by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I am livid. Do you remember Babli?
Here I was back in a comfort zone feeling smug like a proverbial Cheshire cat, thinking that with her brand new heart, Babli was sitting on a school bench making up for lost time when I was hit by another thunderbolt.
R and S came back from a field visit visibly upset. On the way they had passed Babli’s slum cluster and found her sitting on a cart selling chewing tobacco, cigarettes and biscuits instead of being in school, her little sister standing in the background.
The cart was supposed to be the father’s way of earning some money, but he simply left her there to pursue his gambling habit. Seems that it happens often as she sheepishly told us that her name had been struck of the roll of the school.
The mother spends long hours in the factory she works in and the father does as he pleases. Come tomorrow and we will set out on a remedial mission which will start with some plain talking with the impossible farthest threatening to put him behind bars if he abuses the child in this manner. Then a PR expedition to government school to ensure that she is taken back. Somewhere down the line the mother will get a dressing too.
These moments are when you just feel throwing your hands up but you stop midway and wonder how you can address the situation that actually is one of protecting children’s rights. We can carry on our crisis intervention, but there is a larger question that needs to be looked at: parents need to be informed about the laws in existence and about the importance of giving girls a good education.They should be made aware of the child labour laws and more..
The presence of little Arzoo in the background is a blatant proof of the fact that girls are treated differently as Ramu the brother goes to school.
There is so much to be done, one step at a time…
Note: two days after this post babli was back in school, and sister arzoo back at pwhy’s creche.
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 2, 2006 | Uncategorized
I have always feared comfort zones. You fall prey to them unwittingly. When things look alright, when no untoward incident occurs, that is when comfort zones appear and you easily fall prey to their lure.
This has happened time and again at pwhy though I have tried to fight it as best I could. When things are smooth you even stop seeing things as they are.
Then something happens to bring you back to earth and you feel a tad guilty looking for meagre excuses where none exist. And when it pertains to a child, then the guilt is far greater. So many little miracles have escaped my mind and yet where there for all to see.
Many of you may wonder why I have not written about Nanhe for a long time. Simply because I feel prey to the comfort zone syndrome. But a lot has happened and it is time to share with all those who have loved and supported him.
After his leg operations Nanhe has been able to stand and is slowly learning to walk with a walker. It is a huge step for this child who till recently was condemned to drag himself in a sitting position. To us who take our standing as granted it may not seem so important, but imagine what it means to little Nanhe. he can now stand with his classmates and take part in the morning exercise routine, and even dance with them.
No wonder then that the smile has got even bigger!
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Nov 1, 2006 | Uncategorized
Come November and it is time for me to get off the spinning earth and look at time gone by as a rank outsider…
November never held much significance in the first for decades of my life. But the year 1992 changed it all. November took my father away and brought the most difficult closure in my life. For six long years I sought every crutch possible just to the fragile vessel of my life from sinking.
But November is also the month when life came full circle with the setting up of pwhy’s first class in Giri Nagar and somehow with the intuitive realisation that I had embarked on the last chapter of my life.
The last six years have been the most rewarding ones of my life. A barely formulated wish of paying back a debt turned into a discovery of India. What began as an effort to give Manu a life with dignity is today a throbbing project where over 500 children reclaim their right to be a child.
It is a matter of utter joy to walk every morning and be greeted by smiles and laughter filled ‘ morning ma’am’, when each child tries to get one’s attention. It is a matter of outright joy to see my staff dressed in their smartest outfit bustling around efficiently redeeming their lost identity. And above all its is a matter unqualified pride to see Manu smartly dressed sitting with his pals and solving a puzzle. And to say that just six years ago I sat in front of our one room centre trying to rid him of the maggots that infested his much abused body.
A deep sense of peace fills me as I relive these last six years, but I cannot allow myself to sink into a comfort zone, there is still so much to do. Pwhy is still a six year old child that needs to learn to survive independently.
And if I allow myself to dream about the future I see the November when pwhy will be sustained by the community itself, run by some of our ex students, the day when Manu will proudly show his identity papers as he sits in his own kiosk, earning his living with the help of his spirited younger sister.
That day I will allow myself to retreat into a comfort zone.
So help me God of the lesser ones!
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 31, 2006 | Uncategorized
It was sad to watch Delhi come to a standstill. Whereas the big fish will remain unscathed, small shopkeepers will as usual suffer.
I the days when gandhigiri is a la mode, one wonders whether bandhs are the right form of protest. Gone is the outsider, the foreign invader against whom you unite, the enemy sadly is within each one of us.
I was not surprised when a prominent TV channel dug up the erstwhile master plan for India’s capital city and revealed that only 15% of its provisions had been met, one being the creation of markets and commercial space.
