by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 18, 2007 | Uncategorized
Anisha lies in a hospital bed. She dropped by pwhy yesterday morning and I was shocked to see her gasping breath. The forlorn parents told me that the hospital had refused to give a date as they had not deposited 4 units of blood and in spite of the fact that the 55 000 Rs required for her surgery had been paid more than a week back.
Knowing the attitude of the AAIMS’s blood bank that only wanted relatives as donors, I knew it was time to act. I told the mother to immediately take the child to the emergency room and that i would follow.
I mouthed a silent prayer to the God of lesser beings when I reached the hospital as any delay would have been fatal. Anisha lay under an oxygen bell while a nurse was desperately tyring to find a vein on the child’s emaciated body. Anisha weighs under 4 kilos at 9 months.
The family was desperate as they were told that there were no beds in AIIMS and the child may have to be taken to Safdurjung across the road. I told them to do what was said and had to resort to what works in India: contacts. After a long trudge and many misses I located a friend doctor in another department and asked him to intervene.
Now we wait with crossed fingers and bated breath for a little miracle: that of getting a bed and a date for the much needed life saving surgery.
I later googled for the meaning of Anisha: it means continuous…
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 17, 2007 | Uncategorized
A middle aged woman pushing her vegetable cart in the chilly evening rain set me thinking about the life of an ordinary citizen in India’s capital city.
The heap of vegetables still lying unsold on her cart was proof that it had not been a good day. I wondered why she and not a man was pushing the cart. A widow maybe, or a woman abandoned for another. Who knows? She must got up long before the sun rose and gone to the wholesale market in spite of the torrential rain. Then she must have carefully arranged all her different vegetables on her cart ready to walk her beat calling out people to buy her goods.
Her mind may have gone back to times gone by where no gates existed in residential colonies and no permission and ID were needed, a time where smart shops did not sell vegetables in neat packets glowing under an artificial green light, a time where the local pheri wallah was the obvious option was the only viable option for many a housewife. But those days were gone… yet she carried on.
Our city is filled with such people who set out every morning to sell a plethora of goods and depend on the day’s income to feed their waiting family. We have many such people in our area, some even parents of pwhy children. I have seen many mothers sitting at the doorstep and waiting for the bread earner to come back so that she can set about cooking the evening meal, mouthing a silent prayer that he has not stopped by the watering hole.
These are brave ordinary Indians who left their homes in the hope of finding a better life in the city, and in the hope of carving out a better life for their children. They are your vegetable and fruit vendors, your corner cobbler, your scooter repair man, your street food vendor.. They are the likes of Nanhe’s mom whose family grows hungry when she sits by the side of her child in the hospital.
They are ordinary Indians who have created an invisible support system that we have gotten used to and depend on without quite knowing it. Just like us they have families to feed, children to educate, lives to run. Still embedded in the Indianness they keep many of our traditions and rites alive, those we have forgotten and forsaken.
Yet they disturb and are often as they are considered ungainly and not in sync with modern India. They are held responsible for polluting the city as we forgot about them in our planning and they just had to place themselves somehow and anyhow. And yet they were never pushed away as politicians looked at them as votes and promptly gave them voters ID cards thus making them legit.
While law makes and executors are trying to fix things in time for the nest election, these ordinary Indians are busy surviving one day at a time, not aware of the Damocles’s sword that hangs on their heads.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 16, 2007 | Uncategorized
A recent post of mine which was a simple chapeau bas to true Indian led to a rabid diatribe on St V day and Indianess. The commentator says:.. this Indian identity includes, as an essential character, not celebrating a festival of the type that Valentines day really is.
I will not waste any one’s time in defending St V’s day but look at the deeper meaning of such a reaction which comes from an educated Indian. First of all I wonder whether an issue like V day deserves all the attention it gets, when there are so many ills that plague this country and need to be addressed by any self respecting Indian. To name just one we are a land where millions of children sleep hungry while thousands of others waste food.
It is sad to see that our politicians and law makers find time to waste their energy and time on such trivia where they could maybe for once forget their differences and address such basic issues like giving to every Indian child what was promised in our constitution.
