I remember my panic when I first faced my batch of pre-adolescents at a foundation that was working with slum children. I remember my palpitating self-confidence at the thought of having to teach such gangly and tender looking children meditation and pranayama. Being impoverished, the girls who were 13 looked around 9 to me and the fact that they weren't as worldly as the children we meet who are obviously from a more privileged class and exposed to the extra - curricular world. These children hadn't had exposure to the thinkers of our age, to internet and newspapers. They were, however, irascibly street smart, picking up the concepts I taught them with the zeal of someone who knows what a benefit self-development is.
One of these sessions finally decoded that wistful gaze I was subjected to by the girls. One of them said to me that her mother was discouraging her from putting her heart into education because all she would do later would be to get married. Soon. The girl I thought looked 10 and too young to meditate was talking marriage and babies with the rationale of a woman in her 20's. If there is a more chilling face-off with the reality of our nation consider me off the list. I can do without such a slap-on-the-face moments when the sheer craziness of how privileged we are as a result of the coincidence of our birth to educated, middle- class parents is rubbed on our faces.
I brushed aside the stinging feeling at the base of my neck and proceeded with a dismissive smile. I joked that she could tell her mother that if she were educated they would find an educated groom for her. I quickly forgot the incident until this week when I attended the annual summer camp organised by the foundation for these students. Dance, drama, music, painting and science exhibitions that displayed their progress to the trustees and promoters of the foundation. I was blown by the dance performances and the science exhibits. But what rocked me to my core was the play put together by the girls. Aged 8 to 13. A play on child marriage.
Evidently, a cathartic release for them. The concept, script and dialogues were all developed by the girls themselves. The acting and execution were brilliant and were I allowed I would post the video here. Their passionate bows at the applause clearly conveyed how deeply moving a release it was for them. They are all living in the shadow of fear - a marriage that might be arranged any day in their teens and take them away from home and school to another slum or village. A discussion by the panel of staff that deliberated with the principal of the children's schools quickly narrated the rest of the tale.
Whereas the children all excelled in the walls of the foundation, their studies and extra-curriculars didn't follow up within their homes. Irrespective of gender their parents were indifferent to the improvement in their grades, their ambitions to be more than their humble beginnings. Obviously, these parents didn't want their children to be too good for themselves. To be alienated from your own child is something no parent wants. But here, particularly the girls were being aggressively pulled down. Their parents let them indulge in the activities conducted at the foundation, they might even enjoy the gifts the girls bring home for having excelled in their choice of activity. But an improvement in grades is perceived as a threat. And attempts are made to neutralise the flowering of their child's personality.
Here in a nutshell is our predicament. Even when resources are available to children who have what it takes to move out of the slums, the parents and family pull the child back. The girls, more aggressively are emotionally blackmailed. Their mothers allege that by stressing for an education they are implying their own mothers are inferior. The girl is torn between a world she longs to be a part of, and parents who pull her back through the dynamics of covert control and manipulation. Which daughter wants her parents to be alienated or her family to allege she is breaking out of their circle. By speaking a different language, by knowing what a computer is and by making choices that put power in her hands, she is rubbing their inferiority in their faces, and no child wants to do that.
So the girls hide their real value from themselves and their parents. Hide their dreams and longingly gaze at me and the employees at the foundation like they were looking through the glass of a candy-shop.
I had on my hands girls rescued from the street, raised in a shelter home away from families and now at the threshold of adult life. My interaction with them raised an issue they possibly never thought about. A complete absence of any religious training or spiritual education whatsoever.
Us, we are lucky. We get to choose what to follow. If we feel the way of our faith supplemented by our upbringing suits us we can follow that. If not, we have a wide array of choices made possible by the educated milieu to which we belong. We can read books, join classes and study groups to explore spirituality and any spiritual figures who appeal to us. We can do all this because we can afford the money and the leisure. Our basic and advanced needs are met to leave space for spiritual exploration and networking.
