A dear friend and supporter who lives in Paris sent me an email today. Like all Parisians he is still under the shock of last week’s tragic events. He, like all else in that city and probably the world over, are asking the deafening question: what next. I do not want to be world-weary or pessimistic but how many times have we asked ourselves this question, collectively and individually. After 9/11, 26/11, the 16 Decembers 2014 Peshawar slaughter of children, the December 16 2012 gang rape in Delhi, the umpteen beheading by ISIS, the unaccountable rapes of children, the honour killings, the Boko Haram massacre, the 8 year old little girl turned into a human bomb. The list is endless. And each time we ask ourselves what next? But the question remains a question. And we remain mute and catatonic. How many more horrors will have to be committed before we are jolted out of our inertia and garner the courage to read the writing on the wall and look within ourselves to see what we have done wrong to allow our world to reach where it has! Our holier than thou attitude has to change. But when!

You may be wondering why I added the name Anjali to the title of this blog and why the picture I have chosen illustrate this blog is blurred. Anjali is a little girl I met two days ago, but Anjali is also the face of those we have conveniently been forgotten and blurred out of our hearts, minds and lives.

I met Anjali on Tuesday January 13th 2015 after I completed my vow at the Kalkaji temple. She was eating a plate of food at a hawker’s cart. She had a beautiful face and endearing eyes, though the colour of her hair and her puny size were glaring and disturbing proof of her being malnourished. I do not know what made me stop and ask her her name and hesitantly if she went to school. She proudly answered that she was in class IV of the Government Primary School in B Block Kalkaji. Knowing the reality of how school functions and how useless education is without support, I asked her if she went for tuition and the answer was: no.

I did not ask Anjali what her parents did. They could be the professional beggars that earn a living in all temples across the land or one of the hawkers that proliferate in such places. What mattered was that in her case, her parents had sent her to school. This was priceless. I asked her if there many like her who lived in the temple vicinity and went to school and did not go for tuition and the answer was yes. I decided that we needed to do something and enquired from the food stall owner if they could find space for us to help these kids. Come on if we have the space all that was needed was a teacher. The process, you guessed right, has begun.

This morning Dharmendra met food stall owner and was shown a room that lay empty in the day as the inmates of this space only came back in the evening. The room was perfect to hold classes for 30 children or so but that was the least of the problem. In the course of the conversation with the hawker, it transpired that most of the children in the area were to put it as best I can, free spirits, and would not be easily amenable to serious studying. Some did go to school, lured by the midday meal and the fact that nothing really happened in class. You could easily slumber your way through. What we were offering meant work, and work was anathema to them. Dharmendra, the ever wise one, suggested that  we needed to come up with an altogether different approach. They had to be ‘seduced’ into learning. No mean task.

You may be wondering how and why Anjali fits in my what next story.

It takes two to tango and no extremist group can ever survive if they do not have hands to do their dirty work. And where do they find these hands? In vulnerable and abandoned children like Anjali who can be seduced easily; children that have been forsaken or at best treated like second or nth class citizens by society. They exist every where and if we do look within us with a modicum of honesty we realise that the one thing that has happened is the widening of the gap between the haves and have nots. But unlike yonder times where feudal ways ruled the roost and every one had their stations in life well defined, today the dream machine that is communication and television to name just two, has crossed the invisible barriers and the erstwhile dreams of a few, are now the dreams of all. What a perfect target for all those with wily and venal agendas. You just have to become a merchant of dreams and then when your prey is seduced, anything is possible.

I am not saying that this is the only reason for all the ills we are seeing, but it is certainly one.

The other would be undoubtedly the fact that we have allowed religion to cross the threshold of our homes and be hijacked by politicians and megalomaniacs. The cocktail is heady and terrifying. We have ample proof of that fact.

You wonder why I have said that we need to look at ourselves. That is because not only has the gap between rich and poor widened, but the former have perfected the art of looking away. Compassion is no more one of the virtues we follow; neither is tolerance.

As I have often said, and will continue saying: we have to learn to look with our hearts.

