Not the nicest looking topic to start a blog, but since this event jolted me out of my middle class goody-goody life's slumber, I do want to share it.
It started with Renutai (Gavaskar) calling me last week about a website she wanted for the organization she works for. I was aware that she worked at an outfit working with children of prostitutes. But I had no clue about what this outfit was. Anyways, I thought this was a nice opportunity to work on an NGO website again, so I accepted the offer. (muktangan.org was the first. I have done a website for a very non-conventional school from Kerala too but it hasn't been reviewed yet [website, not the school :-)] so I can't disclose the URL yet).
This morning I drove over to the red light area in Pune. 10:30am was still a little early for 'business' so fortunately for me, there weren't too many 'vendors' around. Actually, from what is still to come, my references above are in a bad taste!
After riding thru' a multitude of bylanes and asking at least 3 people, I finally found the school in a non-descript alley. The school's called 'Nutan Samartha Vidyalaya'. Climbing the narrow staircase, I just stumbled into a small class with 15/20 noisy kids. Somebody said Renutai was upstairs. So a couple of more flights of stairs and walking thru' 2 more classes, I went up to where Renutai was chatting with some teachers. Renutai is a middle aged woman. I know her since my Muktangan project. She used to be a regular resource person there, counselling the addicts with well-crafted stories. That was the time when I learned the importance and efficacy of conveying your message thru' stories!
Renutai welcomed me with a bright smile. She was about to go to a class where the kids were going to talk about their recent field trip and asked me to join. So I went and sat on the front bench. All the classes have plain benches, no back rests, no writing desks. Renutai told me later she was soon getting funds to buy desks!
After we sat down, the kid sitting behind me asked me for my name and I obliged - even telling him the meaning. I asked their names, turned out there were 2 "Sagar"s and one "Arun". A fourth kid brought a drawing book - belonging to one of the "Sagar"s. I was surprised. How many times you see a kid showing his friend's drawing book - proudly?
Let me tell you, since I arrived at the school like 5 minutes ago, I was scanning the faces of the kids around me. My mind had put a stamp on them as "kids of prostitutes". I don't know what my eyes were looking for, but I didn't find anything unusual. They looked liked kids from any municipal school. One of the visiting teachers - from Dnyan Prabhodini, who had accompanied the kids to Raja Kelkar museum, asked the kids what they liked at the museum. All of a sudden, the class was transformed into a bunch of enthusiastic-looking kids, their minds racing thru' the Kelkar museum, trying to remember what they liked. I felt very emotional at that moment. No matter where they are born, no matter what hell they are going thru' each day, kids will always be kids when you give them the opportunity. And this class was no different from some of the others I have seen before, in more elite or at least well-to-do schools. After everyone had a chance to talk, and after watching the 3 teachers in front of me listening to the kids, I
felt reassured that the world still has teachers WHO CARE.
At the end, Renutai introduced me to the class. We then went downstairs and sat in the principal's office. I told her I wanted to know all possible info about the school to represent it on the website. So she started. For the next half hour or so, she told me enough to make me feel ashamed of being a man!
The school was started by late Shri. Dnyaneshwar Vyavahare in 1926. Budhwar peth was a red light area even then. The school catered to the kids of prostitutes and traders. They only taught, and still do, up to 7th standard. I don't recall Renutai mentioning when it started, but I guess in the last few decades, people started thinking that their kids should learn English better, so the trader community started sending their kids to the English-medium schools. Kids of prostitutes had no option. In fact, considering their living conditions, schooling itself is the biggest luxury in their lives - forget the medium of instruction.
Initially, Renutai went around asking the mothers to send their kids to school. The condition of most of the rooms that are called houses is so deplorable that Renutai found it hard to believe that human beings can actually live there, forget about kids studying in those places. There is the omnipresent stink of alcohol and paan. Clients spit everywhere. The women have unusual working hours. Business starts at around 1pm and can go on throughout the night. The kids also sleep at odd hours and get up late in the morning. Initially, when kids came to school, they used to be unfed and hence lacked concentration. So the school started giving them food when they arrived. Now with help from Venky's hatcheries and Johnson and Johnson, the school provides snacks 3 times in a day. Renutai showed me a boy who she says is bright. He likes being number one in the class and manages it every year. Unfortunately, he gets an almost daily beating for this. You see, he gets up at 6am to study, but for his mother this is way too early and she takes out her frustration on him. This boy often asks his teacher - "Why was I born?"
Renutai mentioned she specially invites socially inclined men to talk in the classes. This is to instil confidence among the girls that men are not just 'clients'.
When the school was running out of funds, the administration thought of charging fees. But when Renutai went around the area, she found that the women were making very little money. The asking rate starts at Rs. 50 and not too occasionally goes down to Rs. 10 when the pangs of hunger start biting hard. Then there is the commission! Paying school fees is thus out of question.
Some kids have never seen a printed book. When Renutai showed a book to a kid, he exclaimed that her handwriting was so good! Some kids get so much beating and abuse that they become very quiet all of a sudden. They don't talk or even respond. In the meeting for parents, she requests the mothers not to hit their kids on the head or not to hit their head against the wall (literally), but to hit them on the legs below the knees. A few kids in the class are HIV positive and this is another challenge for the school. A challenge of the modern times.
The prostitutes themselves are in a very bad state. A lot of them are sold off to brothels by their own kith and kin. So even if you rescue them, most of the times they end up going back to another brothel. This is because their own relatives won't accept them back in the fold. The politicians, police, people don't give a damn to this community. It's like we don't want this part of the world to exist. But it does exist, and at certain times of the day, it is thronged with men. There is booze, swearing and fights all around. Police tend to look the other way.
There was the case of a kid who used to work at a chai-stall. One day he told the teacher he was quitting school because he got a 'promotion' as a waiter in a dance bar in Mumbai. And he was darn serious when he said that. Renutai feels this can change only through education.
Renutai comes from Ekalavya Nyaas. She is trying hard to relocate the school to an actual school campus less than a kilometer away where there is a playground and real classes. She is also trying to arrange a residential campus (at Hadapsar) for a few kids. The plan is to ferry kids from the campus to their homes everyday so that their mothers won't think they lost the kids. It's an interesting relationship. The mothers want their kids because they feel they have somebody of their own. But the frustration that they cannot provide anything to the kids and the nature of their work is such that they end up beating and abusing their own kids!
All these stories were making me dizzy. We then talked about what could be posted on the website. I feel we should put some of these stories on the front page. According to Renutai, more than the funds the school needs people who understand. People who can give time for the kids. When the kids go back home after school, the only 'people' that they come across are their abusive mothers and their clients, and maybe the so-called fathers. Most of the women prefer to have these 'fathers' around because of all the
fights that take place in the neighbourhood. However, these 'protectors' drink and abuse the women most.
Renutai has promised to compile a 'story' for the website. On the way back, I kept thinking about how we live in our ivory towers and TALK about the rampant corruption, decreasing social values and bringing in a social change. Well, people like Renutai DO something about it.
I think all our self-proclaimed intelligence is useless until we can at least bring a smile to a deprived child's face.