by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 18, 2007 | Uncategorized
why ki tazaa khabar is a new blog that saw the light of day on March 17th. The idea was mooted by the following words sent by a long time supporter: I find a major problem which is lack of information… my only problem is that I never get any information about that project. how that project is going on..how are kids in that project…did they do any progress..how is my contribution being helpful to them…how many teachers are there in the project etc etc.
Being one who has the tendency of easily slipping into comfort zones – i.e. taking for granted what goes on smoothly – this was a wake up call. I understand my friend’s concern as once upon a time I did send out regular individual emails!
But as the project grew and so did everyday challenges, individual updates became rarer as I believed – maybe wrongly – that the blogs and updates on the site were adequate information.
Having decided right from the outset that I would not waste my funders money on heavy administrative structures, and having also chosen to employ only community people who were not savvy enough to write in English, I was left with little choice. I could have sent a mail explaining this but I just sank into a comfort zone.
The wake up call that landed in my inbox jolted me into the need of finding a viable solution that would dovetail into the why spirit and give a day-to-day account of what happens at pwhy.
The way out I hit upon was a blog in roman Hindi in the words of those who were directly involved with running pwhy. So why ki tazaa khabar will be rani and shamika’s blog in their own words and will give all a different view of pwhy.
It is the first time shamirani – the name they chose – are setting out on such a venture and if you feel it is something hat needs to be encouraged please do drop a mail to
shambakshou@yahoo.co.in.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 17, 2007 | Uncategorized
I have always been a morning person and a light sleeper. Yet for years I never woke up before 4 or 4.30 am. If I let my memory travel back I realise that often it is was the cling clang of the Delhi Milk Scheme vans that used to wake me up. Sometimes a crow or a bird preceded it by a few minutes.
Lately I have found myself waking up as early as 2 am jolted from my sleep by the sound of a speeding vehicle. We live close to a flyover and in the dead of night every sound does get amplified. True that in yore years too sometimes their were cars whizzing past, maybe on their way to the airport, or Saturday party goers getting back home but it was an occasional sound that did not get passed the deep sleep one was in. It is the everyday sounds that reach that part of your brain like the milk van or the faithful crow.
Irked by this new phenomena that was now translating itself into dark circles under the eyes and an irritable Maam’ji, I decided to try and decipher the source of this new late night occurrence. It did dawn one such night: these were the BPO or call centre staff vehicles crisscrossing our city to meet their unearthly schedules.
A lot has been said about the effects of these new working hours that need to meet different time zones and turn night into day. many young people are paying the price and as is often the case, the once lucrative and upmarket job options is now being shunned by some and is slowly reaching the lower strata of society. Today many of our ex students work in call centres as the job profile is scaled down to meet the ever exceeding demand.
Doc P, our family doctor recounted how on a trip to the US he needed to change a booking and dialled a number answered by a young lad who was desperately trying to communicate in his newly acquired American Hinglish; no matter how many times Doc tried to coax him into speaking in Hindi, the lad held on: needless to say the booking was never changed.
While travelling to pwhy everyday one sees new hoardings for BPO training institutes that guarantee perfect English in 6 weeks or so. I guess they must be lucrative as new ones appear ever so often.
I guess I wil need to invest in a good pair of earplugs!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 16, 2007 | Uncategorized
To me she will always be Sapna’s mom though her name is Bimla and she is also Monty’s mom. She came to us almost 4 years ago carrying Sapna who was 5 but could not even hold her head, let alone stand. She used to drop by sometimes dragging her feet and looking far beyond her twenty something.
Slowly her story unfolded and we were shocked to learn that a still born child has resulted in a prolapsed uterus, the reason for her awkward gait. I first wrote about he almost exactly three years ago as she lay in hospital where she had initially gone to get her uterus removed but landed up in having to get a heart valve replaced. The uterus lay forgotten.. though visible!
Today three years later she again lies in a hospital this time finally free of her agony and shame. her story could have been shared many times as so much happened in the intervening years, but somehow I felt that the moment was not the right as for her closure only came today.
