by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 20, 2007 | Uncategorized
“Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk.
It is walking toward me, without hurrying.”
Jean Cocteau
Nanhe lies on a hospital bed, his body wasted, his smile lost forever, his searing pain now borne with a silence more deafening than any cry. The men in white have given up, even his mom’s once indomitable will is now faltering.
There is no talk of elusive kidneys made in america. Even silent petitions to the gods have lost their fervour. And never have Cocteau’s words been so apropos!
But is it not blasphemous to wish that death hastens its pace, particularly when the life at stake is that of a child? Nevertheless I do not feel any sacrilege as I sit hoping that the healing kiss of death brushes Nanhe’s brow and free his exhausted spirit.
Nanhe is what we call a special child. In the game of survival, he was dealt a losing hand. He never learnt to speak, or walk; he never mastered the art of fighting for his rights and hurting others. He just accepted what he was given and rewarded you with his incredible smile. We slowly got addicted to that smile. In it we saw a reflection of everything we seek but never find, and above all the much needed hope to carry on when all seemed to tell us to stop.
Many years back, a friend had told me that special children were god’s special angels sent to earth to help us redeem ourselves. Today I wonder where our redemption lies.
The hospital just gave up and sent him home with a string of empty words: Let him go home, feed him, care for him… and many unsaid ones. So his mom gathered the broken swollen incontinent body in her arms and took him home.
Nanhe’s home is a a tiny airless room where a bed hogs all the place and yet it is where he has lived all his life. It is the place where he has shared with his family and felt safe in. Maybe today it will bring him some peace.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 19, 2007 | Uncategorized
I have been holding to my ‘pen’ for the last few days for fear of being branded the proverbial carper. But doing so longer would be going against my own grain.
For the past few days or more we have been subjected to a string of national news headlines about celebrities ranging from a marriage announcement to a racial debate. The later seems to fall a little flat as the persona in action chose to be part of a reality show known for getting people to put their worst foot forward in public, not to forget that the said actress was paid a huge amount to be part of that show!
Talk shows, parliamentary debates, burnt effigies, political mileage, the reaction cocktail is heady. It is a well known fact that the media plays up what pays and increases TRP ratings. What it means is that an issue like the Shilpa story is one that titillates us and hence sells.
So let us ask ourselves why such a story sells: is it the star gazer in us that is stimulated, or the atavist colonial past that we have not shed. For it is quite obvious that those burning effigies in the remotest part of our land are probably not aware of the Big Brother show. Or was it a too good to let go story that served many unscrupulous masters.
Many questions come to mind. Is such a public outcry a refelection of our society and if so, then are we only sensitive to what happens to stars? Strange that we should be so angry at remarks made on a voyeuristic show when we ourselves live in a fractured society and indulge in divisive remarks on caste, creed and social origin? We have been sadly reminded of his reality in the recent past with the Nithari case where even the lawmakers played the game with impunity.
Sadly even our social conscience seems to follow the pattern and is louder when the cause to defend is glamorous. Come to think about it, what will all this hue and cry lead to: probably more popularity for the show and the lady, till someone comes up with another show and another star.
Racism exists and often it is something that is fuelled by vested interest in search of causes to espouse, and as long as we react in such a violent way, more such causes will be unearthed and nurtured. Here again the ball is in our court and the responsibility ours, but looks like no one is listening.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 15, 2007 | Uncategorized
A candlelight vigil was held last night for the Nithari children.
It was held at the same place where just a few months back the tout delhi was present in force, led by the urban middle class and the youth fuelled by images of Rang de Basanti, to fight for justice for Jessica and Priyadarshini. The vigil was widely covered by the media in live broadcasts.
Yesterday’s vigil went unnoticed.
Just a handful of people were there: the bereaved families and a few others. It did not even make it to the front page. An article on page 3 stated simply: Public zeal missing from Nihari protest!
A chill went down my back bringing to my mind almost apocalyptic images of the future.. People power had also succumbed to the great divide. We had failed to recognise the writing on the wall. Did we feel that such incidents could never happen to us and hence we did not need to act? Did we just feel safe in our urban middle class reality?
