by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 10, 2007 | Uncategorized
I have often written about the hungry wolves that lurk in every corner trying to destroy any attempt that dares disturb the social balance they have set in place, no matter how lopsided it may be.
What is even more disturbing is that they succeed in a manner of speaking. Like all cowards they hit below the belt hoping to wear you down by their threats and abusive ways.
These predators often come in the garb of small trade unions or petty politicians who unfortunately are perceived to be powerful by the simple minds they control. A series of unfortunate consequences led one person to be convinced to file a frivolous case under the Shop and Establishments Act against our organisation. the bait was an enormous about of money dangled in front of a poor and gullible person.
The matter has been in the labour office for a while. As it seemed to sway in our favour, the pack resorted to vile tactics and yesterday threatened to send goondas to handle the issue and extort the money come what may. The threats were targeted at me in person and indirectly at the rest of the organisation.
I will be filing a complaint in the police station ad will carry on my work. However many questions come to mind. The bravado of an old woman is acceptable but can ask vulnerable people to do the same or can one put at risk children simply to make a point.
On the other hand any perception of fear would be a feather in the cap of our detractors. Does one pack up and go and thus write off the morrows of many innocent lives, or does one carry hoping for the best.
What is frightening in such matters is the attitude of the administration who fuels such frivolous cases and allows them to be filed for their own devious reasons. What is disquieting is the relentless way in which predators target even tiny organisations like ours whose sole purpose is to empower people.
What will happen this morning is yet to be seen, maybe nothing but that does not deflect from the reality of this new why that needs to be addressed.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 7, 2007 | Uncategorized
Today was a special treat. A visit to Utpal’s school. Rishi was kind enough to set aside the rules to allow Xavier, Utpal’s cyberDad, a few stolen moments with the one he calls pepere in spite of the fact that school examinations were on.
It was a warm afternoon just tempered by a cool wind. We reached the school at 4pm shortly after the mandatory afternoon nap. We sat quietly in the Directors room though our hearts were beating a tad faster as we held back the question we were dying to ask : where is Utpal?
A few moments later a quit knock of the forbidding door and our little fellow appeared squeaky clean, in his track suit his hair well oiled and combed to a T. We sat in silence as he tiptoed in and stood near us. To Xavier’s how are you Utpal echoed a confident fine thank you Sir. Then after some time Utpal sought Rishi’s permission to show Javire the school, and off we went dying to be in a spot where we could finally hug him.
After a while Xavier fished out a little key chain with an Eiffel Tower and gave it to him. Utpal kept it in his hand as we ambled around the school. Then it was time to leave. In a quiet voice Utpal said: can I have another mandir (temple) for my friend?
It took us a minute to realise that the mandir he was referring to was the Eiffel Tower? He got one and walked away, without looking back as I wiped a silent tear from the corner of my eye.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 6, 2007 | Uncategorized
Once again, on a fine morning the students and staff of pwhy were greeted by a gaping hole in the wall of our Okhla centre. This is not the first time and probably not the last. Wonder who did it, some drunken lads for a bit of fun or some mischief maker. Who knows, and come to think about it who cares..
The Okhla lot are used to such acts and what caused anger and hurt at one time has almost become a game. No mason or expert is needed. The morning after the incident students carefully pick all the bricks and keep them safely inside the classroom. A call is made to the office to get the required amount of cement and the kids get down to the task of repairing the damage while onlookers watch them and perhaps amongst them those who committed the misdeed.
My heart fills with pride as I watch the kids at work as more than anything taught in books, they have learnt a great lesson in life: not to be deterred by acts committed by cowards.
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 | Mar 1, 2007 | Uncategorized
I have never understood the intricacies of economics and figures, inflation and GDP or all such terms. During college time budget day was one when one waited to find out whether cigarettes would cost more. Not that one gave up smoking, one just adjusted things and I guess unconsciously made our own yearly budget. And come to to think about it this happened with every commodity as one slowly watched petrol going from 3 rs to 4o rs or so: one just adjusts one’s life.
For many years too the budgetary allocations to social programmes did not mean much bar the fact that one felt that they were needed and welcomed them with a nod of approval: midday meals for school kids, education for all, jobs for all: it felt comfortable and appeased one’s conscience as one felt something was happening.