Yesterday was also the day when a man got the death sentence 10 years after committing a heinous crime that he thought he had got away with simply because of his father’s position.
So where have we gone wrong or to put it otherwise what ails our society?
Somewhere down the line our entire social fabric got hijacked and we sat in silence. I have seen it myself when our neighbourhood market which a few years back had vegetable an meat shop , a haberdashery, a stationery shop, tailors and dry cleaners and more today is a haven for luxury and branded shops and jewellery stores. When a few years back only local residents came often on foot, now people come from across the town in their gleaming cars.
And when the market itself was not big enough, residential buildings around it were commandeered too! Leading to the chaos that necessitated the courts to intervene.
One may wonder how it happened? Law makers and protectors hit their eyes to small aberrations for a few pennies, and slowly greed on both sides took over till a hydra headed monster emerged and got out of control.
Today both the administrators and the administered are battling the monster that grows a new head everyday.
We are a society that got engulfed by hubris and even challenged the Gods! Now our hubristic side has been exposed as we try to make sense of things a blame game has begun. Maybe it is time we took stock of things and accepted part of the guilt. Are we not the ones to look for the easy way out, jump a few queues, grease a few palms? So why be astonished when the little drops have turned into an angry ocean ready to submerge us?
The appeasement policy and bad aid therapy of our politicians has to stop. A new master plan trying to white wash past aberrations will only delay the process. Walking over the judiciary will ultimately lead to chaos and will catch up just as it did with the man being sent to the gallows. We must finally accept part of the responsibility and each give up a little to set matters right.
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
I got a mail this morning from a friend of pwhy, who lives miles away, whom I have never met. I only know that he sees with his heart as he has always responded to my innumerable appeals with spontaneous generosity!
This is what he writes in response to my wondering why I deserve the support I get:
And do you really need to ask why
you deserve it?
Reminds me of a scene from the TV series Star Trek (In case you’re
unfamiliar with it, it is about a group of people travelling aboard a
spaceship seeking out new civilisations and trying to understand them). At
the end of one episode, the captain gestures out the window to the doctor
and says “You know, out there right now someone is saying the three most
beautiful words in the universe. Know what they are?”. The doctor looks
quizzically at him. You might expect the words to be ‘I love you’ or such
like. But the captain, gazing out of the window, says “Please. Help me.”
You are one of the few who are driven to listen for these words and try and
help out. That’s why you deserve good fortune.
I sat quietly for a long time my mind traveling at incredible speed as I went back to the days when I too had watched this episode, and wondered when and where I had learnt to listen to these words, a question I had never asked really myself. It is true that my seven years of trying to raise funds have been an eye opener and leads me to think that maybe it was the way we were brought up, the values we were taught and the education we got that made us this way. And maybe these are the very things that are slowly getting eroded leading to other ‘ideals’ where looking with your heart and giving are not on the menu.
I can only say that I feel truly blessed to have been able to find many persons who had the ability to heart these three most beautiful words loud and clear.
Powered by Qumana
by Anuradha Bakshi | Oct 29, 2006 | Uncategorized
For most I should be elated and jumping with joy – age permitting – two monumental battles were actually won in the last few days. One with a huge bank vindicating the stand that no matter how big the adversary, if truth is on your side you ultimately come out on top, the other with a large funding body that you finally manage to convince in accepting what you always intuitively held as being the right way.
For project why this has been a quantum leap from days where you wondered whether you would survive the next one, to an easy sail where you know winds are favourable for months to come.
Then why do I feel a tad sad and empty? Another why to answer.
There are many reasons. Is it because this is a rite of passage for pwhy, and all rites of passage are always difficult as they spell the end of a stage in pwhy’s life and the onset of another yet unknown? Is it because with this step pwhy gets a life beyond all else and hence deprives me of the driving seat? Is it because we are moving into a comfort zone, and to me such times are filled with hidden dangers? Is it because this will make us deviate from our main challenge; that of finding a donor base within the community we work with?
Maybe all of these in some degree or the other. The real test lies in viewing this much needed help as a way to double one’s effort towards the initial challenge that becomes more doable when one is not struggling to keep from drowning. It means a change in direction where efforts would not be on seeking help, but would have to be aimed at keeping the team sufficiently motivated and to veer them from sinking into a stage of complacency. Easier said than done when my detractors love saying that I have enormous funding that I conceal!
But no matter what, this has to be done as otherwise pwhy will lose its very essence and could just become another clone of many existing efforts. It becomes imperative to view this gift as a stepping stone to the day when the bread of pwhy – staff and space – would come from the tiny drops gathered from the community leaving the butter and jam to outside support.
Powered by Qumana
