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?

I have always called Project Why, my magnum opus and my swan song, and often at the close of each year I found myself wondering whether these two images do really hold true. With age catching up and time flying at an unstoppable speed, pwhy is definitely my swan song. The question is whether  the final curtain call will be a success or not.

When I look back at the wonderful journey that began 15 years ago, I have no doubt in saying that in spite of some choppy seas, and even some terrible storms, our ship sailed on course and we were able to fulfil what is known in NGO parlance as ones ‘mission’. I do not know how many mission statements I have had to write, and perhaps as we are an organic organisation, there would have been some variants but the real mission, the one that stemmed from the depth of my soul and my heart and was probably never stated, has been the one that has propelled my sails. Project Why was meant to be my way of paying back a debt I have always felt I owed. Privileges that came my way because one day a man sailed on a slave ship and set roots in another land enabled me to be to the manor born; the privileges that came my way because a woman decided not to marry so as to not give birth to a child in an enslaved country and because two wonderful souls that took almost four decades to meet, decided that their child who was born and who grew up in foreign lands would be as passionate about India as they were; and above all because what I saw when I returned to a land I had only seen through the eyes of my parents was not the one I had dreamt of. Something was terribly wrong. But even to get to the moment I could open the eyes of my heart took many years of being so wrapped up in career and family.

The demise of those who had taught me everything and years of locking myself in my grief made  my world darker and darker to the point when I saw and felt nothing at all. It would take a broken beggar and his heart wrenching cries to jolt me out of my inertia and open the eyes of my heart. But more than that to steer me on the way of paying back that debt!

Fifteen years later I do not know where I have reached in this long journey. I guess that I can never pay back the entire debt in the short time I have at my disposal. But a tiny part of it has been paid in the small achievements we have realised: be it the fact that the beggar lived and died loved and cared for, that a little scalded little boy every one had given up on is now a young teenager; that so many children who would have dropped out from school are now doing incredibly well; that a young boy born on the roadside is now an international ramp model. But most of all that a bunch of special children, the kind many shun, have a place where they can spend a few hours surrounded by love and laughter.

So does this allow me to call pwhy my magnum opus. I would like to believe so. More so because it has brought into my once lonely life a bouquet of wonderful souls from all over the world who have given me so much love and trust. I now have a family, my family, the project why family and its DNA is that every member sees with his or her heart.

But the journey has not ended. For pwhy to be my  magnum opus and swan song, I need to ensure that the future of this family is secured even after I take my last bow.

It is that time of the year when one writes a year end message, so here is my take!

2014 can best be described as a sabbatical year, when one took ‘leave’ from one’s customary work to review achievements and failures and take remedial measures where needed. It was also a year when we took stock of our strengths, identified our weaknesses. A true SWOT Analysis moment.

 2013 had been a year when my husband’s cancer compelled me to take a back seat and leave the project in the hands of my terrific staff. In hindsight this forced leave of mine was God sent as it impelled my staff to act as independently as possible as they did not want to ‘disturb’ me in any manner. So when earlier they would call at the drop of a hat if faced with a problem, they now looked for solutions independently and more often than not found one that bettered mine! Come to think of it, I did feel a little forgotten. All for a good cause though! This gave them increased confidence and validated yet again, my decision to employ people from within the community.

It was soon evident that the only lacuna was fund raising, a task I had appropriated for far too long and that had over the years taken on a distinct Anou imprint! The skills I used were unfortunately skills that one could not pass on to another. One could I teach my gift for the gab or my obsession with words! Fund raising was undoubtedly our biggest weakness and threatened our very existence and thus needed to be addressed urgently. The urgency was further heightened when we lost a large chunk of the monthly donation of one of our important donors. The reason for this reduction was the drop in tourism following the rape of a foreign national from the country of origin of our donor. This brought to the fore the fragility of our funding model and required some serious thinking.

