by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 21, 2009 | Uncategorized
Where will it all end are the words that came to my mind as I watched the two little slumdog kids walk the ramp for a famous designer duo. I had just recovered from the news that the same children would now be used by the ruling party to campaign for them!
Let us stop a moment and gather our thoughts. We are just about recovering from the dastardly news about a father raping his two daughters to better his business prospect and the sad but of indubitable reality that child abuse is a stark reality and as supposedly concerned citizens and sensitive human beings we are outraged. Now as the same supposedly concerned citizens and sensitive human beings what should our reaction be in the face of kids walking ramps and raising slogans? Many have reacted to the news and rightly so. One such comment is: my fear is that these kids would be taken advantage of, & then thrown away when they won’t be needed any longer! This world can be really brutal! This probably sums it all up.
Are we not witnessing an insidious forms of child abuse, one that is so well packaged that it becomes acceptable and even laudable. The designer in question said making the young kids walk the ramp was an endeavour to bridge the gap between the glamorous and the unglamorous, the rich and the poor. The politicians too have their answers ready to be lobbed at the right time. Stop! I am ready to throw up! Enough is enough.
I guess I have acquired the right to voice my opinion. For the past 10 years now I have been trying to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. For the past ten years I have toiled to get the glamorous to reach out to the unglamorous. And for the past ten years I have banged my head against impregnable walls. True I did not have any glamour to barter: no Oscar winning movie or acclaimed achievement. I simply had innumerable slumpups with incredible potential. I simply had many simple scripts that would help them realise their dreams. The most ambitious one was to give a handful of these kids a real future: a sound and upmarket education. What I got when I asked for help was a harsh rap on my knuckles: one was not supposed to dare disturb the existing social pattern. We did and today four little kids have begun their journey to glory and we are really proud of it.
But coming back to ramps and election campaigns, what we seem to be witnessing is another kind of child abuse, and my heart goes out to these two little slum kids who are being used and abused to perpetrate selfish agendas. If anyone, be it the glam designers or the famed politicians, truly held their interest at heart, the children should have been quietly sent to a good school and not flaunted like circus animals. If mileage had to be sought, then it could have been done in a discreet manner, after the children where happily settled and on their way to fulfilling their destiny.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
It kind of trails off after the holidays. We would love to keep the issue in the front of everyone and that child abuse happens all year long. Abuse doesn’t take a holiday, doesn’t take a day off, and we can’t either. (Jane Donovan)
The it referred to in the quote is child abuse.
It was in the news again yesterday in abundance: a father raping his daughter for 9 years with the tacit consent of the mother because a voodoo man told him to do so, a bunch of caretakers raping their visually and hearing impaired and mentally challenged wards, an thousands of miles a way another father simply getting 15 years of prison for the heinous crime committed against his won child. One again we were treated or should I say subjected to an array of debates of discussions about a range of issues. The whole drama seemed stale and played out, something we had heard over and over again each time a crime of this kind was perpetrated. Remember the Ghaziabad Girls?
We were the whistle blowers then. Sadly nothing much happened: the tormentor, a so called holy man walks free (he is on bail) and the little girls live in different poorly run homes lonely and lost. Every effort we made to try and see them to give them some much needed healing failed as we knocked helplessly on the heartless door of an insensitive administration.
Child abuse does not take a day off, it simply continues to cast its shadow for the length of many lifetimes. And we watch mute and helpless for reasons that are nothing short of unacceptable. Just like the mother of the young girl too scared to go against her husband or too mesmerised by the so called holy men who lurk at every corner looking for prey. Or simply because we feel unconcerned.
Abused children, specially challenged ones, are not vote banks and hence not interesting to our law makers and protectors. The stories makes good TRPs and award material. We all feel outraged for the day till some new story takes over and we forget the abused children. We hang our heads in shame, but is that enough. Is there not something more we need to do.
In my last post I wrote that every Every new born child is a message from God that he has not lost faith in man. Perhaps it is more than that. The innocent and trustful eyes of the child urge us to look deep within ourselves and find the courage and determination to be worthy of the man God has not lost faith in.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
I saw my grandchild for the first time yesterday. I was such a huge moment that it took me more than twenty four hours to process it and be able to write about it. As I held the little bundle of joy and delved into his luminous grey eyes I felt a sense of indescribable joy and wonder. It was a breathtaking moment.
