It was on January 7th, 2011 that Manu left us. I guess he had completed what he was sent out to do leaving many questions unanswered. I have often tried to understand what this saintly soul meant to me but know deep in my heart that I still have a long way to go till I fully comprehend the reason of our meeting as only a God of some kind could have engineered this unbelievable tryst between a beggar and a lost ageing woman. The only thing I can say with confidence is that it changed both out lives forever and that the equation in this case was not what many would think. When beggar meets well to do woman, one would tend to think that the beggar is the beneficiary. But this is not the way it happened with Manu. I know for certain that he gave me much more than he ever took. And what is more is that he is still giving abundantly at every crossroad of my life. In return, what he got from me is paltry and tangible: food, shelter, clothes, a bed and even the ample love he got cannot match what he gave me.

You may wonder what a beggar can ever give to someone who many think was born with a silver spoon in her mouth? What if I told you he gave me a reason to live and made me discover who I really am. Manu came into my life when I was rudderless and unable to pick up the pieces of my life that had been scattered the day I lost my father. His deafening cries that no one had heard pierced the armour I had built to protect myself from a life I was unable to find my way in after the loss of the ones who had always steered me in the right direction. It was Manu who stirred my soul and made me realise that I had a life beyond my parents and helped me take my first faltering steps in this new world.

Manu was a child of God, one who had been sent with a mission to fulfil. He was and is the living proof that no soul, however wretched it may appear is useless. Every life has a purpose. If not for him project why would not have seen the light of day. His life changed the life of thousands of other souls, big and small.

When Manu left I was shattered. At first I thought that it was an ominous sign that somehow meant the end of project why but mercifully I was quick to realise that a pure soul like him could never bring grief or destruction. There had to be a deeper meaning, and again I knew deep inside me that it was not because he had given up on life. The child of God who had bravely lived years in the most horrific conditions till that fateful day in May 2000 would and could not quit without reason. There had to be a deeper meaning in his passing and it was for me to unravel it.

I have been doing just that for the past 3 years but do not think I have been fully able to do so. At first I thought that his demise was a sign that Planet Why was not to be as it had been primarily conceived for him. I took some time and gave up the idea but still could not find the peace I sought. I then started thinking of the alternatives but groped in the dark as none of the numerous ideas that came my way bore any results. I knew that I had to carry on the search but also felt that there was more to Manu’s lessons than just project why.

In July 2013 I had to face the greatest and scariest challenge of my life: my husband’s cancer. I could have completely broken down and was at the verge of doing so when I felt an inner strength yet undiscovered filling me with a reassuring warmth and somehow I knew that no matter what the outcome would be, I would come out a winner.

Today as I write these words to honour the one who gave me so much, I know that it is Manu’s incredible spirit that has enabled me to go through this dark period with a smile. He is the one who surreptitiously taught me that one can smile through any adversity just as he did all his life.

As I continue walking the twilight of my life, I know he walks with me and will till the very end.

Today’s news was music to my ears. The new Government in Delhi which has been in place for just a couple of days has done something that I had always hoped and prayed a Government with a conscience should and would do. The news I talking about refers to the homeless: Delhi government today announced a series of measures to provide roof to the homeless in biting cold sweeping the city and decided to replace all night shelters being run from plastic tents with porta cabins. We who sit in the comfort of our homes, with electric blankets, warm quilts and blowers cannot begin to imagine what it feels like to sleep under the stars in the bitter cold with just a tattered blanket to cover you. We cannot begin to imagine how the conditions in which the poor live and how the manage to survive. I have often wondered why our collective conscience does not get outraged when we see families with tiny children living under flyovers. To us they are just irritants and pests as they dare bother our comfortable ride in a heated car and disturb our thoughts which could be about the new sweater we are off to purchase. I have also wondered why the rulers and administrators of our city, irrespective of their political hue or bureaucratic responsibility do not shudder when they see children who according to existing laws should be in school, knock at their car window begging for a coin. Just like every one, they too ignore them or scare them away with a glare.

Many do not know, but it is not just beggars who live on the streets. My first encounter with such people was way back in 2001 or so when I first saw the Lohar (gypsy) camp next to the Kalkaji bus depot. This is a nomadic blacksmith community that settled in various part of the city. The one I am talking about is a settlement of 30 odd families that have lived on this pavement for more than 30 years. Thanks to wily politicians they got a postal address, voter identity cards and ration cards. As I got to know this proud and dignified clan, I found myself drawn to their wisdom and philosophy and spent many hours taking to Tau, the leader of the said clan. I heard their story, the promises they were made that remained unfulfilled. I heard how their camps were razed with obsessive regularity and how they had to line pockets to be allowed to build their homes again. It was almost a cat and mouse game. I was horrified to hear that they had been visited by several politicians and petty officials and promised rehabilitation as they came under the nomadic tribes.