It is true that most of our donations come from outside India as we have not been able to muster a donor base within India. This was not for want of trying as when Project Why was set up I had wanted to launch what I called a one-rupee-a-day campaign which enabled each and every one to be a donor. It was very naive of me, more so in a city like Delhi which seems to have lost the ability to see with its heart and who also found the one rupee idea infradig! The campaign was resuscitated a couple of times in years to come but always met with the same fate.

Many organisations get substantial funds from Corporates and Big Businesses, but this needs you to be Page 3 worthy, and a recluse like me was not up to the mark. Perhaps I should have polished my dancing shoes and got the war paint out! But that was not to be, so we had to walk another path and we did.

The husband’s cancer also made me realise the true meaning of the saying: Man proposes, God disposes. No one is eternal and the wise need to accept this indubitable fact and take the right decisions. It was time that fund raising was revisited in the light of the skills of those who would be carrying the torch forward.

Rani and Dharmendra attended a week long fund raising workshop and though they learnt many finer points, they were a little weary of some of the suggestions that either required substantial investment or sounded too impersonal and thus went against what Project Why stood for. They both agreed that getting a call centre to spout a sales pitch from a written text, without ever having see pwhy, was not what we stood for. It was back to the drawing board and the need to evolve an in house model that would sensitise people around us.

There is a God, one I have oft called God of Lesser Beings but now plan to rechristen God of Project Why, who watches from the wings and appears out of the blue to help us. The visit of a long time supporter and dear friend brought into our lives the till now elusive Corporates, but these were special: they saw with their heart. And that was not all. My one in many moons appearance at a diner saw me seated next to a young man who is also a honcho but again one who sees with his heart, and he too has promised to help. So we did find a backdoor entry into the hallowed corporate portals and I did not need my war paint and high heels. I hope and pray that this will be the miracle we longed for.

I cannot end this message without sharing the update on Planet Why! Many of you know of this sustainability dream of mine where we had hoped to build a green guesthouse the proceeds of which would have run Project Why. Many of you also know that though we were able to raise the money for the land, I was not able to secure the funds to build. Some time back we had begun thinking of selling the land that had appreciated substantially and purchase a smaller plot in the vicinity of our women centre as we are on the verge of losing our tenancy. Yet for the past year we have not been able to sell our land as the property rates have fallen. I wonder whether there is another reason for the obstacles that are coming our way in this matter. We will continue our efforts and wait for the opportune moment.

I just realised that this long message has not touched upon the day-to-day activities of the project. This is because every thing has been running like a clockwork orange and without a murmur. All examinations have been passed, all Boards cleared, outings organised, workshops conducted, visitors received, volunteers welcomed! Project Why runs almost on auto pilot. All I can say is Chapeau Bas to the children and the team!

We await 2015 with bated breath. May it bring new avenues, new hope and above all the answers we seek.


Anou
December 2014

I am a Hindu. I am Hindu not simply because my parents were Hindus, but because I chose to be one. I was privileged to grow up in various countries and thus various religions. Since my early childhood I had friends who were Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhist but above all were my friends. To me as a child their religion only manifested itself during festivals that each had lots of goodies to eat. Mama use to celebrate all Hindu festivals at home – I came to know later in life that she herself was not into ‘rituals’ but did it all for her me – and I too had my goodies to share with my friends. Actually it was fun to have friends with diverse faiths. If I had questions, she would answer them. She simply set the stage for the questions to emerge.

Rebellious as I was, I was soon to challenge my religion in my own puerile way. It all began with me wanting to go to church with my friends, or to fast with my Muslim friends. Each time I asked mama, she would smile and tell me to go right ahead but not to do anything that would hurt the other person. So I went to church, and whenI wanted to taste the holy Host, I even found a Priest who agreed that I do so after I ‘confessed’. I also fasted during the Ramadan and broke fast with my friends and I cannot remember how many Sabbath meals I shared with my Jewish friends. So I grew up believing that Hinduism was a wow religion as it allowed you to believe in all faiths. And was this not also a religion that gave you so many Gods to chose from! There was no doubt in my mind: I would be a Hindu.