As I opened my mailbox today, I saw a mail entitled: India’s education policy needs a complete overhaul! I opened it and found a link to an article bearing the same title. The author is an eminent educationalist. The opening paragraph is spot on: I was glad I did not know the boy standing on the high diving board, hesitating to take the leap. As I walked past, I realised it was the perfect analogy for India and her education issues. We still have to take that leap. It is known that the waters will be chill for a while, there will be shock; it will take some courage to take the leap, but it must be done. Standing up on the diving board only exposes oneself to fear and vulnerability; it won’t get us to a place where we can at least join the race, forget about winning it. These are exactly my thoughts and feelings. It is high time India took that leap, no matter how scary or shocking. Waiting is no more an option.

I read the article with interest. The big leap, as the author says, is different thinking. One was hoping that the new dispensation would address primary education head on, but it seems to be frozen on that diving board. A few cosmetic changes prompted by ideologies or other factors will do more harm than good. The author suggests that education should not be viewed as pouring money into a dark hole but as an investment. She goes on to say that education should also be viewed as essential infrastructure, influence and inspiration.

I agree with most of what is proposed but also realise that such mind shifts will take time and the one thing that education does not have is time, and while these ideas are accepted and then made into policy many will have missed the boat.

What we also need is bridge options that would benefit those in school today. In a small way that is what we try and do at project why. It may not be the ideal solution, but is better than nothing. As the author says, there are 12 million people entering the work force every year so let us say the new policy takes 5 years to be implemented 60 million will have moved on.

In the fifteen years I have been associated with education at the lowest end of the spectrum I have witnessed first hand the nitty gritty of education as it is imparted in state run schools. To sum it up in a word: pathetic! Overcrowded classes, disinterested teachers, scant teaching, poor infrastructure. The fact that 33% is the pass percentage, what you get at end of the line is poor quality. Maybe the first step that should be taken if anyone is interested in quality education, is to raise the pass percentage to 50%. It is a simple an easy step, provided you are truly interested in educating children across the board.

Then the sum of our education is rote learning of things you barely comprehend and regurgitate at every exam and as you need a mere 33% to pass, the writing is on the wall.

I am not an educationist or an expert in policy making. My wisdom, if I may call it so, comes from the fifteen long years I have spent with the very children that are been talked about. All is well I presume on the other side of the fence as the lapses and shortcoming of our existing system is taken care of by the support of the family ably aided by a myriad of things ranging from tutors, to learning material, access to knowledge banks virtual and others laced with love and understanding.

However, on the other side of the fence, education is often limited to what the school imparts, and in some cases with the addition of what organisations like ours give.

When I began this journey, I was deeply impressed by the four pillars of education as enunciated by Jacques Delors. These are: learning to know (the development of knowledge and skills that are needed to function in the world. These skills include literacy, numeracy and critical thinking), learning to do (involves the acquisition of skills that are often linked to occupational success, such as computer training, managerial training and apprenticeships), learning to live together (involves the development of social skills and values such as respect and concern for others, social and inter-personal skills and an appreciation of the diversity) and learning to be ( involves activities that foster personal development (body, mind and spirit and contribute to creativity, personal discovery and an appreciation of the inherent value provided by these pursuits). If these were to be the canons of education across the board, the changes we all aspire for would become reality.

Actually education today is barely the first pillar: at best literacy and numeracy!

If I could be a change maker I would revisit the education system and makes changes in sync with the  realities on the ground ands the first thing I would do is ensure that all the four pillars mentioned above find their place all along. Keeping in mind the 12 million that enter the workforce every year it is crucial to impart skills that meet the market demands and these can be imparted as early as class VI or VII.

Not every child is destined to be a doctor or a nuclear scientist. Academically inclined children would pursue academics. For those who are less inclined, it would be judicious to try and assess their preferences and guide them in the right direction by providing them skill training and apprenticeships  while they are still in school. To this one would add the others pillars of learning to live together and learning to be.

If we are indeed standing on the diving board and waiting to jump, then we must have the courage and guts to make radical and not cosmetic changes to the existing education system, the courage to dare to jump in the void without a parachute and see whether we have the wings needed to fly.

