Today’s post is personal. Maybe it is because I am at this very instant faced with a challenge that requires me to take a decision I am weary of taking. I do not know if there is a translation for the french expression ‘ la spirale infernale’. The best would be a ‘vicious circle’ or maybe ‘downward spiral’. I feel like I am at the edge of a precipice and need to make the decision to jump or not. I did start by saying that this post was personal but realise now that nothing in my life is purely personal anymore. From the day I began my pwhy journey, I have been compelled to look beyond the obvious in more ways than one. Nothing is what it seems anymore. I have written many posts on the health and medical situation over the past few years. I have been privy to the state of medical care available to us Indians on both side of the spectrum and did not like what I saw. From quacks to super docs, it is all a matter of extorting as much money as possible from people who are at their most vulnerable. The Hippocratic Oath is well forgotten. Maybe one should revisit it.

Today medicine is the new commercial kid on the block. Just like education! Hospitals look like 7* hotels if you are rich. A well rehearsed sales pitch awaits you when you go to seek help and you get drawn into that downward spiral even if you think you are well prepared. I have seen the game from far many a times. Playing on our desperation, we find ourselves drawn into a vortex from which there is no escape.

I have known many who fell in the trap and got landed with surgeries and other interventions that cost a bomb and were not really needed. The arrival of medical insurances has been a boon for such outrages. My own cousin brother was probably almost DOA, but kept alive and several surgeries performed on him before they finally declared him dead. You would have guessed that the bill amounted to the sum he was injured for!

In 1992 I too fell into this trap though at that time it was not an insurance issue. My father who was in no pain and in good health was taken to a ‘specialist’. This happened on the 30th of October. On the 29 of November he breathed his last. In between these 2 dates complex surgeries that should not have been performed on a 81 year old were done. In medical terms they were successful! I guess this was because he came out of them. For me they stripped him of his dignity. I still wonder if we would have been with us for some more time had we not visited the specialist. My mother refused all conventional treatment. She lived with her dignity intact.

I also know of people who did not fall for the carefully laid trap that includes dramatic scenes worthy of the best playwright. They sought a second opinion from the still honest medical practitioners who unfortunately work in hospitals where it is quasi impossible to get to them unless you have ‘contacts’. In all these cases, people who had been told that they were ‘about to die’ and needed ‘immediate bypass surgeries’ were simply advised a change of lifestyle. They are around and in good health! One of my relatives was kept on a ventilator after a car crash for one month. We all knew in our hearts that he would not make it but fell for the well written scenes that was enacted in front of us every day.

This is not about the poor! Theirs is another story. This is about you and me. And it is not about money.  One would be willing to spend the last dime in one’s pocket if we could get our loved one the right help. But the problem is that one knows that the advise you get is loaded! I am sure there are honest doctors but I do not know where to find them.

I am lucky to have a wonderful GP who is everything a doctor should be. For the past decades he has treated us of all our ailments and donned every specialist cap possible. I prayed that this would continue till we all breathed our last.

That was not to be. Yesterday I was asked to get a second opinion for someone I love the most. It is true that we have been battling with his health issues for some time and not being able to nail the problem. So my doctor asked for the dreaded ‘second’ opinion. Sadly he did not know anyone in the field and gave me some names and numbers. I do not know why, but I did not rush to fix an appointment and did some web search. The results were not great. I do not know why, instinct perhaps, but my mind zoomed back to what happened to papa. My blood ran cold. I found myself at the edge of the precipice that I know would take me down the dreaded spiral from where there is no way up.

What is strange is that though I know the game and thus should not fall for it, I also know that when it comes to a loved one your reason vanishes and your heart takes over. You are sure to make all  the wrong decisions.

I am now at the edge of the cliff, fighting to hold my balance. I will give myself some time to explore possible options and also take hold of myself and not act in haste. Love will have to be harnessed, and reason given all the space it needs. I will not jump in the void without a parachute but develop the wings I need to fly.

So help me God!