I saw the bits and parcels of documents that had survived the many razing and decided to do something. These were early days when I was still naive and had yet not lost my faith in the system. I decided to approach the NHCR ( National Human Rights Commission) hoping that they would do something. I was sent an answer saying that the Commission had asked for an Action Taken Report. Nothing happened after that.

I was thrilled to learn that the SDMs have been asked to prepare a list of all homeless in 2 days. talking of SDMs I too have my story to tell. I was told one day that there would be a demolition of the camp on the next day. I tried to contact the Chief Minister as I knew someone in her office. Could not. Then remembering that we still suffered from the British raj syndrome I called my friend who was the British High Commissioner’s wife and asked her to intervene. You guessed right. It worked. Well in a manner. The next day we got visitated by the SDM who diligently heard our plight and story, took notes on a green pad and left. Must have thrown the papers on the way. So much for approaching the higher ups.

One day I witnessed yet another demolition and it was heart breaking. And knowing that this happened again and again was unbearable. I decided to file a PIL in the High Court, as that was the last door to knock at, in the name of these beautiful children condemned to live in inhuman conditions. But to no avail. The case is lost in translation.

Sadly no cat and mouse game is endless. The cat ultimately wins and courtesy the Commonwealth Games the final razing happened in 2010.The day I had always dreaded did dawn. I know deep in my heart that my Lohar friends are survivors and must be well. It is I who miss them so!

The reason I recounted this story was to tell you about the reality of this city. I could fill pages describing how the poor live and survive. This city has done nothing for the habitat of the poor. I hope this new Government does something not only for the homeless but also for the slum dwellers who have found their ways and survive with dignity and a smile.

Here are some pictures of how people in this city, the ones that often make our lives better, live:

And I told you that a little girl with brittle bone disease lived for many years in this house below, would you believe me?

They are a family of 6 and had to crawl into their home. Don’t forget that any child with Osteogenis Imperfecta, breaks a bone at the lightest touch. Radha must have had more than 50 fractures ion her life.

I hope and pray that the new government addresses the terrible plight of people living in this city and gives priority to the basic right of shelter to these citizens of Delhi.

2013 was a year that I will remember forever. It is a year when I had to put my life in parenthesises as I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. Ranjan’s cancer came as a cruel reminder of the cancer that had taken both my parents as I watched in total helplessness and hopelessness. This time I would have to come out a winner even if that meant stopping life as I knew it. That is what I did. My strictly regulated life that had run almost like a clockwork orange since 2000 was put on hold. One of the first casualty was Project Why! It would have been impossible for me to juggle pwhy and Hodgkin as the same time. Mercifully, thirteen years had been ample to train my team and I knew that pwhy was in safe hands whilst I got on learning, then taming and finally overpowering the demon that had entered our lives. I got on with the task and feel I did good, though the battle is not quite over. It will take another six months to really find our way out of the woods. I am confident that this will not be as arduous a task as it has been, as I have now evolved a comfortable pattern that seems to be working. As a new challenge crops up, I know the way to go to overcome it.

Today, on the eve of a New Year, I wonder how I was able to set aside everything that was so dear to me till that fateful July day: the cup of tea and blessings I got every morning, the good mornings of the children, the little problems that one would hash and rehash as it gave one a sense of worthiness, the bigger challenges that required skills you sometimes did not realise you possessed, the long virtual exchanges with friends, supporters and well wishers, the little achievements that turned into huge celebrations, the sense of belonging to a large family and knowing that they were always there for you. All of it had to be put on hold because the one person who held it together for me was in danger. I knew that without him, I would not be able to carry on. So there was never an iota of doubt in my mind when I took the decision to temporarily suspend my life.

Was it easy? Not at all. Did I have coping strategies? Indeed I did. Today I can reveal how I could survive these last months without losing the essence of who I was.  One of the things I found myself doing almost surreptitiously was looking at pictures of project why, pictures spanning all of 13 years. It was a comforting walk down memory lane that I took leisurely, sometimes staring at one snapshot for a long time and letting memories flow back. The picture I chose to illustrate this post must have been taken 8 years or so ago. The little chap in my lap is Popples! Each picture told a story: a story of courage, compassion, fortitude and joy. Each picture brought a flutter in my heart as I knew I was a little part of each one of them. I found myself smiling and even laughing alone. Thank heavens I rise well before dawn and these little escapades happened when everyone else slept. I also must admit a tad sheepishly though, that I often felt a sense of pride laced with humility. In fact, I was truly never away from my beloved project, I simply tuned it to my reality.

