Help for the street kids

I pass by University Chowk flyover each day in my car on the way home. There are some families how live under the flyover with their kids, and little ones.

Yesterday amidst the usual traffic jam there, I saw a touching sight. I saw a young couple surrounded by their few belongings, talking about something animatedly. There was a lean young man sitting a few feet away from them with a baby, about 1 year old, on his lap. The baby was wearing a shirt with a few buttons missing. The man was feeding the baby mixed dal-rice from a plastic bag. Some grains were falling over as the baby was distracted by all those cars stuck in traffic just a few feet away. I was touched looking at the scene. Where did the dad get the mixed dal-rice from? Was it sufficient for the baby and the dad both? Wasn't it too cold for the baby to be clothed so minimally?

There are many such families under that bridge alone. What have the kids done to deserve a life so cruel? Just because they were born in a poor family?! Does that mean they do not deserve to be kept warm? Fed right? Vaccinated? Educated so that they get an equal chance in our world too? Can they? Because I'm sure that there would be at least a few brilliant kids there, who would never see a school.

As much as we educated people think otherwise, these people don't get the same opportunities. We try to pacify our minds by saying that government is doing a lot for the poor, that poor don't want to take pains to educate themselves, they don't want to develop new skills, but is that true? Do these street kids know what schemes there are? Where they are? Whether they are eligible? Do their parents know the importance of such welfare schemes? Does someone convince the parents to take advantage of such schemes?
I do not think so.

Some people I know cannot even take advantage of the RTE act by the government where schools are supposed to reserve a certain percentage of their seats for underprivileged students. Schools don't want to do it because they can't get full aid for these kids from the government. Parents of well-to-do kids do not want their kids to mingle with underprivileged kids. School teachers see lifestyle parity within such students and are not able to teach the class fairly! I read some time back that there were ridiculous issues like going to a picnic in such schools where poorer kids cannot afford to go and it creates a problem for the school. Other issues include fancy stationary and study material! Lots of schools in Pune itself do not want to implement RTE act at all!

The most critical thing is the eligibility. Parents have to have certain certificates to prove they are residents in the area to send their kids to schools. Many such people (even those staying in the area for years) do not have these certificates, so it is a futile case for people who are homeless or are migrant labourers.

I thank my luck each day, 'cause my parents were able to afford my education and help me stand on my feet. But it shouldn't mean that I look away from needy people. Looking away doesn't make them go away. Looking away wouldn't make me feel better. Insensitivity is not a great talent to be acquired or developed.

I am going to extend my help to these kids in some way. I know that just 'Pity' won't help them, but I could. 
 

Guilt and the 80-20 principle

Early Morning.
Finished cooking, packed lunch boxes.
Y went to office early. Gets pickup from a colleague these days.
Getting ready for office.
Need to drop Arya to school.
Need to get him ready.
Arya insists going to potty the same time I have to have a bath!
Does timepass in washroom.
Wastes half an hour doing nothing.
Gets scolded.
I hold him by the shoulders and shake him. (somehow I didn't beat him)
He cries.
I feel guilty for losing cool and I too cry.
Feeling guilty now in office.
Crying so much makes me breathless for rest of the day.
Missing him so much.
Want to go back in time and redo things since morning.
Waiting for the evening.

Need to choose which battles to fight, using the 80-20 principle.
 

Arya's second birthday celebration!

He is two already! Every mom wants to see her son grow up quick and I do too, but I already miss the time when he was a baby that would fit in my arms while I rocked him. But his latest gimmicks come ahead each day and I love him even more!

This time decided to do the celebrations on a smaller scale. I had to invite the women in my apartment complex who had invited me earlier and a few who are really friendly. Plus some kids nearby and my immediate family of 10 people! All in all, we had about 15 elders and 14 kids.

Us
 

My mom, sister and her daughters with
Arya

Arya with his cousin Pranjal

We had decorated the entire house with cartoons and stars and balloons. Yea, most of the stuff was leftover or salvaged stuff from Arya's last birthday celebration. I can be a spendthrift if I wanted to! His happy birthday banner was last year's too. It doesn’t have a number on it so it is reusable. There were happy b’day caps too.