To be being a Hindu, or of any other faith, is a personal matter that is between me and my God, and remains in the confines of my home. So I spent a large part of my life comfortable in the faith I had made mine, interpreting it my way. The first blow I received was when the Babri masjid was destroyed. It did not make sense at all as I had gown up respecting all places of worship, and destroying a House of God was anathema. But I did not feel the need of rejecting my faith.

Religion is a personal matter and should remain so. But as Marx rightly said religion is the opium of the masses and is used by rulers of all hues to make people feel better about the distress they experience. Today it is a political tool that has gone out of hand.

In the name of religion innocent are murdered. In the name of religion political agendas are set. In the name of religion gullible people are duped by so called god men. Come to think of it you can do almost any and everything in the name of religion and get away with it.

The recent conversion issue is again a gimmick that does not make much sense to me.

First of all the word ‘Hindu’ is according to me a misnomer. Our religion should be known as Vedism as it emanates from the Vedas. I guess one can safely say that once upon a time all humans followed either Vedism or Judaism and all other religions stemmed from these two. Most of the new religions were some from of reaction to the two mother religions.

The recent conversion drama talks of ‘home coming’. If this were to be applied to the T,  then everyone should revert to the two mother religions!

What is frightening is that this new avatar of Hinduism is breeding hate, mistrust and suspicion. Let us not forget that most of what we call ‘new’ religions happened when an existing religion did not meet the aspirations of people. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism were off shoots of Vedism and Protestantism occurred when Catholicism became too lofty, and what about the Anglican Church that saw the light of day because a King fell in love!

But let us come back to today and all this talk of conversion and home coming and similar nonsense. If ones religion seems unfair as has been the case with Hinduism when it closes its doors to certain class of people, it is quite understandable that you embrace a religion that treats you better. Many conversions in India happened because of this. Then there are those seek to convert you by wooing you. I know of a mother who converted to Christianity because she was promised help for the treatment of her child. She did so after knocking at many doors that refused to open. I remember having been asked to convert to Catholicism way back in the sixties when I attended a convent school. What was offered in exchange was that I would be allowed to jump a class. Being who I am, I was indignant and of course refused vehemently. A year later, when I changed school because of my father’s new posting I jumped a class on merit!

Religion is a wonderful tool to manipulate people. Whereas it should be used in the right way, it is far too often used to fulfil personal agendas be they political or self gratifying. This is evident in the on-going inane debate on conversion as well as the plethora of self styled God men that are proliferating everywhere. I wish they would use their power to do good to society.

My father always said that there is no difference between a good Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jew or even an atheist. I wish we preached this indubitable reality. Any religious interpretation that preaches hate cannot be true.

Sadly, the hold religion has on people, particularly simple and illiterate people is monumental and thus it is easy to manipulate them to do anything. The most horrific and recent example of this is the slaying of innocent school children last week in Pakistan. It was done in the name of a God. Many monstrous acts are done in the name of religion.

Maybe it is time that those who proclaim themselves to be guardians of different faiths should introspect and see where it all went astray and take remedial measures. To my mind it is totally absurd to pour milk over images of God in a land where 5000 children die every day of malnutrition. I am sure the same God would feel far better served if the same milk was fed to a hungry child rather than thrown in a drain. There are many such examples but I think I have made my point.

For those of us who have a modicum of intelligence and common sense, it is time to look at our faith and raise a dissenting voice if we feel the need.

As for me, I found my God in the eyes of all the children I have been blessed with. I do not need to seek Him or Her in stone images and places of worship. The God to whom I pray is the one who reaches out to me each and every time I seek help to continue the task given to me as a blessing by this very God.

I remain a Hindu. Does not my faith allow me to give God the image I want, and what better image than the trusting eyes of a little child. She is the God to whom I pray.