In spite of my physical absence and forced sabbatical, project why was very much part of my reality. In some ways this forced vacation compelled me to look at the future realistically. I know that we will have to make changes, so may have to be drastic because of elements beyond our control: the imminent loss of our women centre tenancy, the probable razing and relocation of the Okhla slums in keeping with the new social avatar of this once neglected area, the state of our funding and also because it is now imperative to reassess matters as more than a decade has passed since it all began.

I was telling a friend and supporter about how the social profile of the street where we began in the summer of 2000 had changed. What was once a motley amalgam of mostly single storeyed mud shacks with tin roofs and where our computer centre and maybe a handful of tenements were in brick and mortar, is now a series of multi storeyed brightly painted tenements, with dish antennas and even washing machines. On a street where you barely saw a bike let alone a car but many bicycles, you today see cars, bikes and hardly any bicycles. This is proof that a decade in the life of an urban slum brings about social mobility. However difficult it may be to accept, one has to realise that it is time to move on. I am sure this would have happened irrespective of our presence, but somehow I think that we have had a role, albeit tiny to play in the empowerment of this slum.

Another failure, if I may call it so, that we have to accept is the fact that the model we adopted has resulted in our inability to keep in touch with the majority of our students once they have graduated or left for a variety of reasons: gone back to the village, moved because of the nature of their family’s occupation, moved because of the inordinate rise in rents and so on. This fills me with sadness as it shows a deficiency in our approach as we never thought of setting up an old students group or make sustained efforts to keep in touch with those who had left. I guess this also stems from our initial desire for reaching out to as many children as possible. Numbers did mean access to more funding but also made us take hurried decisions that often did not stand the test of time. We had to shut certain centres because of non availability of space to rent! And let us not forget the fact that when we began there were no NGOs. Today they have proliferated all over.

As our sustainability plan did not come to be, project why’s future is again a cause of concern. Its funding is still very fragile as it depends on goodwill garnered by constant interaction with people. I would be naive and foolish to believe that I will continue to have the energy needed to keep the pace. It is time to find alternative avenues that we can nurture in the coming time so that they can replace the present funding structure. This will be a slow process but needs to be initiated at once. The face of project why has to change and those who have till now been in the wings need to come to the fore. My being AWOL has already started the process.

I am aware of the fact that those who will take over do not have the same skills as I do though they have a host of skills I never had nor will. I feel that what would work best for them is to have a well defined structure that they can take ownership of. What I mean by that is that we need to build our own centre in a location which is approved and hence that will not be razed or relocated. That will ensure that the children we reach out to will remain with us. My idea is to sell the land we have and find a smaller plot near the women centre as it is located near a rehabilitation colony. With the remaining funds we would build a small centre that can be extended in times to come. I truly feel that a building that belongs to pwhy will motivate the team to walk the extra mile needed not only to keep it going but to make it grow.

This is my line of thought as of now. I have six months to fine tune it.

So help me God!

I have not written about recent occurrences and happenings. One of the reason is that I have been somewhat AWOL from life as it once was. But there is another reason which is the onslaught of totally disparate events that defy every norm and challenge reason. Let me try and explain the course of my thoughts. Just as I get in the mood to write about an issue, pops comes another one that stops one’s thoughts! And believe it or not, just as I had written the first line of this post, the news of a mother burning her five month baby to appease the Gods to bring good fortune to her family and feeling no sense of remorse. Speechless.

But that is not all. In the past days/weeks we have heard of a bureaucrat stating that no one dies of cold as if that was the case, no one would be alive in Siberia. This in the wake of the death of many infants and children in the Muzaffarnagar refugee camps! This is so typical. The authorities would concede that children died of pneumonia. My dears Sirs, pneumonia is a result of being exposed to cold. This goes the same was as the misguided assertion that no one dies of malnutrition. True they die of diseases caused by malnutrition and an impaired immune system. I cannot understand the difference. Children die and that is cause enough to hang our heads in shame. I totally agree with the politician who quipped back and stated that the bureaucrat in question need not go to Siberia but simply spend a night preferably with his family in the conditions the children were living in.

As if that was not enough, the CEO of the state where these children are dying of cold, has organised a 14 day carnival with merry making and splurging. Is this simply yet another example of the two Indias? I find it revolting. Needless to say the carnival is funded by our money. Seems like the people who ‘rule’ us have sold their conscience to God knows who. To add fuel to the fire, today’s news says that 150 families were forced to leave their camps. Does anyone even think of where these families will go in this bitter cold.