What about a group of girls that has neither the upbringing nor the conveniences above. Who have neither explored nor experienced the raw positivity that saints, seers and poets of yore have left as our inheritance, who have never discussed with anyone any virtue, any goodness, any source of higher power ? This was a truth that exposed my ignorance of how much of a privilege we have in these matters. As with food, positivity that comes from a spiritual source is the sustenance of the mind and soul. We need it, imperfect,irrational or unreal as it's source and form may be. This need leads us to astounding synchronicities and connections.
To my batch, I tentatively told them to explore any appreciation, respect or attraction they harbour towards any Deity, saint or role model. Need not be of your faith. Fearlessly abandon the monotony of regimented sheltered approach and explore the concepts of love and power in any shape or form that appeals to you. I didn't add that once they take that first step, beginner's luck will come into play and their minds and lives will follow a surprisingly planned course of action that will lead to the blossoming of their inner selves.
Isn't the above how most of us end up on our paths ? Exploring an initial attraction we find ourselves firmly following the plan of the deity or belief figure if not a path that has been paved by them. For what seems like the nth time my own conniving Krishna is taking me on a retreat one of his homes. The birth place of the modern day Bhakti Movement or Renaissance in India. The Nadia District of Bengal. That I should be on way to place I knew neither existence nor the significance of until I had the above interchange with the girls speaks volumes. As you give, you receive.
And the Single, Female, Backpacker's journey continues.
When you are trying to analyse a social evil like infanticide the problems of reliable statistics and factual study are tough to beat. The UNICEF statistics for infanticide have come under criticism by our establishment ( predictably) for inflation and sensationalism. While that may be true there is another problem - the absence of reliable background history of this problem. How did we end up here, not just as a democracy, a culture but perhaps as human beings.
Various sources agree that the Greek and Roman Empires openly allowed and encouraged infanticide in a bid to make sure only the fittest made up their citizens. Not just female but even male infants who appeared sickly or below the par were abandoned in a jar on the roadside to die of starvation. And we all know how these two mighty " Civilizations " eventually ..... Germany,Sweden, Native American colonies, Aboriginal tribes, Brazilian indigineous tribes, Russia ,China ..... it seems the human race has this ONE facet of history in common with our country.
And in every culture the infants exterminated were perceived to be of lesser value at that point in time and reference . Relative morality at it's best. And, most IMPORTANTLY - the practice was validated by the customs, culture and in case of Greek and Rome - the FIRST democracy and republic of the world.
Infanticide is thus not a sign of degraded, backward thinking cultures.
Infanticide is a sign of an advanced civilization approaching decay.
All the above examples of civilizations and cultures were at their peak when the practice of infanticide, neither condemned nor shamed, rose like the Kraken from the deep. None of these cultures did anything worthwhile to arrest it. Because quite frankly - only the fittest deserve to survive.It was less than average males and females in Rome and Greece, females in general across the indigenous populations in North and South America, China, Arabic Middle East .... the list is endless.
Female infanticide is no more heinous than the abortion of an infant discovered to harbour genetic deformities through sonogram. Today we don't leave them on the road in a jar to die. We establish, obsessively through the technology at our disposal that the future human in making is perfect to the last nail. And if we decide he doesn't deserve a shot because he falls short of genetic perfection we have the medical community, lobbyists and the LAW on our side.
As parents we measure the quality of life on the scale of our self-serving whims and fancies, decide what it takes to live in the fullest sense. Then we decide if, in what number and what kind of children fit into OUR vision of a life lived well in the context of our point in time, our system, culture and civilization. We decide not to have children when we feel they will not contribute to our self-gratification as much as take from it. We decide how many of them will tilt the balance in our favor and at what stage of our lives.
