There is no footprint too small to leave an imprint on this world says an anonymous quote. Today over 100 children were killed in a dastardly attack on a school in Peshawar. The terrorist group responsible for the attack said it was in  retaliation for the army’s continuing operation against militants. The operation was even lauded as a success. I am stunned beyond words. What can one say in front of such horror. What kind of being can shoot a child in cold blood without flinching. And what does one call such a being. How have we allowed our world to come to this. What is the use of all our education and so called progress if a we are unable to keep a child safe. How does one pay for such a deed.

The death of a child is the death of God as it is in the eyes of a child that God abides. Have we become a civilisation that has perfected the art of killing God day in and day out, without remorse.

These tiny souls that have flown today leave an imprint in each of our hearts, if hearts we still have. How will we react. By more killing or will we have the courage to look into our frozen souls and break the deafening silence.

Only time will tell.

Will those who have died today, and their comrades who die every day because of our failing ever forgive us.

No footprint is too small to leave an imprint on this world and in our hearts. Let us remember that and let our collective conscience mourn the departed children.

This world is not a place for children; neither it is a place for God.

You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed wrote St Exupery in the Little Prince. This is an indubitable truth. Just like St Exupery, a little prince landed in my life about 12 years ago. he did not fall from the sky. He walked into my heart after a terrible accident and filled a space I never knew existed. I christened him Popples and he made me his Maam’ji! Thus began a love story that is still enfolding. Like all love stories it has had its share of laughter and tears. As we both grew, we faced new and unpredictable challenges but as in all love stories we had no option but to weather each storm. I must admit that the scales were tipped in the little man’s favour and the old biddy had to adapt and conjure miracles at the drop of a hat.

I had done all my growing up by the time he came into my life and he still had all his to do. The bonny baby became a toddler, then a child and now is in the throes of adolescence. Like all children it is a surprise package you cannot begin to fathom and you have to come up with answers and solutions on the spot knowing that what you do or say may have lifelong repercussions.  In the case of this boy, the answers are not easy as his life has not followed the tranquil course one would want every child’s life to follow, but has been and is replete with challenges that test every fibre of your being. There are the formulated questions that are easy, but there are those who remain unsaid and compel you to read between the lines. There are the challenging behaviours that are cries for help and need to be understood and addressed. It is no easy task and yet you know you have to meet them head on because on one fateful morning you dared look deep into trusting eyes and held out your hand. Once you take that step, it is irreversible till does you part.

You are responsible forever!

For the last few years I go back to school twice a year and have worked byway up from class I to VII! Wonder why and how? Simply courtesy Popples’s homework. It is uncanny how much home work children in India get. The whole meaning of holidays needs to be revised altogether. No wonder why a new business has seen the light of day as you now can outsource your kid’s homework. But that is not the way we do things Popples and I. Quite frankly much as I look forward to him being home, I dread the homework like you would the plague. He hates homework and I hate the monster I turn into to get the work completed.

As soon as I collect him from school and we enter the house, my first task is to fish out the homework sheets and gather the courage to look at them. The truth is soon revealed: charts and models, the dreaded pages of writing – this time cursive – essays and paragraphs and even stories to be written, project files on many subjects to be made and more of the same. Stationery lists are made and will be bought today itself and the battle will begin. The biggest challenge is to tame the child and make a timetable that I know will not be followed easily as all the lad has to do is look at me with his melting eyes and plead for relief. And come on, these are holidays and on holidays you sleep in, you play, you have fun. How does one make a child take pleasure in sums and equations and learning lessons. But I cannot change the system.

I need to muster all the patience I can and find ways to get the darned homework done. Wish me luck!

On the very day the Nobel laureates were receiving their award and addressing the world, I had my own moment! The venue was a palace hall replete with the pomp and splendour associated with such places. My audience was a group of CEOs of the French tourism industry. My mission was to bring to life the dreams of the project why children and make those present not only believe in them but reach out and help them come true. A tall order it was! How do you give life to the aspirations and hopes of slum children standing in a space that is so alien to the reality they belong to. Most of the persons in that hall had never been to India and the little they had seen was touristic spots, luxury hotels on the one hand and annoying beggars on the other: the antipodes that India is far too often known by best exemplified by the jaded image of maharajas and snake charmers! I can never forget how angry I was when a classmate of mine refused to believe that Indians lived in houses; she thought we all lived in trees! This must have been way back in the late fifties. I had requested my nana to send me a picture of our home to prove that we too lived in houses.

