Perspective
Pratham
5:48:00 PM
A Painting by one of the boys at the PCVC Boys' Shelter in Mumbai
Thursday, August 27, 2009
My Nabi Karim Experience
Pratham
1:28:00 PM
These two words changed my life and perspective on the issue of child labour.
The situation in Nabi Karim drives me CRAZY
C - I am Convinced that children should not work. Not that I wasn't before but now the conviction has become stronger.
R - Its Reinforced in my mind that child labour is the most inhumane practice and that I am working for the right cause. Even if they are poor, its not an option.
A - I was and I continue to be Angry on everybody who is responsible for the situation these children are in. I am Anxious to know if these children will ever be free.
Z - I was Zapped to see a 9 year old boy whose name was 'Aazad' and a 6 years old 'Tammana'. Their names were ironical to the situation they were in.
Y - The big question is Y? This situation exists in the national capital where almost everybody works on child labour. The old saga of crisis of collaboration between NGOs and the governmental departments continue.
I could not sleep for two nights when we were conducting the need assessment in Nabi Karim. Whenever I closed my eyes, the images of the lanes, the sounds of sewing machines, the face of 'Aazad' and many of his friends continued to haunt me. I kept thinking what would Aazad be doing, will he be sleeping or still up working? I was so restless that I just could not sleep. There were a lot of questions in my mind. I discussed it with my seniors but some questions just did not have any answers.
I woke up at 3am and started penning down my feelings and the findings of the need assessment. It was 6.20pm by the time I was through; the findings remained but the feelings had vanished from the report. I remember one of my senior colleagues telling me...don't make an emotional appeal....just give out the facts. But the biggest fact remained that overtly and in broad daylight, in the heart of the country's capital, in the consituency of the Hon. HRD Minister who was instrumental in passing the right to education bill, there are hundreds of children rotting in leather factories. I failed to understand how one cannot but get emotional.
When the Drop-in centre began on 15th Aug, it was a mere coincidence. It was the first step towards the aazadi of 'Aazad' on the 62nd Independence Day. I was elated at the sight of the children coming in to the centre. To watch them play with a ball or carom board was extremely blissful; they wanted to be in the centre and to play. The faces of all the shelter children in Mumbai and Andhra Pradesh crossed my mind. I thought they would also have been in the same situation once upon a time....but today their lives are changed. 15 minutes later, the children started leaving. My heart sank...they were going back to that hell.
"Abba, main padna chahta hoon". When i read the first sentence of the letter by Anwar Ali to his father, i had tears in my eyes. Its shameful that a child in this country has to plead for his right to be educated. It once again put things in perspective. His next line on the lack of water and food in Nabi Karim hit me the most. I feel that all those people who say...don't rescue children because there is no proper rehabilitation, bad education system, they are better off working or that Bihar is so poor they would continue to work etc etc....these people should be made to work in Nabi Karim for a month. This would help them understand the situation better.
Nabi Karim was and continues to be an unfinished business for me. This experience took me 4 years back to my past when I had decided to quit microbiology and join social work. There was anger, frustration and a fire to be the change. Today, exactly years later I still feel the same. It will take a long time, but i want to make sure that Aazad is freed one day. Then I can finally write a report titled "Goodbye to the Lanes of Nabi Karim".
Uma Subramanian
The situation in Nabi Karim drives me CRAZY
C - I am Convinced that children should not work. Not that I wasn't before but now the conviction has become stronger.
R - Its Reinforced in my mind that child labour is the most inhumane practice and that I am working for the right cause. Even if they are poor, its not an option.
A - I was and I continue to be Angry on everybody who is responsible for the situation these children are in. I am Anxious to know if these children will ever be free.
Z - I was Zapped to see a 9 year old boy whose name was 'Aazad' and a 6 years old 'Tammana'. Their names were ironical to the situation they were in.
Y - The big question is Y? This situation exists in the national capital where almost everybody works on child labour. The old saga of crisis of collaboration between NGOs and the governmental departments continue.
I could not sleep for two nights when we were conducting the need assessment in Nabi Karim. Whenever I closed my eyes, the images of the lanes, the sounds of sewing machines, the face of 'Aazad' and many of his friends continued to haunt me. I kept thinking what would Aazad be doing, will he be sleeping or still up working? I was so restless that I just could not sleep. There were a lot of questions in my mind. I discussed it with my seniors but some questions just did not have any answers.
I woke up at 3am and started penning down my feelings and the findings of the need assessment. It was 6.20pm by the time I was through; the findings remained but the feelings had vanished from the report. I remember one of my senior colleagues telling me...don't make an emotional appeal....just give out the facts. But the biggest fact remained that overtly and in broad daylight, in the heart of the country's capital, in the consituency of the Hon. HRD Minister who was instrumental in passing the right to education bill, there are hundreds of children rotting in leather factories. I failed to understand how one cannot but get emotional.