It just so happens that some of us feel that girls in whatever quantities and qualitites will not add as much as deduct. Will not have much of a life anyway in the environment they are being spared of, much like a Down's syndrome boy won't be able to make the most of his privileged life in a first world city. Her parents think their system, civilization is more demanding on them and her than she will be able to meet. Just as economics forces some parents to avoid or terminate children beyond a numeric figure, these parents find her a losing proposition. All that investment in time and MONEY over a second class citizen on par with the blind, deaf and handicapped. Who will not return their investments by caring for them in their old age or turning in their pay packets.
The world over, all countries that practice selective abortion irrespective of gender are approaching decay and rot like Greece and Rome. Where humans who don't contribute as much as they consume of the system are to be exterminated. Never mind their hearts are beating in vitro or out of it.
Because there is Less of it for all of us.So only the fittest deserve whatever there is to have.
The need is not to change the laws, to punish the errant.The need is to arrest the ROT of the system where there are too many grabbing for too less.Education, employment, food, lifestyle. All nose-diving across the first, second and third worlds.
Our world is approaching ROT.
Female infanticide is not a women's issue for feminists to rail about. It is symptom for us as Indians to arrest the decay around us by examining and healing our own attitudes on life and living.
Aamir Khan has put the bell on the cat. Now it's your turn.
This is a story that has probably made it's way into your gossip pages. If it hasn't, be assured that it is true and happened to someone who knows someone I know..... that sort of thing but 100 % true nonetheless.
This gentlemen retired and shifted to his dream home on the outskirts of Jodhpur, my darling home-town. His swanky farm-house cum home was on the highway and that route has a lot of villagers and gypsies from remote areas tramping about. In our culture we usually share our baby cradles with extended family and friends when they need one for their children. It is considered lucky to have your baby sleep in an heirloom cradle that has had healthy children grow out of it. Now this particular gentlemen's heirloom family cradle had become mildly infested with termites. There is a reason why Jodhpur is called Sun-City, need anything dried and deadened keep it out in the sun. Because he didn't want his cradle soaking with chemicals he left it in his front-yard hoping the sun would drive the termites away.
Well, the next morning he went out to bring the cradle back in if the termites were gone. Imagine his surprise when he found a barely swaddled new born baby girl in his cradle !!! Abandoned just like that . In his fence-less front yard, in an easily accessible and convenient cradle. The gentleman was obviously flummoxed, what was he supposed to do with this baby who didn't look more than a few days old. His mother refused to dispatch the child to the orphanage because she had ended up in the cradle in which all the children of their family had slept in. She was not a stranger anymore. The family decided to first try to find the parents through the police and eventually find her a new home and family if that didn't work out. Meanwhile the cradle was standing forgotten in their backyard.
Now imagine their shock and confusion when the next morning saw another little girl squealing in that cradle. The two girls were now being taken care of by the women in the family while this gentleman decided to let the cradle stay outside just of sheer,morbid curiosity. How many girls would end up with him ????
By the end of that week - 4 female infants
By the end of that year - 1 5 0 female infants.
So, had it not been for his publicly placed piece of furniture these girls would have reincarnated within a week of their undesirable lives ! Why not place such cradles, through a government initiative in every village and town that has disparate sex ratios and where sex-selective abortion and female infanticide are known to be rampant ?
Who wants to bet that if Aamir Khan made a public appeal endorsing these cradles our annual statistics for could-have- been daughters will decline by 50 %.This is what I believe without a trace of any practical pessimism .I mean look at the man in the story above. A little baby ended up in his cot almost every alternate day !!!
What happened to him ?
Of course it is stupid to believe he has that many girls running around in his retirement pad. He ended up raising funds and started a shelter home for these girls which I fail to visit every time I am down there for some reason. He runs that shelter and is making sure girls get their basic education and vocational training. That's the least he thinks he can do. After all, they became the daughters of his family thanks to a horde of termites.
Satyamev Jayate indeed ......
All the government initiatives can make way. All the feminist campaigns and screeching propoganda fell to deaf ears. Yet Aamir's low pitch prime time drama resounded like thunder in the remotest recesses of our country.The King of our Social Conscience has arrived.
