The Sisters of Udhyan Care

When Nigel O’Brien, Deepak Chhabra, Aastha Sharma and I were told that we would be visiting Udayan Care on Friday, we were excited and nervous about what was our first time volunteering. We learnt that we were going to meet girls whose ages ranged from 7 to 17 and that some of the older girls would be gone for a course on film-making; we had total 11 girls to meet and interact with. As a part of our preparation, we spoke to others who had volunteered before us to get an idea of what to expect and prepared some activities like a fun quiz, story writing, and Flash demonstration and kept some back up games and movies that we were sure the children would be interested in. By the time Aastha and I reached Udayan Care on the designated day, Nigel and Deepak had already become friends with the girls. The ice-breaker? Magic tricks, of course! We joined in and it was fun to see the girls trying to figure out how the tricks were being done. In the end they begged and pleaded to learn how it worked but of course, magician Nigel never revealed his secrets.

Now, we were told that there was a good chance that the girls will ask personal questions just to get a glimpse into our lives. What took us aback was the question “are you on Orkut or Facebook?” All the Udayan Care girls have Facebook accounts as it turned out. Then Deepak took over with his Flash demonstration and it surprised us to hear the girls say, “we know how to do this. We learnt this in school.” So Deepak ended up teaching a cool effect on Photoshop that the girls liked.

When we joined the girls for lunch, we discussed movies and the latest of what happening in Bollywood and watched ‘Jodha Akbar’ in the living cum dining room. Soon after lunch we were joined by a team of social workers and Ms. Usha Pratap who had come to evaluate the progress of the older girls in their respective schools and to discuss the future course of action for them. As the older girls were taken to another room for the discussion, we took the little ones who had been excluded and watched ‘Mr. Bean’ (by popular demand of the girls) till it was time to go.

We said a quick good bye to the older girls who were still in the middle of their session with the social workers and had a quick photo session with the Simmi, Chetna, Kowal, and Preeti. Kowal even tried her hand at photography, much to her delight, she did take a pretty good picture of us (see below).

Like other girls, they fought with each other or snapped at each other occasionally but it did not change the fact that they were also pillars of support for one another. The younger girls were automatically taken under the wings by the older ones. As we interacted and got to know the girls a little better, we learnt how one of the girls, Christina, had changed her past ambition of becoming a terrorist to studying hotel management (to our relief). What we also noticed was how Christina’s loud and tough behavior hid her sensitive nature poorly. Simmi, the youngest and newest addition to Udayan Care whispered to me “Christina didi is my sister. She dances really well.” She added with pride. As 10-year-old Chetna proudly showed us her drawings, Mala, a 15-year-old remarked, “she has improved a lot since the time she came here.” There was undoubtedly a sense of sisterhood that bound the girls at Udayan Care. PS: Below, Mala (left) and Chetna (right)pose proudly with their artwork.

The day ended sooner than expected as we had lost count of time with them around. When it was time to say good bye, we promised them that we would be back soon once again to spend some time with them and find out what is happening in their lives. As we left that day, I could not help but think how much luckier these girls were to the thousands who did not have a safe haven to go to. They were being taken care of and, seeing the way they hugged Ms. Usha, one could tell that they received love and not just shelter. Here these girls got a second chance at life when many did not. Visiting Udayan Care was a wonderful experience for us and we are glad that we got the opportunity to spend some lovely moments with these bright kids.

Sangeeta Menon