You are the best girl in the world said my little grandson when we connected on skype this morning. I guess for him it was simply because Nani gives in to every whim and fancy, buys all the cars and toys, allows extended TV time, bypasses mummy’s diktats and gorges one with chocolates and ice cream! I guess that is what nani’s are made for! But to me these eight words spoken my an innocent child were a much needed sign from the heaven’s above as for the past months now I have been feeling somewhat low and shaky. The reasons are many! First a slew of health issues in my family requiring practically all my time, if not as a poor ersatz of Ms Nightingale busy doling out medication, holding hands or dishing out dollops of TLC, then as wife and mother spending sleepless nights worrying. And to crown it all,  I am joining the bandwagon as it seems that my eyes have developed cataracts. This certainly added to my misery as my eyes are my most prized possessions as they are the ones enabling me to face all obstacles head on! I mean reading and writing are essential to my survival.

I must admit I have been wallowing in unnecessary self pity and once you take that road then it seems to be always a downward ride. I was spiralling out of control and was praying for a sign. And it came this morning through the words of my little Angel. His lovely words were the kick I needed to stop basking in my self pity and look at life with new eyes. The first things that struck me was the fact that though I had, by force majeure, been terribly absent from the pwhy, both physically and mentally, the project was running like a dream. Even funds were sufficient, not needing me to worry constantly, at least for some time. It was as if the Gods were on my side. I am not only referring to the day-to-day running of the project, but my team has successfully handled many visits as well as a successful pilot of a learning programme called SMILE and initiated by Stanford University. And there is more. The ace pwhy team organised 2 cultural programmes for visiting guests and is now preparing yet another for a large expat group. I was happy to learn that workshops on gender issues are also going on as well as preparing for co-educational classes during the summer holidays. Another surprise was the fact that the team on it’s own has organised a partnership with a travel agency to train some of our students in upmarket motorcycle repair, thus fulfilling a cherished dream: that of providing useful vocational skills to students who may not be academically inclined. For all the months when I have been unavailable, my team stood like a silent rock behind me and for that I am eternally grateful. I wonder how I would have survived the past months if I needed to worry about the nitty-gritty of the project.

The best girl also needs to look at the coming time with optimism and realise that physical and other ailments do get resolved if one is walking the right road. I have been doing my best to support those who need me. Here also there is something I had not realised. I could only do so because my ‘health’ was spot on and I had the physical and mental strength to hold on. This is alo a blessing from the heavens above.

I have shared my problems with some close friends, friends that came into my life thanks to pwhy, and they have stood by me through thick and thin, giving me courage and determination to face the future. This is a blessed gift as being an only child and having lived a nomadic life, I never had what is known as childhood friends.

And the fact that my little grandson used the word ‘girl’, I guess means that I have to stop complaining about my age and continue giving my best to one and all, be it my family or my work. So I have no excuse to stop writing or doing what is expected of me to be the ‘best’. Please do not take this as grandstanding, far from that! The use of the word best was a gentle reminder to do what I needed to.

Tomorrow may hold new challenges. Some may be difficult and even trying but what is needed is to give one’s best and accept whatever comes with a grateful smile.

It is said that God speaks through children! I second that with conviction.

Keep your bike in good repair: Motorcycle boots are NOT comfortable for walking. Wonder why I am starting this blog with a biker’s quote? Patience and read on. A few months ago we got a mail from Vintage Rides, an organisation that invites you to discover India on Royal Enfield Bullets. They wanted to partner with us so that they could include a very special part of India in their itinerary: project why! We discussed many options: visits by their clients, wish lists for donations, bike rides for our children and so on. Each was discussed at length but somehow fell short in some way, till we hit the nail on the head: mechanical classes for pwhy students. Vintage Rides has a state of the art facility for bike repairs and we are always on the look out for vocational options for our students, particularly those who are not academically inclined but could and would do wonders if they found their calling. The glove with the hand perfectly. And Jon, who is volunteering with us was our man of the moment!

The introductory class was held this week and this is what Jon had to say: The staff were excellent,treated the kids as equals, they really got into showing the kids how the bikes worked, about the engines and teaching the kids. The students started off having a talk in the boardroom about VR then moved into the workshop, they really enjoyed being able to start some of the fantastic bikes they are customizing for customers all over the world and shown the inside workings of how an engine works, They were then able to get hands on taking an engine apart to be shown how to fix an oil leak, you can see from the photo how keen the students were to learn and did us proud at all times by acting with manners, politeness and enthusiasm  – their eagerness and concentration the whole time they were there was great to see. The session was extended as well because it was going so well and it think bodes well for the future.