Aaah my Aamir. Unasuming, impeccable actor, flawless producer and promoter - a Star of the Masses and Classes combined. We all waited for his tele debut, a trifle puzzled, not knowing what to expect. Of course, we al knew Aamir being Aamir wouldn't let us down. And then we got hit by Aamirgate. The darkest, most uncomfortable truths of our marginally civilized nation were laid bare for our viewing. And for the first time we resisted our well practised defenses and did NOT look away
That's the power Aamir has. He manipulated our respect and faith in him as an entertainer and counted on our inability to ignore him when performing on the screen. And put in motion a tidal wave that will rise in crescendo. Madhya pradesh has banned more than 50 medical clinics that were providing Preventive Abortions. In Rajasthan the ruling heads have ordered that all foeticide cases be trabsferrred to the fast track court to bring culprits to their commeupence. And a sarpanch who saw the episode from his black and white T.V. set in a Rajasthani village has taken the initiative to eradicate this social evil from his constituency declaring war on families and women who kill their unborn daughters.
We are looking at a new chapter in our collective consciousness. One where a star has the power to instigate long overdue social changes that we have shamelessly ignored and avoided. When was the last time we discussed the heinousness of the crimes against girls and women that drew tears from Aamir's eyes and ours on a talk show ???
I am making a laundry list of all my pet peeve social evils, from red tape to the public spitting menace. Enough material for my favourite actor to retire with. Let him take the collective initiative that was our social responsibility - one that we avoided like the uncomfortable sight of child beggars by rolling up the windows of our soul.
Disappointed?
You bet.
It was one of those internet sponsored synchronicities. A lovely American couple, touchingly took in 20 girls who had left a defunct shelter home and would have ended up on the streets of Kolkata. They found them new homes. Their education and vocational training is being taken care of by this pair with the sentimentality of parents, friends and siblings to these girls. And long story short, after I connected with this wonderful lady and the usual round of pleasantries were exchanged I found myself conducting a workshop for her cherished bunch.
The three hours I spent with them will be cherished as the most rewarding ones by far, a connection of souls with these young women who come from such humble circumstances we can't even begin to imagine. Full of hopeful longings yet a tad unsure, they seemed to need a mirror wherein to beckon their selves. Having spent a portion of their life in shelter homes they seemingly wore it as a badge, their self-definitions were shaky.At the commencement of the workshop I asked them to shares their names and then describe themselves, their inner selves through a word, more if necessary.One squeaky little voice volunteered and bravely announced her name in so unsure a tone I didn't get it. I told her and the group that your names are your identities, wear them with pride, utter them with dignity and confidence and the world will do the same. It was evident that it was the first time, in their underprivileged lives, that anyone had ever suggested their names to be deserving of respect as any of us.
The next task, of picking their word was by far the toughest and revealed how fragile and muddled their self-image was, or perhaps this is what they share with many of us. A word or more that encapsulates our soul's essence. But to know that we must know us, the real us, free from outer influences, in it's state of being. Unsurprisingly, a series of unconvincing attempts followed. Having seen such dire circumstances and hardships many of them said they felt sad for the poor, needy and destitute. Well, right there I revealed that this is an error - thinking of themselves vis-a-vis others. Moreover someone who needs pity and compassion - in other words themselves. And one of them even introduced herself as the product of a poor background.
We are not where we come from. it is not what defines us or imprisons us by any means. I shared with the girls this truth, one that we all need to know because we knowingly or unknowingly flow through life defining ourselves as what has been or what is. We are in fact all the potential within us, the Self that whether or not expressed will always be one of light and power. It may be hidden by circumstances, by our own weaknesses and helplessness. But it lives.
Waiting for us to give it a name, a word that will set it free.
Growing up, our generation saw Kiran Bedi as a willful,formidable public figure - India's first lady police officer who towed Indira Gandhi's car from a no-parking zone !!! The media never tried to balance this lop-sided perception nor did the great lady herself. But then, concern for public perceptions was never a priority, she had mountains to scale and lives to change. So our generation grew up never realising the full scope of her wisdom and sagacity as is evident from her transformation of the Tihar Jail during her term.