Why can we not look at V day as one more day that will give the flower seller a few more rupees. And forget V day, over the years religious festivals too have been exploited – if that is the word one likes to chose – in a analogous manner. Many years ago rakhsa bhandhan or such festivals were celebrated without cards and fancy rakhis. I still remember when we use to make ours at home with a simple thread! Today everything is commercialised and there are even websites which allow you in-house pilgrimage and allow you to worship your God in the comfort of your home! So if there has to be a litany of protest let it be against everything that has been commercialised.
V day does not have to be simply viewed as a illicit boy-girl affair but can also be looked at as a day of acknowledging love in its wider form and that exactly what my post was about.
The Indians in India must retain their identity says the commentator and I agree. But our identity lies in celebrating our ability to accept and reach out, our ability to bridge the now frightening gap between the have and have nots, in our ability to celebrate tolerance and reach out to those in need.
Amit Bhaiyya did just that!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 15, 2007 | Uncategorized
The editor of a famous women’s magazine shared a touching experience where her attempts to rescue a street child had failed for want of a proper road map. Ms Fernandes concludes her piece by an appeal to set such road maps. A hurt street child is taken to the hospital and treated but once healed there is nowhere for him to go, but back to the same street as there are no safe options.
There are no road maps in India as we have experienced over the years at pwhy be it with children, women, handicapped persons or the elderly. Each problem has to be taken as a challenge and a road map created.
When we came to know about manoj’s mom, we set out to look for a solution. manoj had been born at home. but one look at the mom’s face and we knew she needed proper medical attention. Strangely when you start looking for something in earnest, you find them. We discovered a maternity hospital run by the municipality that was a pleasant surprise. It was clean, efficient and above all practically free.
Manoj’s mom now has a road map for the next 4 months: iron shots for 10 days, and strips of vitamins and minerals. She will be checked regularly and will deliver in a safe environment. But that is not where the matter ended. we needed to find a healthier room with light and air to receive the baby when it arrives. I guess that by now we had caught the attention of the god of lesser beings as we found a room close to where some of our creche teachers stay. We knew she would be safe and that were her husband to beat her, many would come to her rescue, and when it was time for the baby to come, little manoj would be looked after.
In India we cannot wait for the powers that be to create road maps. We need to craft them ourselves.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 15, 2007 | Uncategorized
Over the past seven years now one has been faced with innumerable questions that scream for answers. Questions about the abysmal state of environment awareness, about the total lack of information about policies and programmes, questions about how an ordinary ca citizen seek redressal.
Amidst the plethora of questions raised runs a common thread . There seems to be a total absence of responsibility as every one is looking at something or someone to bash, so if there is no water it is the fault of the government in power. What one forgets is that we are reponsible for electing them. We also forget that many of us still waste water. We also forget that the city is choking as wave after wave of migrants arrive each day.
But that is not all. Most of us, particularly our kind, find it infra dig to act: we often abstain from voting and are never ready to take the cudgels for any cause, leaving that to the other. This attitude being endemic what happens is that there is no one left to do the needful. A article on cleanliness that caught my eye recently explains this with conviction. The author seems to feel that if one targets children, maybe one can redress the situation.
Hence what is needed is to empower each and every child to dare ask his set of whys and assume responsibility for the wrongs. That is why we have decided to open a Right to Information desk at pwhy. We hope to be able to raise awareness about this incredible tool we possess and make each child aware of its potential.
A small step indeed, but one we hope will have a ripple effect so that one day humble citizens will shed their feudal attitudes and raise their voice.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Feb 14, 2007 | Uncategorized
Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it, says a quote. And yet everyone is talking about love today.
Markets are replete with hearts and flowers. Mobile networks are jammed as SMS’s are exchanged and love is in the air. The detractors are out too in the garb of religiosity having sadly forgotten that ours is the land where love has always been celebrated.
But love is not just a boy and girl affair as many may think. Love is the most beautiful gift man was given and is everywhere. I have found it in a child’s trusting eyes or a grubby hand proffering a half eaten sweetmeat. I have seen it in the eyes of a mother whose silent prayer has been answered, I have experienced it in the touch of the hand of a disabled child shunned by all.
Love is that fleeting moment when two spirits acknowledge each other is an invisible embrace, that unsaid work that remains stuck in the throat but reaches the eyes, that unshed tear that refuses to flow and moistens the eyes.
Love is everywhere, but needs you to look with your heart as it is often invisible to the eye.