I was on cloud nine, and for more reasons that one! Once again, as Jon confirmed, my kids were to the manor born and behaved perfectly throughout the workshop. Then their interest in the workshop, their pertinent questions and concentration proved that this could be an option for them after they complete school with a caveat though as we need to select kids who we feel are not made for higher studies. This bunch was some of our brightest. And then what made my day was the close and equal interaction between what we call the 2 Indias! I must admit that I am always a little apprehensive as I have had some bad experiences. For this I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the Vintage Rides staff and management.

And as  Motorcycle boots are NOT comfortable for walking, a lot of repair work awaits our pwhy kids!

Way to roar!

I was surprised when I heard that young K was going to spend a few days at home. I am always delighted when she is with us as she is a ray of sunshine, but this is school and unit test time so what the hell was she doing! I obviously had to ask what was happening. That is when I first heard of a custom called Chaupadi, practised in Nepal. What I was witnessing was a revised and ‘modernised’ version of this abhorrent custom. The article gives an elaborate description of the horror. In short a woman is considered ‘unclean’ while she is menstruating and is kept in isolation as the gods will be angered and bring ruin upon hapless male members of the family. So she is locked up in a dark hole. Men need to be protected as is always the case.

I do remember some elders in my own family make inane statements like ‘don’t touch the pickle jar‘ as it is believed that it will rot if touched by one who has her period. We were also banished from the prayer room and not taken to Temples. I found this unjust but never raised my voice as my parents, though traditional always sifted the grain from the chaff as far as traditions were concerned, and only taught me what they felt stood to logic and my cartesian mind. I remember telling my father first that I had had my period and we both went out to buy me a gift. I was 10!

This terrible custom does not stand to any logic, however warped. Menstruation is part of the normal growth of girl and needs to be celebrated just like you celebrate the first word, the first step, the first day at school and many more firsts. How illogical it is to consider the very essence of creation as something dirty! Having your first period is traumatic for any child. That is when she needs love, affection, help, care, tenderness and above all the presence of her family. Imagine how she feels when she is sent to the cowshed in the village or to strangers home in the city! Once upon a time this isolation was considered as ‘forced rest’ and could have made some sense if the woman was well looked after, but now she is still meant to work. As one woman says: if I can feed the cow when having my periods, why can’t I drink its milk? If I can collect firewood for the kitchen, why can’t I cook? If I touch a plant, it will die they say, then why am allowed to breast-feed in the chaupadi? This is absurd.

The watered down version that I am seeing today is incomprehensible. The young girl will continue to go to school and carry on with her life but cannot see any male member of her family for the next 7 days! Blissfully in this version this is only for the first cycle.

My curiosity compelled me to find out the origin of this Hindu practice and thanks to the WWW and Google this is what I found: According to religious folklore, Indra, the King of Heaven was accused of killing a Brahmin and because of the illicit acts with women that Indra committed during his quest to redeem his sin, for these acts all women were said to be punished through menstruation. So if I get it right, a God goes philandering and it is all women, including you and me, who are punished and tormented. Hey that is a good one for explaining all the rape and abuse against women. You are being raped because Indra went astray!

This practice has landed in our city because of the large number of migrants from the region where it is the most prevalent. Urban existence has compelled families to revisit the custom and contain it to the first cycle only. But that is probably the worst ‘modernisation’ you could have come up with.The first cycle is when a girl is still a child and when she needs maximum support. You cannot lock her away or send her to strangers. And how can you think that a menstruating child’s touch can  hurt the males of the family! What she needs most is a hug from her father. That is what I got.

To be continued

Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime wrote Herbert Ward. Most of us do not understand this has we have never been abused. But this is the harsh reality, one I have witnessed myself. The medias have shifted gear. There seems to be a surplus of meaty stories. And with elections around the corner, the politicians will hog all the space. The horror of abuse of little girls cannot compete with scams, political quibbling and all kind of breaking news. Yet children continue to be abused as we carry on life as we know it. Yesterday evening at 7.45, as we were maybe sipping our sundowner, watching TV or otherwise engaged,  the little five year old who had been brutally raped 12  days ago and was fighting for her life in  a Nagpur hospital breathed her last and gently passed away without fuss. We will never know what went on in her tiny and innocent mind for those long 12 days and 12 nights. She will be mourned by her loved ones but they too will have to move on as the game of survival the poor in our country are compelled to play does not allow you the luxury to grieve for long. She might make a few headlines, spark off some protest but then she will become a statistic to be added to the horrifying number of children abused in our country: 48 838 is the official number of children raped in India in the last ten years. These are the reported cases. You can easily multiply the figure by four. And if you add the children groped, molested, fondled and assaulted within their homes, then the figure is staggering. Yet we keep criminally mute.

