Dear Nida,
Thank you for your lovely mail and of course you can call me Anu!
I chose to answer your mail in this weblog, because much of what I would like to write to you, is what I would like to say to the young women of a land I love with deep passion. I must confess that sometimes I feel very defeated when I see the youth of today, and wonder where, we as parents have gone wrong.
To read that I have inspired you is not only humbling but a vindication of my deep seeded belief that everyone has a heart, maybe we just have forgotten the way to it. I am sure that everyone of you has the potential to make a difference, we just have not been able to show you how!
I do not what what motivated you to spend precious holiday time in the dusty and hot lanes of a slum rather; I do not even know what you were looking for.. I just hope you found it, and I do not think I am wrong, in the eyes of Aditya.
I can also see that you are a woman of substance as you were able to catch the essence of my approach. Yes, Nida deep concern without pity. Pity is a word far too often associated with, what in page 3 terms, would be ‘social work’. Yet it is the one thing that ruins it all.
I think we should all feel some reponsibility towards what we think is wrong, and I do not think that anyone would argue with the fact that little Aditya sleeping hungry is wrong or that young Arun having his operation money diverted to pay for funeral rites is wrong, or that a child’ s school fees going to pay the father’s evening tipple is wrong, or that .. and the list is endless..
The time you spent with us at project why must have shown you how little it takes to set things right. And yet it is so difficult to get even the tiniest bit of support.
I hope you will take this message to your friends and help people find the way to their hearts. And I hope that you will continue to be the woman you are, that you will always find the strength in you to do what you think is right, even if all others think differently.
We will miss you… particularly Aditya….
Note: Nida was a volunteer who worked with us during the summer.