by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 26, 2006 | Uncategorized
I have been thinking for the past few days of drafting my Dear A.. letter whereby I will seek help at ‘this festival time‘ etc…
Over the years my contacts list has been growing and what was an easily done task a few months back seems daunting when you see over 800 ids on your list and as I have always written each individually..
So as I sat exercising my writs and my back and gathering the courage to begin, pat dropped a mail from abhi stating that she had launched another contest to garner funds for us pwhy. Then came another mail that said that a Diwali Charity Contest had named us as beneficiary..
I guess we have crossed an important milestone as on the one hand the attacks against us are growing in quantum leaps, and on the other hand many now remember us at festival time without our usual appeals.
I have always held that trustworthy development programmes have to be self-funded if they are to remain independent of outside meddling. I still hold on to my ultimate objective of seeing the beneficiary community taking on part of the responsibility.
Initiatives like abhi’s are a great way of pitching in till we fly on our own wings. maybe our blogger friends could come up with new ways that could be creative, fun and at the same time rewarding.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
We have just finished the shradhs or days that have been allotted to our departed souls. Every faith has such days, for some it is a single day for India it is two weeks.
To me these days mean much more than the sated gesture of feeding the poor. It is a time for introspection within yourself, a time when as no festivity is permitted, you are compelled to assess things and thus is also a time for closures of what did not quite work right, be it a relationship or a work situation.
It is also a time for healing, what cannot be changed, and accepting things that you have not been able to. For me it was a temporary checking out to assess what I had been able to do. Everyone of us does his or her best. True we win some, lose some and play our roles in the best way possible of getting our share of catcalls and kudos.
When you reach your twilight years, somehow you become a little more compassionate and a little less censorious and can look at things better. And you are surprised to see that what emerges of your soul searching is often absurdly simple. I took time off to write a series of letters to Popples that turned out to be a life credo that sums up much of what I have learnt.
It was also when a series of extraneous circumstances led me to compel my team to assess the value of what they were doing and to take measures to give it durability in time, or if not to have the courage to sign its closure.
I will get my answers soon and it will be a new beginning. But what is important is that this time it will be seeded in solid soil and hence will have the ability to withstand the blows that may come its way.
Ps: in case anyone is interested in reading the letters, pls mail at anouradha.bakshi@gmail.com
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
The de-recognition and thereby shutting of over 1000 schools in karnataka as they did not comply to a law passed many years back brings to fore once again the reality that education and the welfare and rights of children ranks very low on the political agenda of our country.
After the festivities a myriad of kids will find out that they do not have a school left. The debate of mother tongue versus English is an adult’s debate, children follow what they are told to. True that an English divide exists in our country but then can one forget that after 60 years of linguistic debate the problem of a national language has not been solved.
Today many parents living in slums plunge in their meagre pockets to get their children, sadly often the boys, in to what boasts to be an English medium school, even if it is a commercial teaching shop where no one speaks English.
When Ataturk decided overnight to change the Turkish language script as he felt that the children of his country did not need to be burdened by two scripts, he was traveling in the future.
Of the many commentators who spoke on the issue, one rightly felt that all children should go to the same kind of school where maybe 3 subjects could be taught in English and the other 3 in the regional language. makes sense to me, as I agree totally to what the same person said when he pointed out that those speaking the loudest on the issue have their kids study in up markets English language school!
When I came back to India after 16 years of living in other lands, it was a matter of pride to say that you had scored low marks in your lower Hindi paper, and all Hindi speaking peers were called Behanjis or Bhaiyyas.
I have always been comfortable speaking Hindi as my mother devised the best way to teach a child growing in a host of lands her mother tongue: she just spoke Hindi to me from day 1 and I was very surprised to know that she did she did speak English when I was six!
The great English divide has to come to a long awaited end, but it can only come when the upmarket people accept to send their children to the government run school down the road!
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 23, 2006 | Uncategorized
When I look at little Komal who can barely see or hear, I wonder how long it will take her to learn the value of words.
I am sick and tired of words: words of praise, words of anger, words that hurt, words that hang without meaning, words that vanish into thin air as they are uttered.
Someone said: Words should be used as tools of communication and not as a substitute for action”.
Frankly I have started to doubt everything I hear. My inbox is filled with words that remained words for as soon as they need to be translated into action, a myriad of reasons spring from nowhere as grim deterrents. The one reason that seems to always be at forefront is mistrust.