It is only in recent years when I descended from a comfortable ivory tower that I faced a reality check. The Utopian midday meal became a real inedible offering, the superlative SC girl child programmes turned out to be a catch 22 game, and primary education a transit of many years in a insalubrious school before you dropped out. And yet on paper all these schemes seemed to right.
So yesterday as the new budget unfolded and new social schemes were revealed I was glad that many voiced what I silently thought: will these reach the beneficiary or be fodder for more hungry officials as the mind boggling administrative requirements will fly right over the true beneficiary.
Come to think of it we only have one year to make all this happen as on 28 February 2008 a new budget with new schemes will be presented. And this game will carry on till the day civil society does not come to the fore and ask for accounts! Last year we got a tool to do just that: RTI Act and some of taken on the formidable task to bring this act to the people. We as voters and tax payers need to demand accounts for every penny spent. A commentator mentioned a past Prime Minister stating the sad reality that of every rupee allocated only 16 paise reached the beneficiary.
As long as we remained silent spectator or armchair critics nothing will change. There are excellent schemes in existence and should they be allowed percolate down to the right beneficiary a tangible change would come about. The true beneficiary cannot turn whistle blower: he is often totally unaware of the scheme itself let alone the way to seek redressal. he will continue making his budgetary adjustments . The government will continue making yearly social schemes as they make good copy for electoral speeches, and we will remain in our obstinate silence and inertia, emerging out of it for brief moments when we feel the issue may directly touch us.
Yes we all want a shining India but how can it shine when a large chunk of it survives in darkness. Unfortunately it cannot be wished away. We need to be the whistle blowers; each one of us, asking accounts for the money spent as it is our own!
Last week a friend who was organising a workshop on disability asked a senior government official how a person without papers got a disability certificate; the answer was predictable: ma’am everyone in Delhi has a ration card.
No Mister, that is not true, there are many who do not and getting one is quasi impossible and yet they are handicapped and the ones who really need access to your programmes!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 23, 2007 | Uncategorized
When you think you have seen it all, and feel smug in the false notion that you have created the required roadmaps, in a land where women are dispensable you are least prepared for Act II of what you believed was a one Act play with a doable denouement!
Yesterday I watched little Manoj dance and even gave my self a tiny pat in the back as memories of him flashed in my mind. A phone call brought me back to reality as I was told that Manoj’s mom 7 months into a unwanted pregnancy had landed at home with a swollen face and broken lip. The abuser was none other than her husband.
An article I recently read caught my attention as the author stated: 0ften a girl is brainwashed from infancy.. and I guess she is right, but there comes a moment when all the brainwashing and conditioning pales under the ignobility of the abuse suffered. That day the battering of her over abused body was the last straw, and the tears that welled Manoj’s mom’s sunken and anemic eyes were ones of anger and rage.
The story withheld till now poured out in chilling words, and that story was not just hers but the story of many women in India. She was barely 16, when she was married to this man, by a widowed mother who had the use of only one arm and three younger children to bring up. She had no option but to agree to the road map set for her. The rest is predictable a child before she attains the age of 17, an alcoholic man who is more abuser than husband or father. A weak child who can barely walk or stand at 2, and an unwanted pregnancy that she is forbidden to abort by the one who owns her body and soul all this laced with brutal beatings that dot her life with obsessive regularity. Days where she and her child go hungry, when rent being not paid lead to changing rooms constantly till you find yourself in an airless hole. No home to go back to, no family no friends.
You get a job and you work with a smile so genuine that even the most sensitive does not see your pain. You hide the unwanted pregnancy from fear of losing your job till it shows and you are exposed! You still try and whitewash the abuser as you have been conditioned to do but then all that was possible when there was no love and support around you. But when you see someone is listening your crushed spirit hidden in the deep recesses of your soul decides to break all the carefully built walls and set itself free.
However what are your options in a land where a single woman let alone a single parent is anathema. Where with a small child an an unborn one you have nowhere to go and are not coward enough to end your life.
Manoj’s mom is not an individual case, it is the story of many women in a land where in spite of venerating Goddesses we have forgotten the Goddess that lies in the scarred soul of each woman. And I am not talking of poor women only.
We may be able to help Manoj’s mom but the question that arises is what do you for the millions others.