Four years ago on this very day Manu left us for a better world. On a cold winter afternoon he tip toed out of our lives without a sound. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. I have written umpteen blogs about him and me, and each time I revisit our bond, it is with new eyes and new meaning. It is a little like reading the Little Prince again and again and finding exactly what you are looking for. Manu and I were an odd couple to say the least: he a mentally and physically challenged young beggar roaming the streets and I a middle aged woman having lost my way. While he had spend his entire life in the confines of a tiny slum cluster, I had wandered across the world all my life. Like the fox in St Exupery’s tale, he seemed to have been waiting at one place for me to come so that he could show me the way and help me dig in my roots. When that blessed moment dawned in the summer of 2000 and our two somewhat lonely and lost souls met, our lives changed forever.

We had both come home.

There are many lessons Manu taught me, but I guess the biggest one was that no life, however miserable, wretched or seemingly hopeless, is meaningless. Every life has a purpose.  I sometimes wonder what my life would have been without Manu. Futile and empty I guess.

When we first met, Manu was difficult to approach and would hobble away as fast as his legs could take him, letting out heart wrenching cries or mumbling abuses. I guess his encounters with humans had always been offencive and irksome if not violent. From his abusive family to the insensitive community, everyone had riled and assaulted him with words and blows. Love had no place in his desolate existence, and yet love is what he taught me. Love and forgiveness as Manu had no mean bone in his body, and forgave every one who hurt him.

Our ‘affair’ could have been a short one had things turned out as I had first envisaged. Seeing his plight I had thought that finding him a home in a well run institution would solve all issues. The only hitch would have been finding the required funds but that did not see an impossible task. But that was not God’s plan and of course my valiant attempts came to nought rapidly. With Manu it was till death do us part.

To give Manu back his dignity was not an easy task. It meant, first and foremost, to get him accepted by the very people who had shunned him and even treated him abysmally. I was shocked to hear that even the ‘kind’ souls who did consent feeding him, had a separate plate and cup for him, like you would for a leper in the dark ages. Some found amusement in hitting him with their cars or motorbikes and laughing when they saw him shuffle away in pain. The stories were endless and heart breaking. And yet his spirit held on, in spite of everything. He kept wandering the same stretch in extreme heat, biting cold and pouring rain. He never left that street, no matter the humiliation and sneers. He knew he held the dreams and aspirations of thousands of children in custody and had to hand them when the time was right.

It would take a decade for him to know it was time to leave. During that time he rekindled the dying spirit of a lost woman looking for an anchor to moor her drifting ship. He had to set it back on course. To give back Manu what I thought was his usurped dignity, I had to gain the trust of the very community who had shunned him. And to do that Project Why had to be created. The rest is history.

I realise today as I write these words, how wrong I was in thinking that Manu had been stripped of his dignity and that I was the ‘saviour’. Far from that. His dignity remained intact as did is undying spirit. It is I who needed to be saved and save me he did.

I owe a huge debt to Manu and there is only one way I can do that. I must ensure that Project Why lives on and weathers  every storm that comes its way. That is the only way to honour the memory of a saintly and pure soul named Manu.

The Skype call came spot on at 6 am. The husband picked it up as usual and the little chap came on the screen. But this morning there was no usual banter with the grandpa. What I hears was : I need to talk business with Nani! So Nani promptly placed her face in front of the camera wondering what business had to be discussed. I was sure that it would be something related to his birthday, perhaps an extra toy or book in the parcel ready to leave as he celebrates his sixth on the 21st. Well I got it partly right as it was about his birthday, but totally wrong after that. What he said next totally floored me: Nani, I am not getting any toys for my birthday this year, and am sending all the money to Project Why children. Wow! Was I zapped. It transpired that this year all his friends’ parents were told not to buy him any toys but to make a donation to project why.

I cannot begin to describe all the emotions that filled me in that short instant. I was overwhelmed with love, gratitude, pride and above all respect and admiration for my daughter and son-in-law who have been able to teach my lovely grandson the art of seeing with your heart.

Agastya knows project why well. When he was just 8 months or so, we had a play group that use to come and play with him at home every day. It was a small bunch of our creche children with one teacher. A few months later he was ‘enrolled’ in the project why creche and attended it each and every time he was in Delhi. His first pals were project why kids. And today it is with them that he wants to share his birthday, even though he is 12415 kilometres away. True he will have a party with a birthday cake and birthday games, but there will be no presents but the joy of sharing this day with children who have less than him is priceless. I saw that in his little face this morning. Needless to say the parcel grandma sends will have a few more toys then initially planned.

