by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 13, 2006 | Uncategorized
It was a sunny afternoon and some friends decided to take us to lunch at an ‘upmarket’ restaurant not far from pwhy HQ.. we were a motley crowd of six ladies and two lads ranging from age 54 to age 4.. some from France, some from planet why, and even our very own NRI.
The place was empty when we arrived and settled down to order our fare.. A while later a drove of high society ladies entered and we were assailed by whiffs of heady perfumes and dazzled by sparkles quite inapropriate for a weekday afternoon.. they soon setttled taking up two large tables..
We carried on our lunch a little suprised at the lack of noise and realised that the ladies were down to serious business: they were playing tombola, and enormous wads of currency notes lay across the tables..
S our die hard volunteer, and M an NRI student with a heart, decided against all counsel provided by now hardened yours truly, fished out some Pwhy pamphlets and decided to commit what I knew was nothing short of sacrilege.. interrupt the ongoing session to seek support..
My heart went out to them as they set out with their smiles and hopes riding high..
The conclusion was foregone: a score or more of angry eyes spoke volumes as one irritable voice conveyed the message. How had they dared interrupt their game…
In a way I smiled smugly, like the proverbial cheshire cat, as I knew that they had experienced in person what I had tried in vain to convey for so long…
If I ended this post here, it could pose as a poor copy of the famous portraits of La Bruyere.. but I have to take it further. Not as a reformist, as I am not here to chnage the world, but simply to say how tragic and sad it is that people with education and resources waste their golden years in such futile activities… They could so easily bring happiness to themselves and joy to others by indulging in some activity that could help tarnsform the world around them…
But let us not forget oh darling yeh hai dilli..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was eid.. some celebrated it, others enjoyed a holiday…certainly if they were government employees..
Normally on holidays OPD halls in government hospitals lie empty and bare.. but not quite.. two young doctors decided otherwise in the cardio thoracic centre of AIIMS and that is how little Babli and around a dozen little kids got their pre-op checks done in princely style. No queues, no waiting between test, so off you went from the phsyical check up, to the Xray departement, to the ECG room.. all in record time. simply because two young doctors, who have nothing to gain, decided that kids hsould get a better deal..
This morning, Babli will be first in the line for her angiograph.. thanks to two young indian with a heart
Oh darling, yeh also hei India
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 10, 2006 | Uncategorized
Many of you have reacted with spontaneity to some of the human problems that I write about..and some of you have suggested solutions that seem plausible and humane.. these are the very solutions that used to come up to my mind when I began my work.. but most of them had to be reviewed and corrected as one discovered the reality of India and life in urban slums..
What was important was to define what one aimed at: short term patch up options that satisfied one’s own conscience, or long term solutions that may seem harsh in the beginning but could sow the first seeds of long term changes..
We opted for the latter..
Let me share some of the unimaginable situations that we have had to deal with.
What do you do when a severly malnutrioned mother tells you that they do not eat left overs!
What do you do when clothes you have given are not put on the child because the local soothsayer tells the parent that the child’s ailment is due to her wearing given garments that have spells acst into them..
What do you tell a woman who defends a drunkard husband who beat her and her children…
How do you fight the local quack or the local money lender who lends at 10% a month!!
How do you fight the need to impress which makes people buy a TV but not food…
How do you fight the stranglehold of religious diktats where enormous amounts of money are spent to fulfill the hunger of the Gods, where milk and fruits are bought for a stone deity but not for a little child..
What do you say to someone you want to help when he says that he is happy with his pathetic life because his employer gives him the timely carrot..
Hopeless.. one may say.. not quite. There is a way, albeit a slow one.
We chose to walk that path at pwhy. It entails getting the confidence of those you work with and slowly setting small examples. What you have to keep in mind is the long term objective.
One has to remember that one is fighting with age old traditions, outdated mores, atavistic feudal attitudes that will take time. Mothers are always a good starting point and children the real strength. You have to play a judicious game of slow empowerment, where you demistify existing values and slowly introduce new ones..
In city that are bursting at the seams and are real tinder boxes, the message you have to send is that the future lies back home, in the villages and smaller town; start telling the children that all the skills and knowledge they acquire should be taken back. Each problem you encounter should become a larger lesson..
And then you know you are on the right path when a Vicky tells you: I will go back and set up a pwhy in my village in Bihar..