Bimla is 28 though she looks 128. Married to a man that not only does not care for her but is also often jobless, she bore with the resilience of Indian women a fate no one can envy: a retarded first born that was seen as a curse, a second child that was often ill, a mother in law that despised her but on whom she was dependent, nothing looked right for this woman. More was to come as her husband was diagnosed with a congenital heart problem. So the surgery she needed was delayed as she had to replace him as a dishwasher in a small eatery…
In the meantime however Sapna started walking and saying a few words and Monty got better and became a regular at pwhy! Bimla can infuriate even the most tolerant person as she often does not react to things but simply accepts her fate; I guess it is her way of dealing with what she knows she cannot change. I guess she has perfected the art of living one day at a time, and does not or rather cannot allow herself the luxury to look at the future.
Last week she came by and a look at her swollen face and body shook us out of the torpor she had manged to instill in us: we decided to get her hysterectomy done come what may as were anything to happen to her her innocent kids lives would be shattered. Luckily Sabrina and Chris were kind enough to help us.
Needless to say that it was not easy to get her husband to come and sign the consent forms but we managed though once again no one fromm her family stayed with her, it was little Deepak’s grandmother who offered to be there, another pwhy miracle.
For us it was just the question of saving Sapna’s mom, as little Sapna is considered a burden for all and only has her mom on her side.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 12, 2007 | Uncategorized
A mail dropped by recently in my mailbox. It opened with the words: I have been visiting Project Why for quite some time now and its quite interesting to know the way you take up issues. In fact I have been observing certain things out here in Mumbai but since I don’t have a blog that would bring up such issues I am writing it to you.
I gave myself a silent pat on my back before reading on, as somehow the 400 odd blogs that sit on this site were written in the hope that they would make a difference. Like many other things it was just that a hope against hope till Rachana’s mail came by. Suddenly what was till then a nebulous though took on a different hue and with it came the realisation of the responsibility that came with it.
This is what she wrote:
My office is located at Lower Parel in Mumbai, a corporate hub where you can find all sorts of offices. The primary concern I feel at this place that slowly and gradually people are occupying the footpaths as a living place. All shabby stuff is thrown here and there and they are doing all possible workouts from cooking to bathing. It becomes difficult especially for women out here to move on the footpath. More over the traffic on the roads is so heavy that it is very unsafe to walk on the road. Initially it was just two -three people who started living out there but now i can find almost 30-40 people in the area just opposite to the Lower Parel station and opp to Kamla mills ( where CNBC is located).
Besides this these people don’t seem to be really poor because they are smoking and carrying costly mobiles, but still they are dirty and shabby.
The other aspect of this is nobody seems to be bothered. What the hell is the police doing? Mind you the Lower Parel police station is just at the end of the railway station! I am sure these guys are paying enough to stay at this place. And after some time they will start claiming that they were over here for a long time…so will the Maharashtra government make flats for these people on the footpath as well? Its a pathetic condition. One can never think of a clean and green city and imagine Mumbai to be one. I don’t know what to do for all this but as a journalist it hurts that i cant do anything for I don’t have that platform to take up issues. I know simply keeping things in mind and thinking over it is of no use I cant make a difference and therefore I am writing this mail to you.
If you can take it up on your blog it might work out something…
As I read her words i realised that one could easily substitute Delhi for Mumbai and Giri Nagar for lower Parel habitat for the poor seems to be something that planners and administrators have wiped off their mind and conscience. In lieu of it encroachment of footpaths seems a great option as it is a new way to feather one’s nest. And with time passing and greed growing real shanties have come to stay.
Most of these people that we want to wish away do play an important role in our lives though it may seem invisible or so essential that it has become a second habit. Just let your imagination run free and imagine life without these people. I do not know Mumbai but in Delhi they are the ones who give us most of our creature comforts and are available in the myriad of household emergencies we face.
For seven years I have lived amidst such people. What we forget is that they are just like us, have children to feed, educate and protect and dreams to fulfill, dreams that we often fuel without realising. They carry mobiles because greedy companies offer them special deals as they slowly get caught in the net of hire/purchase.
As civil society we have a responsibility towards these people and need to raise awareness on the issue of habitat for the poor which is a bomb waiting to explode!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 11, 2007 | Uncategorized
An anonymous comment on a previous post– reality notes 2 – with you, for you, always – came as a bit of a jolt. It said: here is a bit of advice. Instead of running around like a plucked chicken trying to prove your point (and who knows what that is!), why don’t you hire your own security. Get some unemployed thugs to provide security for you. They are cheap and you won’t have these hassles in the future.
It was indeed a wake up call in more ways than one. I wish the person had not chosen to remain anonymous. It would have helped me assess whether the comment was laced with sarcasm or a genuine piece of advise. Notwithstanding both are equally disturbing.
I may seem at times to be running around like a plucked chicken. I guess most of us who try to beat the system in existence land up looking like that. Barring the initial years when we at pwhy were trying to find our feet and posed no threat to anyone, we have faced innumerable obstacles that took various avatars but had a single purpose: to get us to pack our bags and leave.
For us each obstacle came as a challenge and a vindication of our approach. If a tiny organisation like ours could disturb existing patterns than it meant that we were on the right track. To many we may just have looked like any education imparting organisation that dot our land, but it is actually a saga of whys, whats and hows bringing us slowly to one moot point: empowerment of the community. And to achieve this with a modicum we had to walk the long road, abide by existing rules and set an example that all could emulate.
So the point one has been trying to prove is that no matter what the odds, there exists a system albeit one that many prefer circumventing that works if one tries. One could have made one phone call and got the police station to accept the complaint, but that was not a solution available to all; however going to the higher authority is one that is there for all provided you are aware of it.
It would be naive of me to think that this is the last hurdle in my race. Many more will come and will have to be faced but each one will be a step in the right direction as it will show the way and may help others.
So there is a method in what seems my madness; but one your life beats at the rhythm of many others then all planning, no matter how well conceived, goes haywire and you just take things one step at a time, one day at a time.
Last but not the lest I need to react to what is suggested in the aforesaid comment: getting protection by hiring thugs. I would have preferred to dismiss this without a word but cannot. First and foremost no one is a thug by birth. We are collectively responsible for them becoming that. Then stooping down to the level of people one holds in contempt is not an acceptable solution. And last of all the solution proffered is again an individual one, what we seek at pwhy is solutions for each and every Indian.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2007 | Uncategorized
As I had written in my previous post, I set out this morning with a well drafter complaint (courtesy my lawyer)to seek protection from those who are meant to give it to every citizen namely the Delhi Police whose motto we all know is with you, for you , always!
As a honest activist and proud Indian I decided to follow the procedure to the T and set out to the police post in Govindpuri. I had thought that lodging a complaint would be simple as it only required to be handed over.
The police station was abuzz with activity with men in uniform haring here and there. The antique walkies talkies were spouting incomprehensible words drowned in static. To my bewilderment no one seemed to care that we were there, let alone attend to us. One gathered that some high politician was visiting the area and hence everyone was required to be at the spot.
After some time someone deigned looking at our paper that was in English and legal jargon, and then passed it on to another. After some time we were told that they would not accept it as there were thousands of such complaints! In short they refused to take our simple complaint.
So after some cogitation and consultation with our lawyers we set out to the next authority namely the ACP Kalkaji after adding another letter stating how we had been refused our basic civic right. Our complaint was accepted by that office.
In hindsight it seemed the someone had called the police post to ensure that our complaint was not filed. This someone was part of the pack of wolves, probably the one who ensured good relationship with the local cops, the seedy nexus slowly revealed was beyond one’s imagination and yet so real to the India we live in.
So maybe I stand corrected as I have many times felt that education and a good command of English does open doors, Well it does, but not at the lower levels of the system where predators rule with impunity.
Now we sit and wait for the next assault armed with a copy of our complaint duly stamped in acknowledgement. with you for you always remain words with no meaning unless you are part of the nexus.