More than the little fellow, it his parents who need to be applauded. We all wonder why today’s youth is not compassionate and sensitive, particularly in India. The answer is simple. They are/were never taught to be so. And yet that is the biggest lesson you can give your child. But the only way to give it walk the talk.

Blissfully there are some rare parents who do so. We have a little girl who is 13 now, who has been celebrating her birthday every year with our special section children. This of course is because her mom decided to do so when she was 1, and has never stopped. Every year in February, the special section is taken to Dilli Haat and fed a scrumptious lunch of their choice before cutting a nice creamy cake. Games are organised amidst laughter and fun and each child gets a lovely return gift. I wish more parents did the same. It is not the fact of donating something as some do, but of spending time together that makes all the difference. The children my grandson is sending ‘gifts’ to, are children he has played and bonded with.

Today I am a proud mom and grand mom. 

Opened the paper this morning to this head line: Cops mull DNA testing of Delhi’s beggars. As I had written in yesterday’s blog, the plight of beggar children was in the news on day 1 of year 2015! And this from the High Court of our city! So it was not surprising that a day later we are made privy to the fact that the Delhi police is drawing up a plan to conduct DNA tests on people begging on the streets with children, to find out it these kids were their own or had been abducted and trafficked. We are informed that this idea was sent to the Prime Minister’s office by a citizen  who found that women were often found begging with children in their laps who did not resemble them. Though this may sound a great idea, it is in fact a knee jerk reaction to a monumental problem: child beggars. The concerned citizen seems to accept child beggars if they ‘resemble’ their mother, or so it sounds. I am willing to give the person the benefit of the doubt and applaud the fact that he or she found his or her voice and took a step in the right direction. On the other hand I am a little weary of the rapidity with which the suggestion was passed to the Chief of Police. We all know that whatever comes from the hallowed PMO is never viewed as a ‘suggestion’ but as a ‘directive’ and without weighing the pros and cons of the said suggestion ‘orders’ must have been passed in haste. It however seems that some sense as prevailed as the legality of such tests is being weighed.

If the concerned citizen was disturbed by the sight of a child begging, then he or she should have not stopped at the mother child issue, but express anguish over all children who beg. The way this idea sounds is that if the child belongs to the beggar woman, then it is all kosher.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Before I go any further, I would just like to be the Devil’s advocate and reiterate the comment of an activist on the DNA testing idea:“What if a woman claims to have found a homeless child? There are hundreds of cases where a woman beggar adopts the child of a fellow beggar after she dies. What action can be taken against them?”  

Child beggars are a blot on our society more so because, as is the case in any business, if there was no demand there would be no supply. It is because people give, and give abundantly, that beggary in any form thrives. 

As to the question of legality of the DNA testing, I tend to argue that everyone born in this country is protected by the same rights, and as such testing are done on a court order and mostly with the person’s consent, the very idea of forced testing simply because you are carrying a child that someone feels does not resemble you, seems absurd!

We should be outraged by children begging, yet we have learnt to live with it, finding our own coping strategies: tinted car glasses for some, looking away for others or rolling down your car window and handing out a doing without looking at the child. And we have been doing so unabashedly thus allowing beggary to become a lucrative business.

We should be incensed everyone every time we see a little hand proffered in our direction. The solution is not to remove them and throw them outside the city limits as was done during the famed Commonwealth Games. The problem of children begging has to taken head on. The government is accountable for the protection of all children and their are many laws that enacted for the same. 

Stopping children begging is not simply counting them and parking them somewhere, away from public glare. They need to be given their rights: to education, to food, to shelter and to childhood. We can barely look after our mentally challenged children and our orphans and we all know the terrible conditions of state run institutions. So what do you do after a DNA test tells you that the child is not the child of the woman carrying her. Where do you take the child, who looks after it and ensures its care.

You may want to believe it or not, beggar mothers do care for their children in the best way possible and unless we can provide adequate care, we should not embark on some hair brained programme that may do more harm than good.

