by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 27, 2006 | Uncategorized
After why, what – that is the question.. almost a Shakespearian one..
Six years down the line we have successfully proved that with a little effort and local resources, drop out rates can be contained and children can pass their Boards. True that we have some students who cross the 70 and even 80 % line, but they are the exception; most of them hover around 50 and some even dip lower..
This is the time of the year when the famed or ill famed cut off marks are out. One stares with despair at the 92 and 93 % marks you need to enter a good college and wonders where does that leave children of lesser gods..
Evening colleges, correspondence courses, open universities… Most again leaving the students idle for part of the day, bearing the brunt of parental pressure urging them to work..
This has been disturbing us as school education in India is totally devoid of technical options. In many countries, weaker students are urged to take a technical stream that ensures that they leave school with a certificate and a skill. In France there is even a stream called bac en alternance where the student spends three days in school and the other three learning a trade: working as a sales person in a shop, training in a kitchen, working with a carpenter and so on…
After much thought we have decided to start evening and week end classes in plumbing, electrical works, air conditioning repair, computer repair, carpentry, tailoring, accupressure and naturopathy, beautician etc using local talent. If we are able to do so we would even think of launching – call pwhy – whereby we would offer these skills in a well organised way to friends and others.
Another option that we plan to start, and one where our special section can also play an important role is providing packed lunches and diners to offices and young people living alone. This would also provide work to handicapped people with tricycles as they would be able to deliver them and thereby earn a dignified living.
These are but a few options we have thought of, the mainstay being that children would acquire a skill that would come handy in their lives. We are looking for other ideas, but given our past errors, when we jumped and made things and did not find outlets, we only want to launch a new idea if there is a market to support it.
One must realise that a simple education is not enough; we are duty bound to give our children the required skills to be able to survive..
The myth of government jobs has to be destroyed, and children taught that nothing comes easy.. But if you have the will then the way is there as young Sanjiv has proved. He chose to learn yoga, accupressure, shiatsu and other massage and many alternative forms of healing while doing his studies (week end classes at Gandhi smriti) even if his peer group made fun of him and today earns a whopping 7 to 8 K and has a motorcycle. He is learning English with us and we hope to get him clients from the expat community.. Sanjiv did much more than survive just because he chose to walk an unknown path that a kind soul showed him with his head held high..
Can we convince others to do the same becomes the next existential question.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 16, 2006 | Uncategorized
When the aviator missed his Little Prince in St Exupery’s beautiful fable, he looked at the sky searching for a star… when he missed his laugh he thought of bells ringing..
Two weeks from now little mr p will walk out of my door to a new life in his new school.. and a new future just what I wanted, just what we all worked for so hard..
I must confess that though I have been making all the right noises and saying the right words, the ones everyone expects, written all the appropriate thank you’s and bless you’s, deep in my heart all is not quite well.. as is obvious by the fact that I have been hiding the list the school has given and that needs to be purchased as if delaying buying the little socks and hankies would make the two weeks seem longer, or by my erractic work pattern, or my tiptoeing in the dark room and watching popples sleep..
I must also confess that each time he says Maa’mji and comes struting into my office I have been far more indulgent in spite of the many raised eyebrows around me using my position as elder shamlessly.. silly behavior I know but when was love logical.
I have also spent long moments going back on the past three years since I first lay my eyes on this little chap and trying to understand the bond. It is so easy to find reasons to explain why you love someone and when it is little mr p, then they are there on a platter, but I think there are some hidden reasons that only you know and those are the real ones.
So you understand how a tiny fellow has shown you the way many a times when your steps faltered, has helped you find in yourself things you did not know you possessed, even if it is simply stopping your early wails each time you burnt your little finger..
Yes he has taught me many things: courage, uncondional love, stoical acceptance of humiliation and hurt, remarkable ability to adapt to new situations.. albeit adults ones.. but also brought into my life his warm hugs, his special maa’mji, his beautiful smile and above all his demanding love which beckons me and makes me the one he knows is there even if no one is.