In the last 24 hours my life seems to have changed for ever. Does holding the child of your own child catapult you into another realm of life, freeing you in some way of bonds hitherto in existence? Do yo somehow acquire a new status and thus need to redefine the meaning of your own life? Does it compel you to stop and review your own life and above all evaluate it? So many questions needing answers that I know I will have to seek some time later.
But as I looked deep into his eyes I knew that the little bundle of joy had brought with him a bag of miracles for his granny. This may sound dotty and over the top but I held on to my belief. And the miracles came….
An email dropped by the very next day informing us that a kind lady from Germany had agreed to sponsor the education of our three little foster care boys giving me the miracle I had prayed for. It was such a huge moment and I was left speechless. I simply went to look at little Agastya Noor and saw him smiling in his sleep. They say in India that when children smile in their sleep, they are in deep conversation with God. I silently mouthed a word of gratitude and tiptoed away. This simple email had put to an end to many a sleepless night. The news was welcomed by joyful exclamations: amazing said one, while the other quipped holy moly! These were friends who had for the past months now toiled to make things happen. It was indeed time to celebrate and to be grateful!
A short while later another mail dropped by this one from an extraordinary young lady who had spent a short week with us and left promising to help project why. Harriet is not your usual young teenager she is one a kind. Not only did she organise a bake sale for pwhy and write about us in the local newspaper, but managed to get her school to raise funds for us and they did at their commemoration and mufti day! Harriet wrote to inform us that they had collected more than they had anticipated. This was a true miracle for me as it validated and proved what I always held as true: if you learn to see with your heart miracles come your way. This is a tried and tested formula, believe me!
The miracle for me is not the money collected or promised. It is far more than that. It is the comforting proof that compassion still exists, that there are people young and old who can still look with their hearts and reach out to others, it is the conviction that dreams do come true if you hold on to them tight and miracles come your way if you simply believe in them. I guess this is what little Agastya wanted to tell his grandmom.
My mind wandered back to a beautiful quote by Deepak Chopra: Miracles happen every day. Not just in remote country villages or at holy sites halfway across the globe, but here, in our own lives.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
Never say never is a maxim I should have by now learnt to accept and follow. Once again I find myself in a situation where I have to get off my high horses and humbly accept what I haughtily rejected till date. But necessity is the mother of all inventions and faced with rapidly dwindling bank balances and a shrinking donor base one has to meekly accept to eat the humble pie. I must admit that what makes this possible is the magnitude of what is at risk.
To understand what I am trying to say one needs to go back several years, to the times when pwhy was still in its infancy and one was looking for possible ways to secure it and see it grow. One of the avenues suggested was to seek sponsorships for individual children as that was tested ground and one that had proved very successful. Never said I, as to me it had always seemed a rather condescending approach and one that led to marginalise children: the sponsored one versus the one without a sponsor. I stood my ground and must admit met with reasonable success as we managed to go and grow my way for almost a decade.
I have always been aware of the fragility of our funding model and have never stopped looking and thinking of better ways. Our one rupee a day programme failed to take off for reasons that I still cannot fathom. To me it seamed absurdly simple and eminently doable. And yet it did not work. I guess the amount sought was too small and did not give the donor the fillip it sought. Planet why us definitely the panacea of all ills, but comes a huge price and will take a long time to come by. In the mean time a family of almost a 1000 now has to be sustained in the times of recession.
I have been vociferously claiming that the crises we face is not an economic one but a moral one. I have been clamouring that was was needed was to find ways of reinstating values like compassion and empathy as I feel that it would go a long way in redefining our lives. Time to walk the talk even it it means giving up long held views. To survive today we too need to reinvent ourselves and what takes precedence is the lives and dreams of the children of pwhy and not some highfalutin idea one had once held. So I find myself extolling the sponsorship avenue: yes you heard right I am seeking sponsors for our children to enable us to carry on. True that we have had to modify the approach to our reality: we are not asking for a sponsor per child but for people accept to sponsor either one child with disability or two creche children or again 4 primary or secondary kids. We would provide information about the group selected to all sponsors.
Wow.. I have come a log way. What still irks me a little is the fact that whereas this approach seems to find takers, the one rupee programme which to me was easier on the pocket never really took off. I guess that the reason for this is that the later was too impersonal and did not give the donor the high that accompanies any act of charity!