Woke up early as I always do! I think it has been ages since one one partook in New Year eve frolics that keep you awake till the wee hours and then have you get up in a haze on the first day of the year. For quite some time now the husband and I have celebrated New Year eve by tucking ourselves under warm quilts and enjoying a gourmet meal. The quilt is de rigeur in a city where temperatures take a dip at the drop of a hat and when you have a room on the top floor with umpteen windows that are badly insulated and cold cement floors, then you have follow a rather ungainly dress code or warm jammies and thick woollen socks. The husband even dons a woollen cap but I have not quite given it to that! A gourmet meal in bed does mean me having to pop out from the warmth of the bed and dash three flight down to the kitchen to prep and get the next course, but I do not complain. To the recluse like me it is far better than noisy party with nonsensical alcohol driven conversations. To the teetotaller it is quite a nightmare. Anyway all this means that January 1, is a day just like any other.

At some point in the morning I do pick up the newspaper and glean throughout it, and I did so today as any other day. Two articles caught my attention. The first one was entitled: Stop forced begging by children says HC, and the other Shivering Delhi makes its Gods snug. The two articles once again bought to the fore much of what I feel is wrong in India.

The plight of children begging has riled me no end and actually the first avatar of project why was an effort to stop children begging. It was a naive approach of trying to get an insensitive and heartless city to stop giving money to children and give them nutritive biscuits instead hoping that the market force that makes begging a good business enterprise would fail if biscuits replaced coins! Though we had elaborated a sound plan, it never took off as one did not manage to convince people to change from coins to cookie! I have time and again shared my despair at the callous acceptance of children begging by society across the board: be they individuals, administrators, politicians or anything else. It is almost as if the fact that a child knocks at you car window and solicits a coin was part of the city’s decor. You may or may not roll down your window and hand over a coin, put not because of compassion but as a way to rid yourself of nuisance. How many of us ask themselves the question as to why in a country where education is a constitutional right is a child allowed to bed? And that is our attitude vis-a-vis child labour and other aberrations. Have you ever bothered to call the child welfare people when we see a child employed in a friend or neighbours home? hell no! We all want to remain politically correct and are never willing to to step out of the box.

One should be outraged at the sight of a single child begging or working and not only outraged but willing to do something to remedy to the situation. We leave it to NGOs and then bask in the glory of an Indian Nobel prize winner who had the guts to do the right thing.

Why should some rare concerned soul need to knock at the doors of Justice right a wrong we all see and ignore. Once again the High Court has expressed concern over forced begging by children. Why should it be the Courts that need direct the State to create facilities for proper education of children who are found begging. Are not all the children the responsibility of the State, a State that taxes us with alacrity in the name of education. If we quietly play an education cess each time we eat out, should we also not get indignant each time a little hand taps at our window. But then that means having a conscience and some compassion, the two Cs that seem to be in permanent abstentia.

Today the High Court of the City has reminded us of children and their rights. Will anyone hear is any body’s guess? Will it be part of any body’s New Year resolution list?

The other article may see ludicrous. With the city under a bitter cold spell, guess who is being smothered in woollies: The Gods! This is not a joke. For the past days the citizens of Delhi have been wrapping them up in woollens like anxious parents. What I am asking about is the stone idols. Shawls, cardigans and mufflers are the latest offerings and the idols and in one temple the deities are clad in woollens from top to toe. Hinduism is anthropomorphic but this is rather over the top. I wish the same ‘devotees’ gave the woollens to children and homeless people who sleep in the open in this biting cold and even die.

Religion is the flavour of the day. We have the sudden spurt of conversions, the tom-tomming of Hinduism, the absurd self styled God Men who rape and castrate, the one that has been shut in a freezer and whose followers await his resuscitation and even one who calls himself love charger and has turned himself into a rockstar. And now our stone Gods who not only feel hungry 24/7 and need to be fed but also feel cold and need to be smothered in woollens.

Why is it that we do not feel the same way about the children who beg in the streets and sleep under the sky. They too feel hungry and cold 24/7 and need our concern. Will 2015 be the year we finally have the courage to open the eyes of our heart.

Children have the right to be fed, the have the right to shelter, they have the right to education, they have right to play and laugh. They have a right to a childhood. I wonder who hijacked theirs?