But love means to know when your presence becomes hampering, when you need to tiptoe away as life waits with open arms and many dreams to follow.. So two weeks from now I will let mr p walk out of the door into the light..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 14, 2006 | Uncategorized
kids are quite amazing.. mr p wore his Hanuman mask and had us in peals of laughter as we kept telling him to smile and he kept obliging under his mask not realising that no one could see his face..
we finally did tell him to remove it and the dazzling smile was revealed!
Keep smiling little Hanuman
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 14, 2006 | Uncategorized
This morning as I entered my office the light on my cellphone was flashing indicating a message in my inbox. I rarely use this facility and normally what awaits me on the screen is some promo or the other. I opened the message – not a promo this time – and read the beautiful words sent by a lovely young woman I recently met. It said:
If God answers your prayers he is increasing your faith
If He delays, he is testing your patience
If He does not, he knows you can handle…
I stared at the words for a long time letting their meaning sink in, and realising how true they were. The words written were in no way a message of resignation but one of hope. How many times have I not sat waiting for what many call miracles, till I realised that it was for me to make it happen, and then somheow things happened: the right words appeared on the screen as my fingers tapped the keys, the long forgotten name sprung back in one’s memory or the right option was sought..
One is but human and somehow one forgets that the greatest gift anyone can give you is the realisation that nothing comes by begging, but by believing in yourself and in your ability to get it, no matter how many hurdles you need to overcome.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 13, 2006 | Uncategorized
Girl’s education is accepted as a fait accompli in our day and age. However this was not so when my mother was young. Today on her 16th death anniversary I remember with fondness the way she told me about her early school days in Meerut in the early 1920s.
“When Raghunath Girl’s School opened there were no students. The teacher a Christian lady went around looking for students as her job was at stake! My father, after much persuasion by my mother and grandmother, two extremely modern women, accepted to let me go. Every morning the teacher used to come in a doli, carried by two men. The doli was placed in the inner veranda and the men left. I use to sit in it and the purdah (curtain) was then drawn. I was just 8 years old!
“When I sat for my class 6 examination I was very excited. I was made to wear a thick khadi sari over the long khadi shorts and shirt which used to be my usual attire. Belonging to a nationalist freedom fighter family, we all wore thick home spun khadi. While answering my paper the sari was in the way and I took it off. After the paper was over I ran home excited to show my answers to my father. I had forgotten all about the sari. Later the teacher brought it home.
“I managed to continue my studies with the support of my mother and grandmother. My father wanted me to stop but the two ladies would put up a great show. They would stand with long faces while papa had lunch and then would say “Kamala has not eaten, she is on hunger strike”. Needless to say papa would lose his appetite not knowing that I had been surreptitiously fed at night! A day or two later he would relent. I went on to do my matriculation, my BA and even my MA thanks to many well orchestrated hunger strikes!”
My mother, Kamala Goburdhun, nee Sinha [1917-1990] went from being a small town girl to an Ambassador’s wife. Along the way she even got her Doctorate. Much of what i am, is because of this special woman. You can read more about her life here.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
Excuse me saying this, but why don’t you sell this house.. imagine how many heart surgeries it would sponsor..
This is what a project why supporter and now friend said when he dropped on a Sunday to finally put a face to something he had till date known through the words I write.. One again I was faced with what I now call my moments of truth..
The obvious answer was that this ‘house’ was not quite mine as it was in custody for my children.. but the question perturbed me for a while as it was almost existential in nature and pertained to the very spirit of project why…
Even if the hosue was mine to do away with, did this act fall within the ambit of what pwhy set out to be.. A tough question I must confess as the answer could easily be miconstrued as an easy way out of an essential dilemna..
After much thought and soul searching, I realised that the answer would still be ‘no’, and that for many reasons. No matter how many open heart surgeries it could sponsor, it would be still a limited number and once depleted one woudl still find one’s self where one is today. But there was a deeper rationale to my refusal and that was that such action would against the very essnce of pwhy which aims at levelling and easing out differences and placing everyone on a common platform on the one end, and working out modes of functioning that can be replicated by one and all..
The aim is not giving up or liquidating an asset however big, but heping create assets, albeit tiny, for all.. leave alone the false sense of megalomania such an action would entail.. and above all one must not forget that charity – for want of a better word – has to be coupled with humility to retain any meaning… so begging bowl it is for now and always