Beggars cannot be choosers; one had to respect market forces; all is fair in love and war… There are many things I can say to myself to assuage ruffled feathers and yet the moral of the story is that one has to learn never to say never again.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
A pair of glasses, a pocket watch, a bowl and wooden slippers went under the hammer, amidst high drama ,for a whopping 1.8 million US dollars. I have been watching with sadness interspersed with bouts of anger the dramatics enfolding in front of my eyes since the day news about the imminent auction of Mahatma Gandhi’s personal belongings broke. A land, that has not only forgotten the true meaning of his message but seems to revel in perpetrating the exact opposite, suddenly wants to lay claim to the legacy. Outrage is expressed at every corner, more so as the country is soon to face an election. Every political party wants to be politically correct! Even if it means resorting to untruths!
How hollow and pitiful we all look. I wish we could for once at least, be honest and truthful – qualities extolled by Bapu – and look at ourselves with candor. Here we are voicing horror at seeing Bapu’s personal belongings been sold in public but have ever respected any of his teachings. Have we kept his real legacy alive? Just yesterday two dalits were hacked to death for offering prayers in a temple and a city woke up to hate posters against minority religions. One may ask if we are worthy of Gandhi’s legacy. Nothing around us seems in sync with what he taught, defended and died for. We are still the land where little girls get killed before they are born, where a child may lose her fingers for a handful of spinach, a land where religion, education, spirituality and even Gandhi are being commercialised to the hilt. So one may ask if we are worthy of Gandhi’s at all.
One can go on merrily listing all that makes us the antithesis of what Gandhi stood for: we are the land where children have had to wait for half a century for education to become a constitutional right while a bill to raise salaries of parliamentarians is cleared in a trice. Need I say more. We build walls to keep our own away and do not feel revolted when a little beggar girl knocks at the window of our car or feel outraged at any attempt to disturb social equations.
I wish the hullabaloo about Gandhi’s memorabilia will make us look deeper at the values this remarkable man stood for. That we remember promises made but then forgotten, that we try and revive compassion and empathy, the very reasons for which a man decided almost a century ago to shed his wants and only live by his needs. Will the wooden slippers bought at an astronomical price remind us of the millions of little feet that still walk without shoes? Sadly I do not think that will happen, soon the news of Gandhi’s legacy will be overtaken by some other and our minute memory will fail us one again!
I myself discovered Gandhi rather late in life. For the better part of my life he remained a romantic notion painted by a passionate mom. It was only lately that I understood his true message: to look for alternatives to any situation till you overcome and win. That is what I have tried to do since and I must admit that the formula works. It is a simple one and can be resumed in Bapu’s own words: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 7, 2009 | Uncategorized
Shashikant topped his school in the class X pre-boards. He was awarded a prize by the Delhi Government and received it yesterday. Shashikant has been a student of project why for some time and we always knew that he would do us proud one day.
A shy and reserved boy, Shashikant has always been very serious about his studies. He is your proverbial slumdog as he lives in a tiny hovel in the Govindpiri slums. His father is a bus driver and his mom a simple housewife. But unlike other families, his parents did not have many children. They perhaps knew that the future of their progeny lay in giving them a sound education. Shashikant has only one sibling.
Shashikant and many other students of the pwhy secondary programme have been performing extremely well in the past years. Recently one of our class XI boys got 99% in maths and many often top their respective schools each time there is a test of an examination. Wonder why? Well the recipe for success is simple and yet foolproof. Take a bunch of children from deprived homes and add a committed, passionate and dedicated teacher from a similar background whose only obsession in life is to ensure that his students shine, keep the two together in a classroom for a few hours a day and a few years and voila the topper is ready. We have tested this recipe for many years now and have never been disappointed. The secondary Sir – aka Naresh – is one of his kind!
And to say that it all began on a road side almost ten years ago. What a journey it has been! Why then is my joy filed with a tinge of sadness. Perhaps because we at project why can at best taken a 100 or so kids at a given time. What about the millions who will never get a chance at proving who they are or what they are capable of, those who will never enter the portal of a school or will simply quietly and unobtrusively drop our along the way because someone has hijacked the promises made to them.
Where will it all end are the words that came to my mind as I watched the two little slumdog kids walk the ramp for a famous designer duo. I had just recovered from the news that the same children would now be used by the ruling party to campaign for them!