The road is long but it is the right one…
Oh darling yeh hai India!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 9, 2006 | Uncategorized
Delhi woke up to its coldest day in 70 years.. it was 0.2 degree celsius.. later that day came an announcement: all primary schools would be closed for two days..
Easy said, easy done… great idea, the kids can remain warm at home.. is what one would logically think from the comfort of our homes..
But what about children whose home is a tiny chilly dark hole…whose parents both leave for work as the evening meal depends on that..
What about the children whose hot meal is the one they get in school..
Will closing the school keep these kids warm, fed and safe…
One of the reasons why we decided on the very first day we began our work to keep our centre open on holidays was that those were the days where the children needed us most, as they hung around unsafe streets, and had no one to look after them or feed them..
Remember there are 1.7 million such children in our city…
Note: as I had anticipated many little girls (morning shift) turned up to an empty school to be sent back in many cases to a locked home!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 7, 2006 | Uncategorized
R in his lasted blog mentions a touching letter written by a father after the loss of his son in battle. In his trying to define what makes a true hero, this grieving father writes the following:
But even more, being a hero comes from respecting your parents and all others, from helping your neighbors and strangers, from loving your spouse, your children, your neighbors and your enemies, from honesty and integrity, from knowing when to fight and when to walk away, and from understanding and respecting the differences among the people of the world.”
OIne wonders if such heroes exist… they do.. one just has to know how to recognise them as they often remain invisible, and melt away in the background, or are simply taken for granted..
We have one such person…
Sitaram came to us a couple of years back when he was desperately seeking funds to get his son Raju a much needed heart surgery.. there was something poignant about this gentle man, who hobbled on a stick having suffered a stroke and who was willing to give everything he had to save his ailing son.. We could not remain silent spectators and we found the funds and Raju was operated upon. He is now back in school and will be going to class VI..
Normally people helped are grateful.. but Sitaram’s debt of gratitude was of another kind. He soon started ferrying children in a cart, that became our famous why-on-wheels, but it is just today that I realise how much more Sitaram has done with utmost discretion and compassion..
Babli and Nanhe are both children that Sitaram brought to project why.. as well as Munna and many other children in need of our help.. He took upon him to get Babli’s first check ups and thus ensure that she get the much needed operation.. Each time a problem occurs, he is always the first one to offer help, no matter how back breaking the task..
But there is another side to his compassion, one that often goes unnoticed.. a few days back when he was a little delayed for his afternoon shift, we were surprised to learn that he had taken a little time off to go visit Nanhe in hospital… something no other staff member had yet done..
Sitaram once was a man running a little tea stall. His son’s heart condition compelled him to leave the confines of his lane and come into contact with the big bad world as he ran for over a year looking for help ; what he found was false promises and humiliations..as he knocked every imaginable door.. even that of the First Citizen.
So when help came, for Sitaram it could not end with a thank you.. he intuitively embraced the pwhy spirit and became a silent ambassador, bringing hope in a way so discreet that none of us recognised it..
a true invisible hero
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jan 7, 2006 | Uncategorized
Babli and Nanhe will be operated upon next week… at project why life continues and the beat goes on..
Little Manoj looks like a garden gnome.. he is almost two and cannot stand, his legs not bigger than two sticks.. his bright eyes dart around with intelligence as he tries to follow the others, making sure he is not left out..
His emanciated body is a silent reminder of the everpresent and insiduous ailment that pervades urban slums and attacks children: malnutrition.. a mother who never got what was needed to build sturdy bones and strong muscles… a child fed for far too long on breast milk… store bought goodies that have become the hallmark of urban life: bread and biscuits dipped in weak tea.. no fruits or vegetables… legs that never crawled as there is no space in the dingy homes, let alone the alley in front of the home which often looks like a drain.. and where you breathe the fumes of factories …
Back home in the village there would have been wholesome chappatis, green vegetable, local fruit and milk, as even the poorest of the poor own at least a goat, and grow seasonal vegatables… there would have been clean water and freah air and space to run in..
Manoj’s mom is a frail undesrnourished 18 year old who does housework and his father works on daily wages in some factory.. they came to seek a better future…
Is an urban slum, in a city where habitat for the poor has simply been forgotten, where employers do not respect the minimum wage laws, where quacks replace doctors, where there is no caring grandmother to share local remedies.. where the man often starts drinking the much needed rupees to ease his frustration… where you find yourself in the stranglehold of the money lender the moment the first problem hits you, a better future..
I wonder…
