by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 4, 2007 | Uncategorized
In trying to explain the significance of holi to my foreign son-in-law I found myself searching the net as my knowlede did not go beyond the Prahlad-Hollika story. On this site, I read the follwoing: Originally the festival was primarily for the Shudras who were otherwise not allowed to participate in festivals. In ancient India too, this festival was celebrated as a day when people forgot caste and gender differences and were allowed many liberties, otherwise forbidden.
I do have vague memories of my childhood in my grandfather’s home when on that day those who worked in the house joined everyone in the lawns where holi was celebrated with great gusto. Flowers had been soaked overnight to provide a wonderful yellow brew, and colours were natural, sweets had been made at home too and many sherbets cooled in earthen pots. Some were forbidden to us ; guess they were the ones laced with bhang.
Then Holi became a day one dreaded as chemical colors, and all the filth imaginable were hurled at you even days before the festival. Like most festivals, the essence was forgotten.
I was glad to reconnect with the meaning of the festival and was happy to see that the little band that played holi in my garden reflected just that essence as all the Indias not to say the world were united in fun and spirit.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 19, 2007 | Uncategorized
In my quest to get pwhy kids and heir families the required caste and OBC certificates I set about finding out the procedure set out by our government. A quick perusal of the Delhi government website is sufficient to show that the modus operandi proposed is almost impossible to meet.
For Scs and Sts whereas the application can be signed by the local elected representative, someone that can be acceded to, the remaining papers require the signature of two class I gazetted officer, something that even i would have difficulty in finding.
In case of OBCs a new para has been added which states: I certify that to the best of my knowledge and belief that i do not belong to the creamy layer of the OBC… (para 14 of application form), However no definition has been given of the creamy layer!
It does not end here. To get a handicapped certificate you need to be 40% physically handicapped and 35% mentally challenged. Wonder what happens to those who are under! And in a city where the minimum wage for unskilled labour is about 3000 rs a month, the website states : He or she should be domiciled in Delhi for more than 5 years and their monthly income should not exceeds. 400/- and if unemployed their family income should not exceed Rs.600/
I think one would be justified to say that their seems to be a concerted effort to ensure that good schemes do not reach the true beneficiary. One would be justified in thinking that if we as civil society armed with a powerful tool like the Right to Information, set out to redress torts and ensure that existing schemes functioned this country would be a better place for all!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 18, 2007 | Uncategorized
Today’s TV news brought pictures of 390 little bones buried near a hospital in Ratlam. Experts say they are the remains of babies. Today’s newspaper reported that there were thousands of missing children in our own Silicon valley a.k.a Bengaluru!
Post Nithari, the NHRC has asked for an update of missing children in UP. A website has been launched to keep track of missing children. Many questions come to mind and find no answers. The entire administrative setup seems to have forsaken the children of India in every way imaginable.
There are another little forsaken group of missing children, those that came for unknown reasons to seek shelter at the Baba Balnath Ashram since its inception in 1975. The present lot were rescued in early December 2006 though they too seem lost in complex administrative and judicial mazes. But what about all the others that transited this hell hole for 30 long years. Some should be almost middle aged women.
Will anyone give them a voice. What will it take to get civil society to ask these disturbing questions and seek answers so that they may get the justice they deserve? We have seen many a campaign in recent months that have brought closure to several cases. However these girls are invisible, yet they too are victims of the society we live in.
It is time to wake up and redeem ourselves if redemption there is!
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.