A rivetting account of Tihar's reality pre-Bedi can be read here
It takes a rare spirit to even perceive, let alone implement the steps Kiranji took at Tihar. Turning around hardened criminals, drug addicts and the like who were infact running gangster operations in collusion with the staff ... Her approach is a far cry from the tough woman, daredevil rebel image that she was annointed with by the press . By tackling the rampant drug abuse within Tihar she went for the jugular. Few realise how big a part drugs play in churning criminals from the poorest sections of our society. She enlisted help from reputed NGO's and left no stone upturned in the detoxification of her wards. But her love offensive is what struck the final nail in the coffins of the prison demons.
She made hardened murderers, gangsters and rapists celebrate Rakhi in addition to every single religious festival. A smart move that bolstered their self-esteem and put them in touch with their humanity and divinity, reminding them that are citizens like the rest of us. She turned revengeful, blood-thirsty criminals into Zen afficianados by introducing them to Vipassana. She was recently quoted as admitting that it was Meditation that turned such endemically negative humans around. How many of us can even imagine a murderer cross-legged on a mat in silence ?
If there is a more holistic way to turn around the darkest rung of society this was it. This offers us a glimpse into Kiran Bedi, a nurturing woman and mother. No man would have accomplished with the toughest control at Tihar that Kiranji's feminine approach did. And yet so important a study in reform and social bettterment is hardly ever remembered by us when we react with judgemental disdian at the crimes and criminals around us. If there is anything that can destroy negativity conclusively at it's roots and arrest it's spread it's not punishment or control but genuine, sincere healing.
And Light bursts forth from the darkest hearts.
" Please make sure the kids are 14 and above,S." I was planning with great enthusiasm my first batch of children at the project that conducts activity workshops with underprivileged children. Everything that I had to teach, share and impart needed an adolescent mind. That my one, clear belief. " Well, we do have children in that age group but can the younger ones come too ? ", the programme director thought we could unleash the kraken and stay alive .... duh ... How would I ever get a bunch of pre -teens or worse to be interested in such ....... elevated ideas as breath control, focus, mental visualisations and meditation. And meditation BTW.
Our first workshop planned with great gusto as first things always are. I was breathlessly marching into the room when S told me that our target group .. well .. hadn't turned up in as great a number as planned. " it's the heat wave " .. Damn Kolkata summers. Quick to read my disappointment S added that the younger batch was here in full strength, why not start with them. I gulped down my disappointment and entered the room. Only to have to mild cardiac emergency.
It was not a group of pre-teens. It was a group of teeny-really teeny-weenies. Who looked at best between 5 to 10. And 4 girls above 10. Quick to assuage my horror, S added that they aren't that young, it's the undernourishment. No, knowing that still didn't help. Visualising them in their underpants didn't help. Imagining they were older and bulkier didn't help. Their own unconditional acceptance of me and what I had to teach transformed me in a jiffy. That I was able to get such little children do pranayama with the joy of Sachin playing the field was a shock. They breezed through the class leading me to believe that the worse was yet to come. How on earth would I get them to sit through a guided meditation without cracking up ??
I realised children are much more tuned into their spirit with far lesser blocks in their psyche than us adults. I couldn't believe the absolute,unconditional sincerity with which they followed my instructions. Of course almost all of them opened one eye from time to time to peep around at which I promptly flicked my fingers in a shutter down motion. However two of the boys who seemed like they had mild ADHD needed a firmer hand. After the third time they peeped an eye open and glanced at me I made the motion of sticking my talons in my eyes. Worked like a charm XD.
And so it was that a group of pre-teens humbled and freed me from my preconceptions and misgivings that age is more than a number.
"A Little Child Shall Lead Them". Isaiah 11:1-10.
