by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 18, 2007 | Uncategorized
Anisha lies in a hospital bed. She dropped by pwhy yesterday morning and I was shocked to see her gasping breath. The forlorn parents told me that the hospital had refused to give a date as they had not deposited 4 units of blood and in spite of the fact that the 55 000 Rs required for her surgery had been paid more than a week back.
Knowing the attitude of the AAIMS’s blood bank that only wanted relatives as donors, I knew it was time to act. I told the mother to immediately take the child to the emergency room and that i would follow.
I mouthed a silent prayer to the God of lesser beings when I reached the hospital as any delay would have been fatal. Anisha lay under an oxygen bell while a nurse was desperately tyring to find a vein on the child’s emaciated body. Anisha weighs under 4 kilos at 9 months.
The family was desperate as they were told that there were no beds in AIIMS and the child may have to be taken to Safdurjung across the road. I told them to do what was said and had to resort to what works in India: contacts. After a long trudge and many misses I located a friend doctor in another department and asked him to intervene.
Now we wait with crossed fingers and bated breath for a little miracle: that of getting a bed and a date for the much needed life saving surgery.
I later googled for the meaning of Anisha: it means continuous…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 17, 2007 | Uncategorized
A middle aged woman pushing her vegetable cart in the chilly evening rain set me thinking about the life of an ordinary citizen in India’s capital city.
The heap of vegetables still lying unsold on her cart was proof that it had not been a good day. I wondered why she and not a man was pushing the cart. A widow maybe, or a woman abandoned for another. Who knows? She must got up long before the sun rose and gone to the wholesale market in spite of the torrential rain. Then she must have carefully arranged all her different vegetables on her cart ready to walk her beat calling out people to buy her goods.
Her mind may have gone back to times gone by where no gates existed in residential colonies and no permission and ID were needed, a time where smart shops did not sell vegetables in neat packets glowing under an artificial green light, a time where the local pheri wallah was the obvious option was the only viable option for many a housewife. But those days were gone… yet she carried on.
Our city is filled with such people who set out every morning to sell a plethora of goods and depend on the day’s income to feed their waiting family. We have many such people in our area, some even parents of pwhy children. I have seen many mothers sitting at the doorstep and waiting for the bread earner to come back so that she can set about cooking the evening meal, mouthing a silent prayer that he has not stopped by the watering hole.
These are brave ordinary Indians who left their homes in the hope of finding a better life in the city, and in the hope of carving out a better life for their children. They are your vegetable and fruit vendors, your corner cobbler, your scooter repair man, your street food vendor.. They are the likes of Nanhe’s mom whose family grows hungry when she sits by the side of her child in the hospital.
They are ordinary Indians who have created an invisible support system that we have gotten used to and depend on without quite knowing it. Just like us they have families to feed, children to educate, lives to run. Still embedded in the Indianness they keep many of our traditions and rites alive, those we have forgotten and forsaken.
Yet they disturb and are often as they are considered ungainly and not in sync with modern India. They are held responsible for polluting the city as we forgot about them in our planning and they just had to place themselves somehow and anyhow. And yet they were never pushed away as politicians looked at them as votes and promptly gave them voters ID cards thus making them legit.
While law makes and executors are trying to fix things in time for the nest election, these ordinary Indians are busy surviving one day at a time, not aware of the Damocles’s sword that hangs on their heads.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 15, 2007 | Uncategorized
The editor of a famous women’s magazine shared a touching experience where her attempts to rescue a street child had failed for want of a proper road map. Ms Fernandes concludes her piece by an appeal to set such road maps. A hurt street child is taken to the hospital and treated but once healed there is nowhere for him to go, but back to the same street as there are no safe options.
There are no road maps in India as we have experienced over the years at pwhy be it with children, women, handicapped persons or the elderly. Each problem has to be taken as a challenge and a road map created.
When we came to know about manoj’s mom, we set out to look for a solution. manoj had been born at home. but one look at the mom’s face and we knew she needed proper medical attention. Strangely when you start looking for something in earnest, you find them. We discovered a maternity hospital run by the municipality that was a pleasant surprise. It was clean, efficient and above all practically free.
Manoj’s mom now has a road map for the next 4 months: iron shots for 10 days, and strips of vitamins and minerals. She will be checked regularly and will deliver in a safe environment. But that is not where the matter ended. we needed to find a healthier room with light and air to receive the baby when it arrives. I guess that by now we had caught the attention of the god of lesser beings as we found a room close to where some of our creche teachers stay. We knew she would be safe and that were her husband to beat her, many would come to her rescue, and when it was time for the baby to come, little manoj would be looked after.
In India we cannot wait for the powers that be to create road maps. We need to craft them ourselves.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 15, 2007 | Uncategorized
Over the past seven years now one has been faced with innumerable questions that scream for answers. Questions about the abysmal state of environment awareness, about the total lack of information about policies and programmes, questions about how an ordinary ca citizen seek redressal.
Amidst the plethora of questions raised runs a common thread . There seems to be a total absence of responsibility as every one is looking at something or someone to bash, so if there is no water it is the fault of the government in power. What one forgets is that we are reponsible for electing them. We also forget that many of us still waste water. We also forget that the city is choking as wave after wave of migrants arrive each day.