When the Drop-in centre began on 15th Aug, it was a mere coincidence. It was the first step towards the aazadi of 'Aazad' on the 62nd Independence Day. I was elated at the sight of the children coming in to the centre. To watch them play with a ball or carom board was extremely blissful; they wanted to be in the centre and to play. The faces of all the shelter children in Mumbai and Andhra Pradesh crossed my mind. I thought they would also have been in the same situation once upon a time....but today their lives are changed. 15 minutes later, the children started leaving. My heart sank...they were going back to that hell.
"Abba, main padna chahta hoon". When i read the first sentence of the letter by Anwar Ali to his father, i had tears in my eyes. Its shameful that a child in this country has to plead for his right to be educated. It once again put things in perspective. His next line on the lack of water and food in Nabi Karim hit me the most. I feel that all those people who say...don't rescue children because there is no proper rehabilitation, bad education system, they are better off working or that Bihar is so poor they would continue to work etc etc....these people should be made to work in Nabi Karim for a month. This would help them understand the situation better.
Nabi Karim was and continues to be an unfinished business for me. This experience took me 4 years back to my past when I had decided to quit microbiology and join social work. There was anger, frustration and a fire to be the change. Today, exactly years later I still feel the same. It will take a long time, but i want to make sure that Aazad is freed one day. Then I can finally write a report titled "Goodbye to the Lanes of Nabi Karim".
Uma Subramanian
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
A Close Encounter
Pratham
12:45:00 PM
It was late by the time we could leave. The printer had just finished the final print of the materials we needed. Books, charts, reports and other things too had to be loaded. There were cartons, boxes and sacks. One by one these packages were loaded on to the carrier of the vehicle. Although it had not rained all day, there were clouds in the sky. It could rain at any time. The luggage on top was covered with tarpaulin and tied tightly. All this took time. Finally we were ready. Five young men from the Assam team, a mountain of luggage, the driver and me. It was almost ten at night as we left Guwahati.
The night was going to be a long one. We had to cover almost 500 km to our destination. The new Pratham District Resource Centre for Assam is between Dibrugarh and Tinsukia. The training for DRC evaluation was to start the next morning. The trainers, the state head, the DRC coordinator, two other district coordinators, all the testing tools and instruction sheets – everything had to reach Dibrugarh by the morning in time for the training to start.
Getting out of Guwahati is a nightmare. The trucks are allowed to move out of the city only at night. As a result, a massive number of trucks clog the winding hill road near Khanapara. There is road construction going on to widen the road. Rain from the day before had turned the entire area into a sea of slush. There was a constant roar of truck engines and sound of spinning tyres splashing through the mud filled potholes. Exhaust fumes, smoke and smell of petrol and diesel filled the air.
Through all this noise, we heard a strange straining noise from the top of the car. The driver put his hand out of to feel the carrier above. It seemed that the carrier had slid forward and buckled under the weight of the luggage. We could not stop, even to check till we were well out of the jam of the city.
Thirty kilometers out of Guwahati, in a stretch where the highway widened, we stopped. The driver’s door could not open. Neither could the door of the front passenger seat. The pieces of metal that held the carrier to the car body had bent down and slid to jam the door frame. With some difficulty we got out. The sky was cloudy but the moon was shining brightly (it was the night after Rakhi Poornima). Despite the constant roar of passing trucks, there was a quick discussion of what was to be done. The final decision was to take down all the packages and re-pack the load.
The process of repacking began. Three people climbed on the top of the Sumo. The carefully tied tarpaulin was untied. Boxes and sacks were handed down. One sack had certificates and ASER reports. These were taken out and arranged like blocks to raise the base of the carrier. Everyone was joking and laughing. Someone said, “See how strong paper can be – it can bend steel”.
Just then a police van went past. It passed us and then stopped. The doors of the van opened. Five or six policeman with big torches and weapons came towards us. Our team did not stop working but I noticed that everyone had become silent.
“Who are you? Where are you going?” asked the first policeman who reached us. In the middle of the night, well outside the city with five young men and a mountain of cartons and with a long history of insurgency and violence – the answer “We are an NGO” seemed weak and unconvincing even to my own ears. The policemen questioned some more. “We work in education – so that children can go to school and learn well”. The chief policeman had been watching the process of re-loading. “Are these all books?” he asked. Abhijit began to explain how important it was that all children learned to read and the need for supplementary reading materials for children.[1]
The chief policeman thought for some time. The headlights from passing trucks sporadically illuminated the scene. The moon slipped in and out of the clouds. Everyone was holding their breath wondering what was going to happen next. The policeman then said, “Since you people are in education, I must ask you a question. Do you think matric exams should be abolished?”
For the next forty five minutes, there was an intense discussion about the importance and the role of matric exams in the life of families and children. How aspirations are tied to exam performance. How much people remember who came first which year. What will children strive for if the exams are removed? The other policemen had lost interest and wandered back to their van.