In another part of India, legislators are off on a study tour! They will visit exotic locations, view exotic dances and partake of exotic meals. Their programme does not seem like a study tour at all more like an R & R with lots of shopping thrown in. Apparently each legislator has the right to 2 such study tours during his/her tenure, all paid by the tax payer. One legislator stated the following: We are not committing a big crime…don’t you send school children on vacation..similarly MPs and MLAs are being sent through the legislature committees…. Yes dear Sir, we sent children on vacation but we pay for their trip! Another legislator who is on a ‘study’ trip to Australia stated that they were meant to go to Japan, but Japan was ‘to chilly’ hence they decided to cross the Equator to warmer pastures. Mind boggling is it not! Seems like the public outrage that has followed this news has made the Chief Minister put all trips on hold.

In Delhi last week 900 person’s homes were left in the cold after their homes were demolished. This in spite of a supreme court order banning demolition during winter months. Many lost everything they possessed. Seems the new Government in the city has promised relief. Let us hope it comes in time.

I guess it is just not the politicians or bureaucrats who has lost their conscience, compassion and empathy. It is said to be the coldest December in 10 years. There are over 50000 homeless in delhi, children, women and elderly people. They are not INVISIBLE. They often huddle under flyovers we go by with the eyes of our heart tight shut. Maybe it is time we opened our eyes and did something. A blanket, a hot meal, a cup of tea, anything to ease the horror of the cold nights these people have to face.

I love Utpal’s new school. It is a school after my heart, the kind I would like every child born in India to go to. The first time I visited the school I felt an immediate empathy as you see the Principal is a daughter fulfilling her parent’s dream! But that is far from being the only reason.

When things became out of control in his old school, I had to do something. I suddenly felt transposed to the terrible night way back in 2006 when I scoured the Internet in search of a boarding school for 4 year Utpal. Not easy but I did find one and he spent 8 years in that school. It worked well in initial days when he was still what many would call a baby, younger than what Agastya today. Bu then things did not turn right as grew and understood his reality in bits and pieces and poor child, coped as best he could. He had to deal with the disappearance of his mom, the constant bullying about his scars and a very depleted emotional bank that could only be filled when he was home with us. Things got from bad to worse and the once enabling environment became a depleting one. When all our interventions failed, Utpal auto mutilated himself, thankfully with a blunt metal ruler. It was time to move on.

Another search on the Internet, undoubtedly guided by Utpal’s Angel, helped me find a new school immediately. Utpal, the eternal survivor, took to his new school like a fish to water and once again was to the manor born. The credit goes to his school as much as to him.

There are some very special and probably invisible and intangible elements in his new school. First and foremost in my opinion is the fact that all the children of the school staff from the lowest to the highest have to study in the school as the Founder felt that if anyone thought the school not to be ‘good enough’ for her/his kids then s/he could not give it their best. So the one who cooks, cleans, watches, drives, supervises and teaches ultimately cooks, cleans, watches,  drives, supervises and teaches his/her own child and you always do your best for your child. But that is not all, this non negotiable rule also ensures that children from all walks of life learn together and is thus as close as one can get to my dream school which is the neighbourhood school where children from all walks of life learn under the same roof and bond ties they never would have otherwise. This is a true case of my driver’s kid sharing a bench with my kid, something that is still anathema to many.

The other aspect of this school is that there are kids from across India and some from other countries too! This is a true celebration of diversity.

But the real litmus test of any school, is its ability to highlight the plus points of each child and work on the weaker ones without demeaning the child in anyway. The stunning proof of this is the fact that though Utpal was barely two months in the school which has almost 2000 children, he was part of the Annual Day celebrations where he showcased his skating skills. Need I say more! I am sure that in days to come he will improve in his studies and gain fluency in English. It is only a matter of time.

I have attended two PTMs in this school. The first was barely a few days after Utpal joined. I was overwhelmed to hear his class teacher say that he was an intelligent child, very creative and very polite. In the next PTM, his grades were not bad and again his teacher was full of positive comments. In a short time the school was able to understand the child and work towards boosting his self esteem. The school also has a lovely counsellor who has understood Utpal’s problems.

There are many other things that I have found very impressive in this school: staff quarters are interspersed across the campus so children are always close to adults; the meals that I have share twice are well balanced and varied; children have many sports and physical activities and thus are out in the open for extended period of times.

I hope and pray that Utpal blooms in this school and fulfils both his and my dreams.