If you have the strength to read what child abuse is all about then I urge you to read this article. I know it is not easy but do to read it, just to honour the little girl who passed away yesterday because of our indifference. You cannot begin to imagine the horror a child goes through because of us , adults. I use ‘us’ responsibly because we are collectively responsible. I know many of you will not read this article in its entirety. I had to brace myself to do so. Allow me to just reproduce one story before we go further.

To begin with, hear the story of one child. On 17 December 2012 — just one day after the gangrape of a young paramedic in New Delhi shook the world — a three-and-a-half-year old baby girl returned from school with her clothes streaked with vomit and blood.

Her father, Gagan Sharma (name changed), had moved from Kolkata to a slum in west Delhi in 2003 in search of a better life. The little girl had been listless and reluctant to go to school for weeks. Now, when her mother asked her what had happened, she told the story haltingly, riven by fear.

She spoke of a bald man — the principal’s husband — who had threatened to hang her from a ceiling fan if she dared to open her mouth. She spoke of how he had taken her to the bathroom, made her lie down, and inserted his penis and fingers into her vagina and her anus, blaring music in his room to drown any noise. She spoke of how he had done this to her many times before, forcing her to keep quiet by saying terrible things would happen to her parents if she talked about it.

The girl’s mouth was full of ulcers from a drug the alleged perpetrator — a man called Pramod Malik — had forced her to take to render her unconscious while he raped her.

The fact of the rape is horrific enough. Here’s what came after. According to the parents, it took them 12 hours at the police station to get an FIR registered. They were taunted by a woman sub-inspector for living in a colony of “disrepute”; their own reputation was questioned; the little girl was asked to recount her story in front of three policemen. The woman sub-inspector prefaced the inquiry by telling the little girl: “Tell the truth or insects will crawl all over you and your mother and father will be beaten.”

Despite these threats, the little girl repeated her story exactly as she had told it to her parents. In the magistrate’s court, she was challenged again. She told her story again. The medical examiner, however, ruled out rape and left the report vague. The headmaster was let out on bail on 28 February. On the other hand, Gagan Sharma’s landlord asked him and his family to leave. They are still struggling with the case.

This is not just a narrative of a rape. Every line screams of horror, injustice and pain. First the age of the child: three and a half year old. Take a moment to stop and things of the children of that age you know and love: your own child, your grandchild, your niece or perhaps your neighbour. She is just a baby, someone to be loved, protected, cared for but not to be viewed as a means to satisfy your sexual need! She is just a child whose life till that horrific moment was filled with thoughts of toys, goodies and chocolates, swings and rids, and joy and laughter. And then suddenly a change in mood, a fear she cannot convey, a scream that remains stuck in her tiny throat for weeks. She does not want to go to school. But school is where she is meant to be safe, it is meant to be a happy place. Is it not the preferred space we all want to send our tiny ones to? And then one day the screams breaks the barrier of imposed silence and mutates into halting words impregnated with fear. She recounts the horror she has been subjected to, the pain, the incomprehension, the threats and names the perpetrator. It is not a stranger but the Principal’s husband! 

In any civilised society one would want to believe that from this moment the child would be safe and not subjected to any more humiliation and indignity. But there is more, much more. The child has to relieve the nightmare again and again and tell her ‘story’ to insensitive police officials, even a women who tell her to Tell the truth or insects will crawl all over you and your mother and father will be beaten. She has to relieve the horror again in front of a magistrate.

The end of the matter was that the medical examiner ruled out rape! How could he do that when the child had described as graphically as a three year old can do the acts perpetrated by the man. The main is out on bail. And her parents have been thrown out of their home by their landlord, their reputation sullied. I do not know what logic works here. I am speechless and seething.