But that is not all. Most of us, particularly our kind, find it infra dig to act: we often abstain from voting and are never ready to take the cudgels for any cause, leaving that to the other. This attitude being endemic what happens is that there is no one left to do the needful. A article on cleanliness that caught my eye recently explains this with conviction. The author seems to feel that if one targets children, maybe one can redress the situation.
Hence what is needed is to empower each and every child to dare ask his set of whys and assume responsibility for the wrongs. That is why we have decided to open a Right to Information desk at pwhy. We hope to be able to raise awareness about this incredible tool we possess and make each child aware of its potential.
A small step indeed, but one we hope will have a ripple effect so that one day humble citizens will shed their feudal attitudes and raise their voice.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 8, 2007 | Uncategorized
One will spend life in jail, the other is waiting for the gallows. They both thought that their political connections could give them licence to kill and get away with murder. But they did not. Public opinion ensured that and Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Matoo got justice at last.
In September a professor was killed in front of hundred of people. Only 4 came forward and I remember writing about one of the them as in him one saw hope as he stood by what he believed was right. In the TV interview aired then he did mention his fears. At that time he was given police protection and we all hoped against hope that he would testify.
Yesterday all the four witnesses turned hostile, including Komal Singh Senger. Today the key accused moved the High Court for bail. In five months the powers that be had fixed every thing.
Original video tapes were doctored, and the prosecution’s case was full of glaring lapses. Now the family’s only hope is that the case is handed over to the CBI.
It all looks like a repeat of the previous cases.
Though many may blame the four witnesses there are a few questions that come to mind. Here again it was a murder that took place in a crowd that had professors, students, political leaders and many others, yet the witnesses were all simple peons. Wonder what happened to all the others. In September footage of the beating was aired over and over again by all channels. The final footage shown during proceedings omitted crucial scenes. Witnesses who should have been protected were left to their own devices and at the mercy of political goons. Wonder what threats or lollies were proffered.
The family has given up hope. Will public opinion rise again and see that justice is done. Seems a sad reflection of the reality we live in if in every single case justice will depend on whether the media will start a campaign or not.
Where is ou collective conscience gone? Don’t we realise that this can happen to one of us?
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 7, 2007 | Uncategorized
Many years back, when the first fast food outlet opened in Delhi – I think it was a pizza something – I told many friends that they would never be able to compete with our own desi brand of fast foods: the zingy chats, piping hot samosas, delectable and sinful poories and melting hot jalebis -. Ask any LSR student of yore years about the gooey peas chat – mattar chat -and you will be treated to a Proustian expression. And how can we forget the oily but scrumptious bun omelet that has satiated many a hungry student.
Street food has been a tradition in Delhi, one that has withstood the test of time. An interesting outcome of globalisation is this tradition as now you can have chowmein, and momos and swharma at any street corner in India’s capital city. Just a few years back one had to make a trip to Delhi Haat to have a plate of momos, now we just walk down the street from our Govindpuri centre and get them.
This is post is not a trip down memory lane, neither is it a gastronomic review. It is an appeal to the powers that be not to take away the soul of our city and leave us rudderless as today’s papers rung the death knell of one of the oldest institutions of this city.
Street food is the grand old tradition in Delhi from the times when Kkhomchewallahs (street vendors) used to come to one’s doorstep to sell all kinds of snacks, chaats, ice creams, sweets and more. And yet the Supreme Court has decreed their demise. With a stroke of the pen our highest judicial body has wiped away an age old way of life. The erstwhile street vendors are now to be replaced by pre packed food. Just imagining a cold chola bhatura makes me lose my appetite.
True that hygiene is sometimes not quite up to the mark, but it is also the case in outlets that run from kiosks. Those who have been to Nehru Place must have seen how food outlets operate even though they run from supposedly legal spaces. Somehow the planners forgot simple things like water points!
But there is also a grimmer side to this decision. If street vendors are not allowed to operate many people will lose their jobs and many families will sleep hungry. On the other hand the popularity of these vendors is visible and one wonders where the people who eat there will go.
Just down our gali is a man who sells hot poories and lovely potato subzi. A plate of 5 poories, subzi and a bit of curd comes for 6 rs. Every morning as we drive by the smell of the poories is enticing. The place is crowded with young office goers who have no families, workers, auto richshaw drivers and others busy gobbling their hot morning breakfast. I must confess that I too have succumbed to the temptation and partaken of the treat many times.
The decision to have these vendors only sell food cooked at home and wrapped in some plastic container is the pits. Once again we have been struck by the now sated option that our administrators have made theirs: rather than face problems and find solutions, pass them on or do away with the problem altogether.
In the frenzied rush to make Delhi another Singapore or Shanghai, one cannot forget the millions who serve this city and ensure it runs. One cannot wish away people and institutions that have survived many a storm. They have to remain as they give the city an identity. Imagine Paris without roasted chestnuts, or Singapore without the morning soup vendors. What needs to be done is ensure stringent regulations, subject vendors to rigorous testing and give them assigned space. But do not subject us to cold samosas or pre-packed chat! Our desi fast food can compete with any burger giant if it is allowed to survive!