Chhota Bheem cake!

Arya secretly eating the cake!

The cake was bought ad-hoc without any pre-booking. It was a 1.3 kg chocolate cake with Chhota Bheem on it, so Arya immediately fell in love with it and started dipping is fingers in the icing. Chhota Bheem is a craze with the kids.


Last year during Nivedita’s daughter's birthday she had organized a game that involved both kids and adults. I decided to do it too since it could be played with kids of any age group.

Colored balls in the bag...



Pranjal doing her try

I took a red cloth bag and put few multi-coloured plastic balls in it. (It was a red satin bag with a golden lace at the borders. I had got fancy shoes in it from Dadar, Mumbai about 6 years back!) Each kid would come forward and announce what colour ball he/she wanted from it. The kid would then close his/her eyes and draw a ball. If the ball is of the same colour as announced, the kid would get two Cadbury chocolates, else just one. One chocolate for the loser was a must if I didn’t want crying children in the party!

One of the moms said that she wanted to try it out too. So I had another round for the mommies! This time the losing moms didn’t get anything! I had to make up for the lack of chocolates.

The fun part was when Pranjal (Namita’s daughter and Arya’s cousin) walked to me during the game, and said that she wants to play too. She had a try an d was really sad that she didn’t get the right ball. I gave her a chocolate anyway. Sejal, her sister, directly went to the box and took her chocolate without bothering with the formalities.

Arya came next and took a ball. Everyone clapped because he was the smallest of the gang. Arya began looking at the audience and started clapping (I’m guessing that this kid is won’t have stage fear). He didn’t bother to see if the ball was correct or not and directly grabbed his chocolate. Again he waited for a moment for everyone to clap.

Dinner time!

I dropped my plan to make pav-bhaji and hired a caterer we know. The menu was simple pulav, chhole, gulab jamun, puris, and salad, apart from wafers, chocolates and cake.

Kids got apple shaped lunch plates as return gifts! And Arya got a cupboard for himself from Namita maushi, Mega Blocks wagon with building blocks from Asmita maushi, a bicycle from grandparents and parents, and lots of other gifts!

My new Bike!



New cupboard for my stuff!

 

Thoughts and Traffic

Yogesh comes to pick me up from office at Kothrud to home in Wakad. (I just love him for this.) It is a 14 km and a 45 min journey that gets boring and routine most of the time. I keep asking him, "Ghar kadhi yenar?" ("When will we reach?"). And he replies 10 mins just for the sake of it, even though it is about 30 mins away.

There is traffic with dense black fumes coming out of PMT-PCMC buses and 6 seater rickshaws. (Seriously guys, don’t the pollution rules apply to public transport???). And I feel sorry for the kids begging at the signals or some poor homeless man sitting at a pavement with just 1 cloth bag full of god-knows-what as is sole possession. Sometimes I get anxious when I see little school/high school kids crossing the busy roads chatting with their friends, paying little heed to the speeding vehicles. Dunno how I am going to let Arya go to school on his own, ever! And then there is tree-felling going on all around for some road widening work. I plunge into thoughts all over again.

Yogesh weaves his way out from all this mess. Poor guy. Sometimes I think he knows that I am pondering over such seemingly petty things, and hence tries to distract me by talking about Arya, a guaranteed mood up-lifter for me.

These days I try to find some silver lining in such cloudy mess. Just to uplift my spirits and carry on like any other sensitive but lazy-to-change-anything person.

Few days back when I was on Senapati-Bapat road, I saw many trees on the road-divider. PMC is working hard at maintaining the shrubs and trees on it. (There are some areas though, where the shrubs have dried up and need a good trimming.) Some of the trees are dried up too (deciduous/lack of water? Dunno). But suddenly I found the silver lining there!

Even on the dried up trees I saw there were many bird nests. On almost every tree throughout SB road! It means that although the citizens and PMC are doing their best to cut trees off, the birds have still managed to find a small haven right in the middle of the busy road! We need to give a thought to give them more space, more safety. If we can’t plant trees, we can atleast arrange for some artificial bird nests and artificial bird feeders (Actually, one of my friend sells these.)