The equation is skewed. It is not a case of 1 victim and 1 perpetrator. It is the a matter of one tiny victim   just three and a half and a slew of perpetrators: the rapist, his wife under whose watch this happened, the police and their taunts, the medical examiner whose report is shocking, the magistrate whose understanding of rape is beyond one’s understanding and last of all the community who as always lands  up blaming the victim. How can a child be heard.

I can only quote Heather Mc Claine’s words when she says The only reason why child abuse is alive today, is because we as adults fail our children when we fail to listen to them. Listen to a child today!

There are several more stories like this one in the mentioned article. 

The reason of this post goes further. The rape of these little girls is abhorrent. One has to have a sick mind to think otherwise. But there is another from of sexual assault that happens every minute within the walls of homes of all strata of society, assaults that are never or rarely reported as the equation is again skewed: one girl versus family honour and the equation is again skewed. What chance does the girl stand and as sometimes it is not rape in the legal definition – penetration- it is often poo poohed away by the elder one goes to for help. What many do not understand is that child sexual abuse is NOT  only intercourse. Even a single instance of groping by someone you trust is sufficient to scar a child for life. The incident takes on the form of a predator that lives for ever in some dark recess of the survivor’s soul and raises its ugly and monstrous head at the least expected moment, often when the survivor feels she has healed and wants to live a normal life, or when she dares to dream. The beast is a hydra headed one and can take many shapes: an unexplained illness, a sombre mood, anything to ensure that the survivor does take that one step that would spell release and freedom.

Many of us do not know that. There was a time when I too did not. But this is the raw and stark reality faced by a child sexual abuse survivor simply because a trusting adult broke the trust in a vile and reprehensible way.

The survivor is scarred for ever. As a survivor who was raped at the age of 16 and could not remember the faces of those who violated her:“All I remember from that night is a smell” . A smell that impregnates every part of her memory forever.

An SMS this morning from my husband read: I believe you are in the papers today. Congrats! The husband is presently outside India and I wondered how this news had reached him? Some friend I guess. My first reaction was to send him an SMS back asking: good or bad? Good was the reply. I heaved a sigh of relief. It has been a long time since the media came a visiting! Wonder where this came from. A bit of sleuthing around and it transpired that a local tabloid run by a known media group had decided to publish an anniversary special entitled making a difference and honouring fifty individuals who had in their opinion made a difference. I am one of them. I must admit that no one came to visit, but I know remember a phone call from a journo who had once visited us asking me what was new. I must have given her some information. The result: a mishmash of what has been written over and over again with some new elements provided on a phone. The only ray of light was that Manu was mentioned and thus his existence acknowledge in true spirit. I can never forget the debt I owe him. I dedicate this to him!

The article does not say much that is not known. I guess I must feel honoured and humbled to have been selected as one of the 50! I am, undoubtedly. But what caught my attention was the title the journalist had chosen: The constant questioner? Of all things written that was the only words that were relevant. Those three almost innocuous words brought me back to earth. No statistics or successes would ever be enough to allow me to sit back and say: job well done! There is still so much to do. If the mission as it his stated in the article is to provide basic human rights to children in slums, then I have far from succeeded. True the handful or even fistful of children that have realised their dreams because of our presence is a step in the right direction as a constant questioner time has perhaps to look beyond   school success and job skills, to the stark and brutal reality that hits us in the face every single day. This weeks magazines bring to fore the question of safety of our little children in slums. A tiny soul was found brutalised and is now fighting for her life. She had simply gone to the toilet. She lies in the same hospital where a another brutalised child is recovering. I wonder who will heal the scars on their soul.  Another magazine reports on the rampant sexual abuse of children in India. The article is one that we should all read and hang our heads in shame. Imagine 48,838 children raped in just 10 years. Imagine what it means when you are told this staggering figure — which is a National Crimes Record Bureau statistic — is possibly only 25 percent of the actual child rapes going on in the country. And that only 3 percent — a mere 3 percent — of these make it to the police. Imagine what it means when you are told child rapes have seen a chilling 336 percent jump from 2001 to 2011.

Looks like the questionner has to kick herself out of her comfort zone where school results and news of good employment, interspersed with some life saving surgery seem to be enough for a pat on the back. That she should stop complaining about her age, creaking bones and dwindling eye sight and taken the deafening whys that can be heard by one and all. Any self respecting human being who professes to work for children in India cannot afford to stop, not till her last breath.

So help me God!

If you want to read the article, here it is: