Look Around!

Last few days of my life has been a real roller coaster. There are so many reasons for it. But one thing that is prominently sitting in my mind is what I have been working on from the past 5 years. I have started working extensively with the kids in this orphanage from a week now. Kaleido essentially took birth here. To look at the lives of these children from such close quarters, sometimes makes me numb and sometimes the tears that roll down never dries. It’s a mixed feeling, which I am unable to comprehend now. It is very child like to be naughty and mischievous. You and I cannot start throwing stones at each other now, can we? It should be fine to allow kids to be a little mischievous. I believe, it will give them ideas growing up and it would set a stage for a possible innovation; but what kind of growing up? I get confused here. The kids look up to their caretakers with hope. If I have to take that role for these 30 kids who are already inside my heart, I need to ensure that their hope stays alive. 

Things will happen in a way and it has actually happened that they have taken me for granted. I have been going there, playing with them, eating with them, teaching them and also learning from them for past 5 years. Things have never been this way before. I realize now, that these kids have grown and grown quick. It is not a difficult job to raise a board of a non-profit and proclaim social impact. I did carry an ego in this case, where I thought our organization has really impacted a change in the lives of these beautiful children. One thing I failed in realizing is to keep at the good work that was started 5 years back. The second thing was in understanding the ecosystem in which these children grow up. And at this point, I would like to express my utmost gratitude to all the awesome parents out there for building a home for us and looking after us. Imagine, in any normal family today, there are parents (both mother and father mostly), a sibling or two, one grandparent at least if lucky, friends in the street and all the uncles and aunts showering unquantifiable love pulling the cheeks, just to look after a single kid. That’s the current ecosystem more or less for any privileged kid in our country today. Nothing offensive about it, but I enjoyed a perfect upbringing in a similar ecosystem. Now imagine the situation of these 30 children, taken care by 3 wardens. And all these children carry a background, a nightmare that they want to forget. The void in this particular system is so evident. While discussing with a student lately, his tears for the absence of his mother in his life put me in a real fix. Putting myself in that context now, my eyes get filled with tears that struggle to come out and dry. I had a home. These children have an institution. 

The effort was always to look at it like a home. In this effort within myself trying to look at it as a home, I forgot to convert the institution into a home. It is not difficult to change your perception of the place. All you need is a little time that you spend with them, to understand them and get in tune with them. But to change the perception in children that it is their home and not just another institution, not just another school, is the task. I would like to one day in my life, bring all these institutions on a common platform and brainstorm them on this subject. The board with “Children Home” however bold and beautiful will really not help the case of such children. We need to act towards it. 

Yes, education is of utmost importance, discipline undoubtedly, but are we missing out on the main ingredient in the food? Are we maintaining double standards here as responsible citizens? Think about it. We want us and our family to Live and the underprivileged section to just survive. Do we think of our own children that way? How furious we become when somebody tries to give a used t-shirt in a perfect wearable and neat condition to our son or a good looking frock to our daughter. This whole ecosystem of philanthropy and charity especially in an ecosystem including such underprivileged children is actually proving to be detrimental in a way to the lives of the kids themselves. Stuck in a world of managing logistics and resources for the charitable non-profit trusts that have opened up in every corner of the country, are we forgetting the cause itself? Are we building a whole lot of third grade citizens who believe they are good only to a certain limit. It worries me. 

Pubs are fun; malls are boring but still house the multiplex and the Starbucks. All the dates in Café Coffee Day’s and Mc Donalds are of course concretely romantic. The Lalbagh and Cubbon Park offers a more natural atmosphere. All this and more is agreeable. But while we enjoy these, we are doing it with a blind eye. Today i went to the Coffee day in Jayanagar 3rd block on my way back from work. I opened my laptop, had some work to finish and I got onto it immediately. Some good rock music in the background and a nice Irish Coffee to slurp and a decent cookie to munch on. After I was done and went onto do the most essential activity of paying the bill, I saw a 14 year old boy cleaning stuff inside. My enquiries were all responded with fear. The boy is working because he is not getting his stomach filled in his home. The organization allows him to work because for them he is a non-demanding cheap labour. 14 years! I am going to write about it to the company and take it forward. All I would request to those who have still kept on to my post and reached here; our country needs a lot of participation. It is time we act. Look around.