There are many disturbing questions that come to mind, questions we just push away as they would require us to look into ourselves and compel us to take responsibilty. So we simply wash our hands off and look away hoping that some plausible answer will be found soon and allow us to carry on till the next incident.
I am in the game of changing lives. A path I chose to walk because I felt I had a debt to pay. In the last seven years I have had to revise this larger than life attitude and come face to face with reality. Changing lives or crossing the great divide is in no way an act of charity. It is simply investing in your own future, a future where we cannot wish away those who live on the other side.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 11, 2007 | Uncategorized
On April 13 the 2003, little Rohan and Puja never went back home. They had gone to the nearby temple as they did every evening. That day some predator was lurking with his diabolical agenda.
Two days later their bodies were found in the sluice gate of the okhla barrage. A little shoe was discovered later next to an open drain in a nearby wooded area, a place no child their age could have reached on their own.
Rohan and Puja were pwhy kids.
I had to move heaven and earth to convince the local police that the children had not just gone off in the dead of the night, crossed dangerous streets and walked in lonely spaces to find the open drain where their death beckoned. I had to use my persuasive skills, my contacts and every ruse in my book to get the FIR lodged under the right IPC sections. I got my share of threats, bullying and intimidating but held on.
The post mortem report not surprisingly did not mention the bruises and cuts but a staid death by drowning. The case was never solved. The family was suitably brow beaten and little Puja and Rohan became simple annoying statistics.
Why were these beautiful children kidnapped and then killed is any one’s guess. Some dark ritual, sexual depravation or personal enmity… no one really cared. Rohan and Puja belonged to the other side of the fence were children are dispensable commodities. For the parents there was never a closure. They just got on with the task of surviving, their grief visible in the few extra grey hair and defeated look of the fathers and the drawn faces and the sad eyes of the mothers. Even the birth of little Nidhi could not bring the required healing.
The last weeks has brought to fore the chilling reality of the number of children that are missing and the fate that many have met. Wonder how many lie dead hidden somewhere yet to be stumbled upon. Wonder also how many could have been saved had the law makers and protectors done their job with a modicum of honesty.
It is time for us to stop and think about what we can do to change things and ensure that tender lives like tat of Rohan and Puja, like that of the children of Nithari or the ones found in the Punjab mill are not in vain.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 9, 2007 | Uncategorized
The mercury has dipped to 2 degrees and delhi is freezing. But our kids turned up as usual in the morning chill.
As they filed into the room, we were a little baffled to see little Golu who seemed to have difficulties walking and waddled through arms stretched at an awkward angle. It took a little time and investigation to realise that he was wearing 6 sweaters his mom’s recipe to beat the cold.
One does not know if he warm warm, but one could see he was undoubtedly uncomfortable and unhappy.
We removed some of the layers so that he could play and jump with his buddies but did not forget to put them back on when it was time for mom to come and collect her son.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 8, 2007 | Uncategorized
Who said that some things have to be learnt to be experienced? Who said you had to be born on the right side of the fence to experience certain moments? Who said you had to be normal to know the how and when of appropriate behaviour?
Certain things just happen naturally and turn out larger than the best!
Last week a group of young professionals brought a special treat for the children. Beautifully wrapped packets of goodies – pencils, colouring books, crayons and a pencil box -. It was a rare treat as we have by now been used to receiving used gifts piled up in cartons. For many children it was perhaps their first gift ever and we did not know that we were about to be treated to an exceptional moment.
As we handed them out to our very special kids nothing could have let us imagine the whoops of joy that were let out by each and everyone. Be it our very own Manu who spent he better part of his life roaming the streets, or Shalini whose thirty years on the planet does not warrant such a reaction. Little Ruchi’s uncontrollable nervous twitches took leave of absence while she opened her packet and Umesh and Ankit could not stop smiling. I am sure that for that instant Neha, Shahida and Rinky’s world of silence let the sound of the rustling of the paper slip into their silent reality and Himanshu forgot the obsessive images of his dead mother hanging on the ceiling fan while he set about the task of discovering what lay inside the gold and purple paper.
Each one of these special kids who struggle each day to survive, forgot their dismal existences and were just like any child the world over savouring the thrill of opening a simple gift.
It takes so little to make a child’s world right, something we tend to forget.