When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family wrote Jim Butcher. These words take a poignant meaning when applied to my darling Popples. There are few in this world whose life goes to hell from the word go. Born in a dysfunctional family where violence was the rule and not the exception, he fell into a boiling wok and had a close brush with death. I guess God had a change of mind and that is why he brought into his life an eclectic bunch of people whose mission was to heal his wounds with love and tenderness. He toddled through his first years with love in the day and violence at night, the kind of violence that comes with the bottle, not the one babies drink, but the one adults fall prey to. There were nights without food, nights where the tiny child got beaten, nights where you were dragged to the cop station and only God knows what you witnessed. At the age of three, he knew that he had to hide the empty bottles when I came visiting and would run ahead of me on his chubby legs to hide them as best he could.

We watched all this in mute silence till it became so deafening that one had to act. In a single day he lost what had been his home and family. He was just four. A few months later he was admitted to a boarding school and was safe. But then came the holidays and the violence again as he became the soft target that could be used to extract pennies for a few more bottles. No matter how hard we tried, no matter how many rehabs we sent his mom too, the bottle always prevailed. Once again the silence was deafening and we had to take out the big guns. He became my legal ward. He was eight. His mother simply vanished.

A few months later he became difficult and aggressive and we were at a loss. The unvoiced and thus unanswered questions in his little head took their toll, and we were not equipped to get him to voice them  and thus answer them. He went into counselling.

In his holidays he came  home to me, and though my love was unequivocal, there were others at home that had to be won over. Slowly and patiently the little chap worked his magic. It is true that for some it took longer than for others.

But that was not all. At school he had to deal with bullying because of his scars. When it became unbearable and the school remained insensitive, came another deafening cry. Mercifully the ruler he chose to auto mutilate was blunt.

We changed his school and he seemed happier, but the questions were still there; still unvoiced. He was assigned a mentor and last month he finally broke his silence when he asked about his family. He had opened the channel of communication and it was time he was told his story. And who better than his Maam’ji to do that.

I must admit I was nervous and scared. I knew that I held the key to his morrows. Mercifully I had a peg to start the talk: a family tree as part of his homework.

We sat at our work table and I asked him if he had any questions about his family. He hung his head down and was on the verge of withdrawing, a coping strategy he often resorts too when he is uncomfortable. If I diddled too long, I would lose the moment so I began telling him his story from the first day I met him, a few days prior to his accident. I spoke softly choosing the right words and making sure that I spoke only the absolute truth. After a few moments he looked at me and said: this is a film story. Yes little fellow it is. But we carried on till the moment when I had no option but to talk about his mother and her disappearing. I told him I did not know where she was but also added that she knew he was safe and loved. After some time he looked at me and said: I know where she is! My heart missed a beat and I waited with bated breath for his answer. She is in front of the biscuit shop he quipped with a smile.

Tears welled in my eyes. I stopped them just in time. I did not want him to see me cry. The last home he shared with his mother was indeed located next to a biscuit shop but that was not all. He associates his mother with biscuits as she always bought him some. I knew how much biscuits and mom are synonymous in his life but I was still taken aback when this morning he asked for biscuits and tea for his breakfast. Needless to say that is what he got.

It was now time to make his family tree and as advised by the counsellor, I waited for him to take the lead. He did and soon emerged the most beautiful tree you could ever imagine as it defied every single canon that defines a family. If I am Maam’ji and Nani (maternal grandmother), then my husband is Dadu (paternal grandfather). My son-in-law is Bapu (the name my grandson calls him by and a decision taken by the three of them) but my two daughters are Didis or big sisters., and my grandson is his little brother. Then there are all those who love and care for him: Deepak (big brother), Radhey simply Radhey, Dharmendra (paternal uncle) and mamaji (maternal uncle). That is his Indian family but there is also Xavier who is his French God father and Clarissse his French God mother. That is where it stopped at least for now. It is now left to me to put that in a family tree! What he knows deep in his heart is that we are all there for him and will never walk away.

He is safe and loved. We are his family!