the recent conclave on corruption where I was a guest speaker. Then why did my blood boil tis morning as I read about yet another scam? I guess it was because it concerned children, the tiniest ones, the poorest ones, those who had no voice. The Rajiv Gandhi National Creche Scheme was for the children of working women in the unorganised sector, for the little children who are often left unattended and in unsafe conditions, the ones for whom the pwhy creche was started.
I still cannot forget the sight of the little toddler whose mother use to tie him on a charpoy and then placed in front of her home every morning as she left for work. When she returned she would untie him and smother him with kisses. This was probably in the very first few months of our existence and the woman’s home was located in the street where we worked. I was baffled by the contradiction between the act of tying up a child and then later cocooning him with love. Though we were very new in the area and had not yet gained the trust of the people, I could not stop myself from asking the mother why she did that. The answer was irrefutable: she could not take him to work (she cleaned people’s homes) and did not want to leave him alone inside her home. By placing him on a charpoy outside she ensured that he was visible to others and hence protected, and by tying him up she ensured that he remained safe and did not wander away. You see she loved him too much to have anything untoward happen to him. Needless to say the next day we opened a creche in the tiny veranda of our office and he was the first child enrolled.
The Rajiv Gandhi National Creche scheme was set up for such children and to read that 350 crores have been swindled by bureaucrats and others from such a scheme makes my blood boil and run cold at the same time: boil because the money could and should have been spent on innocent children and run cold because is seems that nothing is sacred for racketeers. yes corruption has become a way of life, a socially acceptable belief system.
The question I ask today is when will it all stop? The question I ask today is how will it all stop? What is even more shocking is the answer given by one of the persons responsible for the programme: “I agree that mistakes may have taken place at some point, but the fact is, we’re human beings. None of the mistakes were malafide and intentional.” I am left speechless. How can falsified documents, fake audits and balance sheets can be bonafide and unintentional. No Sir, you are not just human beings, you are worst than the most dangerous predator!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 18, 2009 | Uncategorized
This is our very own little Meher, the one who not even two years ago walked into my life and my heart. What an incredible journey it has been from that day onwards. Her look at me , I exist, was perhaps the loudest of all!
Today after several difficult and often painful surgeries, Meher boasts of a hairstyle that strangely resembles mine and is all set to to take the first steps to change her destiny. Next month she will sit for her entrance exam to the same boarding school her favourite pal Utpal goes to. And then in April will pack her bags and go!
Looking at her smile in this picture is overwhelming. It makes me wonder at the ways in which my friend Godji sometimes work. Do innocent and beautiful kids like Utpal and Meher have to suffer incredible pain before seeing light and joy? Maybe. I am not the one to challenge that. I simply feel blessed and grateful when I see them laugh and play and reclaim their lost childhood. Never mind the occasional tantrums or the unreasonable demands, they have acquired the right to be children at great cost and are just making up for lost time.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 12, 2009 | Uncategorized
I got a message on Facebook this morning. It was from one of the innumerable friends I have and came as answer to a series of pictures of my grandchild I had posted. It said: I always remember you in final stages of pregnancy taking classes sometime between 1979-82. You were inspirational and lively. I was always five point someone (Chetan Bhagat) type of a student (one of the hindi belt one) but you were never prejudice and sometimes more considerate. That was encouraging. Till this moment I had not realised that this friend was one of my students from my JNU days. She was referring to 1981 when I was expecting my second daughter and teaching French in the Centre for French Studies.
I read and reread her short message. Was there a hidden message? Was it the sign I was looking for? The bottom line was that even after almost three decades nothing had really changed. Invisible and impregnable walls still divided our society one of them being the one that separated those who spoke English and those who did not, the former having a head start in any race they ran. Never mind how intelligent or smart you were, how good your marks were, how motivated and serious you were, if you had not mastered the lingo of those who had ruled our land for a few centuries, you were doomed to be left behind. Was not teach my child English, the first request formulated by parents when we began our work. Even the most illiterate parent knows that, and even the most illiterate person will try his hand at English!
It is unfortunate that though we began with spoken English classes we somehow lost our way. Maybe it was because we all felt that keeping children in school was far more important and spoken English took a back seat. Our children passed their school exams year after year and many passed out of school. And though they cleared their English exams, they sadly never mastered the language and thus could never break the glass ceiling.
It is time to help them do so. And as I wrote in an earlier post it is time to mutate. We at project why must look at quality and not quantity and ensure that no child feels he or she is a five point someone type!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 11, 2009 | Uncategorized
After the wrath and anger of my last post, I needed a healing touch before I could pick by virtual pen again. I knew that unless I mended my hurt, I would not be able to carry on and above all ran the risk of taking decisions I might later regret. So I waited for the proverbial sign and it came unexpectedly in the form of my little grandson tucked inside an old carton box looking at me with eyes filled with hope, hope that I would reach out to him and pick him up. Needless to say I did and that simple gesture melted my anger in a trice.
His eyes were trusting and brimming with innocence. He somehow knew that I would free him from his box and allow him to crawl wherever he wanted. I must admit that he did just that! I sat watching him zip around the house giggling and laughing and when he tired he sat down and applauded himself hoping again we would follow. I had fulfilled his momentary wish and that is all there was to it.
All children are like Agastya. Their little worlds are simple and they look up to those who love them to actualise their wants and needs. And so it should be but sadly that is not the case for millions of children whose little dreams get crushed out even before they are expressed. They are confined to little boxes and no one is their to lift them out and set them free. The little silly game Agastay and I played was an eye opener and made me look at pwhy in an altogether different way. Were not all our children trapped in little boxes and were we not there to try and set them free? What a challenge but more than that what a wonderful and blessed task. So what if the adults around them sometimes behaved irrationally and stupidly. Perhaps they were still locked in their boxes as no one had set them free.
I realised that I had foolishly allowed myself to be locked in a box, albeit for a few instants, and little Agastya Noor had set me free.