I must admit though - Bravo to the birds, and to the spirit of living!

Arya’s first Makar Sankranti and Bor-Nahan

Makar Sankranti was tomorrow. Arati tai asked me if I was planning a Bor-Nahan for Arya.

Bor-Nahan is Showering the kid with berries, chocolates, and other eatables. Bor/bora are nothing but berries. The custom is for bringing prosperity to the kid by showering stuff on him and distributing it.

I began considering it. Arati tai told me what could be done in a short time. I am not a big fan of customs and traditions, but like to do fun stuff when it is easy to do.

15th Jan 2012 was a Sankranti. I couldn’t find Bora anywhere. We also had to buy the little guy a black dress for Sankranti. Mom and dad got these items, thank God! They also searched for halwyache dagine (jewelry made out of til-gul) for the event, but couldn’t find it. Anyway I only wanted to do as much as I could. So I let it go.

I had got til-gul, kumkum and some return gift to ladies who would come. Maushi made some bhel & tilgul laddoos at home. I made a mixture of revadi (tilgul vadi), murmura, dairy milk chocolates, bor (berries), etc. for pouring on Aryas head. I called up some kids from neighboring chawl (my maid’s kids). And guess what? She got few more kids along. So while I was planning eatables for 4, as much as 9 kids turned up.

For the Bor-Nahan, Mani placed Arya (dressed in black)on her lap. I showered the mix on his head seven times. At first he was surprised, then confused and finally shocked. Kids were waiting, eager to collect the showered stuff. At the seventh attempt, they literally pounced on him and picked up everything. A smart one picked up only the dairy milk chocs. Some kids tried in vain to search chocolates. Some tried stealing from the bowl of mixture when they thought I wasn't looking! Yes, I let them take it all. Mani surprised them by giving them a packet of Kurkure each. We gave them bhel, more chocolates and sent them on their way. It made their day! Boys had their pockets full and girls held up their frock hems to make a Jholi to carry stuff!!!

A short and wonderful ceremony. Good fun and great memories!

Kids love toys, but not necessarily the one's we get them!

Since Arya was turning 11 month old on Monday the 19th December 2011, I thought of getting a gift for him on the way back home from my class. Yes, we make it a point to celebrate every 19th of the month for him (at least for his first year)! I’m sure he might be thinking “Hey, what’s the big deal?”

From a local toy shop I got a big ball for him. But since I am a woman, and that too ‘a mom’, I am both gifted, and entitled by nature to buy something more, like a beautiful toy mobile phone.

Arya loves playing with our mobile phones and we love to see him finally silenced for a few minutes so that we can relax. This phone has 3 modes – numeric, alphabets, and songs ‘n’ greeting. It has colourful buttons and a huge bright blue light at the top. It can stand on its own and the screen shows letters and numbers as you type. Here’s a photo I downloaded from the internet.

First, I gave the ball to him on Saturday and placed him down in front of it. But, what was I thinking? Arya screamed on top of his lungs and rushed to grab my legs. He must have thought that this huge object that can move on its own might crush him. It seemed threatening to him. Since then we are introducing it gradually to him. Now even after 2 days he gently tries to poke the ball only when we are around, and yet comes rushing to us thinking that the ball might chase him.

About the phone, Maushi and I were desperate to show him that for the past two days. Yesterday Yogesh got a pack of cupcakes and lit a small candle on one. Arya wanted to grab the candle and the knife too. (Kids want anything that is dangerous.) We did the usual song and cake cutting.

Then we showed him the gift. Arya’s face lit up with all the buttons and the big led… and the voice and he loved the musical tones. We felt so proud for getting him something that he loved (and especially after the ball incident). It is so fulfilling to see happiness in your baby’s eyes.

Today morning after playing with his mobile for about 15 minutes, my boy suddenly dropped it and went back to playing with his favourite baby oil bottle!!! It is transparent, filled with oil and has a white cap. As simple as you can imagine!!! I’m thinking, what’s so great with this baby oil bottle that fascinates him so much???

Only he can tell.