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.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 7, 2007 | Uncategorized
I have been worried about the proliferation of what I call the pouch invasion in urban slums. We decided to do a survey and maybe try and initiate a campaign to raise awreness on the matter.
We been busy collecting pouches to and one of the stops was Nanhe’s mom’s cart as she sells a panoply of them. When we reached out for a particular one she stopped us midway telling us not to buy it as it was bhang gola a product made from cannabis.
The packet costs one rupee. On it is written: ayurvedic medicine!
You can imagine our total dismay as packets are available a dime a dozen at most shops or carts selling such products. It is accessible to anyone even children legally. A simple one rupee fix on the way to easy addiction.
At times like the one is left speechless!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 7, 2007 | Uncategorized
Our battle to make nanhe’s mom see sense is taking on disturbing dimensions. In order to ensure that little nanhe is well taken care of and in the face of our total failure in making the desperate mom see sense we decided to play the game and follow her search for kidney, the rider being that we will help her if we were assured that all was above board and provided we got a written estimate as was the case with our heart surgeries in AIIMS.
D, our staff member was appointed for the mission. He was first introduced to a so called relative who happened to have nothing to do with the hospital. A middle aged dubious looking character was introduced to D and told him with total confidence that a kidney would be available for around fifteen thousand rupees give an thousand or two. A doctor in the burns department of the said government hospital would arrange it.
D was told to act dumb and gullible so that we could get to the bottom of the story. When he enquired about who the donor woul be, pat came the answer: gurda amrika se ayega – the kidney will come from america.
Kudos to D for not having fallen off his chair. he kept a poker straight face saying that one had to satisfy the potential donor and hence meet with the doctor. He was told that the doctor was recovering from an accident and would be available in a week or so.
This is not fiction or the plot for a serial. It is stark reality that is unfolding in front of our eyes and concerns little nanhe, a child dear to many. The so called relative has already extracted five hundred rupees from the poor mom for mithai – sweetmeats – presumably given to the doctor as a new year gift.
One may recall that nanhe’s mom was initially told that the kidney would cost one hundred thousand rupees till the kind relative jumped in and said he could fix things for her. 500 rs may seem chicken feed to us but we must remember that nanhe’s mom is a poor widow with 4 children, three of them challenged, that she ekes her living from a cart where she sells whatever she can and that on a good day she makes under 100 rs.
This is where thing stand today. We plan to follow the matter and see how we can expose the truth which could range from a simple extortion from the so called relative, to a much deeper racket.
We need to do it for nanhe and or all other desperate mothers who would believe in any thing just to save their child.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
A recent news item about the introduction of savoir-faire classes caught my attention. Apparently B schools like IIMs now have classes to ensure that you don’t attack the custard with a soup spoon!
True that the world is shrinking with host of new opportunities for young Indians, and true also that a potential employer would want his employee not to commit a gaffe, but I wonder whether expats coming to India for employment in desi companies – and there are more each day – are taught how to eat with their hands, or whether a young aspirant to a job in let us say Beijing would master the use of chopsticks.
Often learning about another culture becomes a way of breaking the ice and establishing a healthy exchange where both cultures find space. Moreover even in fork & knives culture there are variables, about ways of setting tables, placing cutlery to indicate that you have finished and so forth. Were these to be taught would result in confusion whereby one is trying to recall the right manner and thus fumble and appear gauche.
On the other hand were he left to behave naturally, he would soon find out the right way of the moment and execute it with grace. But there is a deeper side to this issue. I wonder if there is an unexpressed feeling of inferiority that makes us want to ape the west. I have always held that it is only when we are proud of our own culture, that we can aspire to widening our vision with success. Manners cut across countries and cultures and are often inherent. I have seen impeccable manners in the homes of pwhy children where one is at once made to feel comfortable and where food and drink is shared with pride and love.
It is sad that we are slowly losing our identity in our rush to ape cultures that we feel or are made to believe as better. The shrinking of the world should be an enriching experience for all, where all cultures are given the same importance thus enabling each one to learn from the other.