The policeman continued. “DGP of Police of Assam he came first in his matric exams in 1982. I still remember thinking that this boy will go far. Every year I read in the paper about who has come first and who has come second and from which district. That is how we come to know where the schools are good. Abhijit tried to bring the conversation around to the new bill that had been passed in Parliament a few days ago. But our policeman was not interested in abstract things. He went back to his concrete concern. “I feel proud for these children who are doing well. We wait each year about how the children we know are doing”…. “Kapil Sibal? He has come from a high court or Supreme Court. Can he understand common concerns of common (“sadharon”) people?”
Our luggage had been repacked and our work was done. We hesitantly took leave of our policeman. He seemed sad to see us go. The gentleman thanked us profusely. “You all are educationists, I am a common man. Thank you for listening to my views.”
By morning we had reached Dibrugarh. All along the way, on foot and on cycles there were groups of young girls and boys on their way to high school. Looking at the laughing chatting young people I wondered if behind each of these children, there is someone who stays up till midnight worrying about policies made in Delhi.
Rukmini Banerji
August 9 2009
The night was going to be a long one. We had to cover almost 500 km to our destination. The new Pratham District Resource Centre for Assam is between Dibrugarh and Tinsukia. The training for DRC evaluation was to start the next morning. The trainers, the state head, the DRC coordinator, two other district coordinators, all the testing tools and instruction sheets – everything had to reach Dibrugarh by the morning in time for the training to start.
Getting out of Guwahati is a nightmare. The trucks are allowed to move out of the city only at night. As a result, a massive number of trucks clog the winding hill road near Khanapara. There is road construction going on to widen the road. Rain from the day before had turned the entire area into a sea of slush. There was a constant roar of truck engines and sound of spinning tyres splashing through the mud filled potholes. Exhaust fumes, smoke and smell of petrol and diesel filled the air.
Through all this noise, we heard a strange straining noise from the top of the car. The driver put his hand out of to feel the carrier above. It seemed that the carrier had slid forward and buckled under the weight of the luggage. We could not stop, even to check till we were well out of the jam of the city.
Thirty kilometers out of Guwahati, in a stretch where the highway widened, we stopped. The driver’s door could not open. Neither could the door of the front passenger seat. The pieces of metal that held the carrier to the car body had bent down and slid to jam the door frame. With some difficulty we got out. The sky was cloudy but the moon was shining brightly (it was the night after Rakhi Poornima). Despite the constant roar of passing trucks, there was a quick discussion of what was to be done. The final decision was to take down all the packages and re-pack the load.
The process of repacking began. Three people climbed on the top of the Sumo. The carefully tied tarpaulin was untied. Boxes and sacks were handed down. One sack had certificates and ASER reports. These were taken out and arranged like blocks to raise the base of the carrier. Everyone was joking and laughing. Someone said, “See how strong paper can be – it can bend steel”.
Just then a police van went past. It passed us and then stopped. The doors of the van opened. Five or six policeman with big torches and weapons came towards us. Our team did not stop working but I noticed that everyone had become silent.
“Who are you? Where are you going?” asked the first policeman who reached us. In the middle of the night, well outside the city with five young men and a mountain of cartons and with a long history of insurgency and violence – the answer “We are an NGO” seemed weak and unconvincing even to my own ears. The policemen questioned some more. “We work in education – so that children can go to school and learn well”. The chief policeman had been watching the process of re-loading. “Are these all books?” he asked. Abhijit began to explain how important it was that all children learned to read and the need for supplementary reading materials for children.[1]
The chief policeman thought for some time. The headlights from passing trucks sporadically illuminated the scene. The moon slipped in and out of the clouds. Everyone was holding their breath wondering what was going to happen next. The policeman then said, “Since you people are in education, I must ask you a question. Do you think matric exams should be abolished?”
For the next forty five minutes, there was an intense discussion about the importance and the role of matric exams in the life of families and children. How aspirations are tied to exam performance. How much people remember who came first which year. What will children strive for if the exams are removed? The other policemen had lost interest and wandered back to their van.
The policeman continued. “DGP of Police of Assam he came first in his matric exams in 1982. I still remember thinking that this boy will go far. Every year I read in the paper about who has come first and who has come second and from which district. That is how we come to know where the schools are good. Abhijit tried to bring the conversation around to the new bill that had been passed in Parliament a few days ago. But our policeman was not interested in abstract things. He went back to his concrete concern. “I feel proud for these children who are doing well. We wait each year about how the children we know are doing”…. “Kapil Sibal? He has come from a high court or Supreme Court. Can he understand common concerns of common (“sadharon”) people?”
Our luggage had been repacked and our work was done. We hesitantly took leave of our policeman. He seemed sad to see us go. The gentleman thanked us profusely. “You all are educationists, I am a common man. Thank you for listening to my views.”
By morning we had reached Dibrugarh. All along the way, on foot and on cycles there were groups of young girls and boys on their way to high school. Looking at the laughing chatting young people I wondered if behind each of these children, there is someone who stays up till midnight worrying about policies made in Delhi.
Rukmini Banerji
August 9 2009