So here I was, in this magnificent hall that was once used by a maharaja to hear petitions from his people, having less than an hour to get this people to cross the line, albeit virtually, and  be touched by the vibrant and real India far too often concealed and misunderstood. I decided to share my own story of discovery and how I one day had crossed the invisible barriers and fallen in love with a part of my land I barely knew existed. I talked about my tryst with destiny that had changed my life forever. But that was just the tip of the iceberg as what I had to do was also share the problems and challenges that these souls faced everyday and how we could overcome them with a little help from friends like them.

It was a stroke of serendipity that the Nobel prize was to be conferred on the same day and that the invisible ones were centre stage. I pegged my discourse on this and could talk of children and education with ease. I spoke from the heart urging all present to hear from their heart what they could not see, hoping that my words would evoke the images in their true colours. I shared stories of success as well as stories that captured the harsh reality that such children lived in but that could be easily resolved if one wanted to.

It was much later in the day that I heard the speech of one of the Nobel laureates and was amazed to how akin our thoughts were. I guess that anyone who has had the courage to look deeply into the eyes of a hurting child is compelled to react in the same manner. Kailash Satyarthi recalled the words of a little girl he had saved from bonded labour and who asked him why he had not come earlier. Earlier that day I too had reminisced about the young man who was the local goon of the area we worked in and had apparently threaten to ‘kill’ me. When I met him, I did not see a thug, but a young boy with gentle eyes who assured me that no one would touch our school as long as he was around, a promise he has kept till date, and then who asked me in the quietest of words: I wish you were there when I was growing up. I too see God everyday in the eyes of every child of mine.

I know I poured my heart out in that glitzy hall. I was the voice of all my children and of all their dreams and aspirations. I simply hope that at least one person in that gathering was able to open the eyes of his or her heart. 

Godmen are in the news for all the wrong reasons like the one whose followers pitched an armed battle against the state, or the other one who has been frozen for the past 11 months as his followers await his resuscitation. I do not know what adjectives to use to describe these absurd oddities, but nevertheless they feed on the ignorance and credulity of innocent people who get swayed by their absurd discourse. Never have Marx’s words been more appropriate: religion is indeed the opium of the masses! Well with Godmen being in the news, I have been asked about my opinion on these deviant beings. Here is my take.

First of all, I absolutely and unequivocally condemn such individuals. Let that be understood. Nevertheless one has to be admit that they exist and hold power on millions of followers and thus are agents of change and transformation, albeit of the wrong kind.

Hinduism was first and foremost an oral religious tradition where the sacred texts were cryptic and meant to be the learnt by a few chosen ones. It was left to to them to fulfil the mission of spreading the word. They were given the responsibility of adapting the essence of the precepts to the time and audience. This made the religion dynamic and open to change. At some point however, the texts were written down and the religion slowly turned static. It lost its vigour and adaptability and was only interpreted to suit vested interests. Had it remained oral, things may have looked very different.

The power of Godmen and their ilk is humongous. Sadly these supposedly religious creatures use their power to fulfil their greed in every which way. From amassing obscene wealth to satisfying their base instincts, they do it all.

With the power they yield, these characters could be true agents of social changes but they do just the opposite! One never hears them condemning social evils like child marriage, child sexual abuse, female feoticide and infanticide, bride burning, honour killing and such evils. Imagine the difference they could make if they did!

Whenever I have been on the verge of giving up, and God knows I have more than one would imagine only I keep these moments of weakened to myself, the God of Lesser a Beings, that I strongly believe should now be rechristened God of Project Why, sends me an unexpected miracle to bring me back on track. Today it came in the shape of a Facebook picture I was tagged in. It came all the way from a place I did not even know existed Lliria. It is a small town in Spain, close to Valencia and with a name as lyrical as this no wonder it is the musical capital of the region. It also has a large number of immigrants, many from the UK.

That I guess explains the presence of Spainsburys, a British supermarket stacked with all the goodies you can imagine. more so as Xmas is around the corner. You must be wondering what the link of Lliria and Spainsbury and Project Why is. Till this morning I did not know of the existence of either! So imagine my surprise when I opened my Facebook page and saw a picture that warmed the cockles of my heart and took my breath away.

The heading looked all too familiar as it was the homepage of our old website but the content was different. Hold on. What its said was that Spainsburys was organising a raffle for the benefit of Project Why and the draw was rot be held on December 17th! You could win Xmas Goodies, wine, chocolates and much more. Imagine how humbled I feel. In a little town thousands of miles away people are thinking of our children and reaching out to them. And not just humbled but grateful and loved. Tomorrow we will talk about Lliria with our children and tell them of all the wonderful people who will be sharing their Xmas joy with all of us.

This is nothing short of a Xmas miracle and I feel blessed.

Thank you to all who made this possible.

Love you and Merry Xmas