It is a sad reflection of our society that we are ready to mistrust everyone and everything. We stop looking with our own eyes, be they that of the heart or that of reason, and conveniently apply the a foregone conclusion. So even if you have shown staying power of over six years and adequate results, helped children stay in school and repaired broken hearts, you are still not be trusted. And why should you, everyone around is screaming the contrary, be it our rulers or our peers.
A quirk of fate has suspended one of our main accounts, and it is strange that rather than fight it tooth and nail which is what I would have done barely a few months ago, I have almost welcomed it. It has enabled me to put my team to the test and find out whether they have understood that you have to fight for your right and prove yourself. No remuneration for the past two months and a challenge thrown to them of meeting half the running cost if they want me to check back in again or they risk having their sections closed down.
Much as the story of the wolf that never was till the day it actually came and no one turned up, it has taken them some time to realise that unlike the past, this time it was for real.
Unless everyone realised that they are responsible for what happens around them, change can never come. So shock therapy is sometimes needed.
What will be the outcome only time will tell. The worst case scenario is another trip to the labour court aptly prompted by hidden enemies, but how has always become used to it, the best is my team taking on the responsibility of collecting funds and moving out of their torpor.
I wait and watch from the wings, a sometimes amused smile on my face..
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 21, 2006 | Uncategorized
yesterday two children died in the cross fire the police resorted to, to quell angry mobs.
The mobs were exercising their democratic right to dissent against what has become a Kafkaesque cat and mouse game between the authorities, the courts and the people of Delhi.
For the past year the citizens of not quite understood the urban laws of this city that has grown defeating all rules. But were there rules one may ask?
Maybe they were, but a host of options were graciously made available provided you were ready to ‘pay’ for them. Once in a while a cosmetic drive was undertaken but to no avail.
Some of us stuck to the law and were often made fun of, as one’s old house stood amidst the new builder’s monster that mushroomed around us, even taking away the rays of sunshine that use to stream every morning in our rooms.
To say one was not tempted would be an untruth, but then the old precepts one was taught came rushing to your mind. the law will catch up one day, you must stick by the rules, even it means waiting at a red light in the dead of the night when no cars ply; but how can one forget the death of a dear friend when a truck came rushing a deserted crossroad breaking a red light and keeling a young mother.In today’s India sticking by the rules lands you in labour court, earns you unpleasant attributes and labels, and makes you the laughing stock of cocktail parties.Today in the prevailing confusion no one knows what will happen.
I know for a fact that many small shop keepers ear a day to day life, and if deprived of their income will have none at all. Laws when broken with impunity land you in situation when sifting out the honest from the guilty becomes an impossible task. but one must remember that when it is a question of livelihood, seemingly placid people turn violent, the French revolution is a sad reminder of that.
Two children died, but would there death solve anything or will they become a sad statistic in Delhi’s history. what frightened me yesterday was the reaction of the powers that be of were trying to explain the situation away with priceless inanities: politically motivated, passing the buck to those who ‘paid’ for services etc…
We all know that justice the symbol of justice is a blindfolded lady, but can we beseech her to open one eye and see with her heart before more children become sad statistics.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 19, 2006 | Uncategorized
I could not resist writing about an experience I had today when I took myself off to the District Courts to register my will.
After being mobbed by all the notary and lawyers who sit at little tables with antediluvian typewriters in a neat row, like a bunch of crows waiting for the prey, we selected one who looked kind, though I do not know whether that was true.
I had printed my will and I think the man felt a little let down as he tried to show me the formats he had, all written in the language of the raj.
Then we proceeded to the signatures and I fell of my chair when he brought out a used ink pad and asked me to put the prints of my thumb then my four fingers under my name.
Thinking I had heard wrong, I told him that actually the document would only be read after my death and that by then my ashes would have been blown in the wind so how would they check my prints in case of doubt. He looked at me with extreme seriousness and told me that it was required. I dutifully did what told.
Later I realised that probably this was probably a legacy of the raj, where buried bodies could be exhumed. And no one had bothered to amend the rule, just as the other law that allows the state into bedrooms of consenting adults in the name of morality and that is being challenged.
I wonder why we are still ruled by a penal code that is over a 100 year old and was made by erstwhile rules. Maybe it is time to think about it as the only way a person of Hindu faith can have finger prints on record is to become a criminal.
Not my cup of tea!
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