LETTER FROM HOME

Under the oak tree leaves fall soft on my lap –
                              ‘Come back home when the fruits are ripe.’

Breezing in through the woods I read the words
Written in dewdrops on the leaves.


Cranes answer to the silent call
In the tawny sky of autumn eve.

Pukhrambam Thoithoi

This was the second visit from Taylor & Francis to Udayan Care in Sant Nagar. The girls were expecting us and we received a cheerful welcome. And since Thursday was the first day of school for several girls in the home, the welcome smile hit us at various points throughout the day as they came back from school and greeted us. While waiting for those at school, we (Shoma, Omita and Pallavi) spent some time with the younger ones, Anjali, Vanshika and Mamta, who greeted us with (in order of appearance) a big grin and a hug, a shy smile and a ‘hello’, and a semi-sulky manner, which got more cheerful as time passed. The chart paper and crayons we had brought with us was eagerly distributed amongst Anjali and Vanshika, while Mamta did some Google searches and chatted with Omita, and joined us later. We were persuaded into drawing a joker, a ship, trees, flowers, making cutouts of stars, hearts, boats, etc. which the kids coloured in; they then went on to create sceneries and cutouts of their own.

We were soon joined by Rima, Esha and Sandhya, who had brought along with them more pencils, paper and charcoal for sketching. The kids, under their tutelage, worked on creating a cartoon sea, complete with octopus, a goldfish and seaweed; some did sketches of human figures. By this time, some of the school-going kids had come back; Amulya and Manisha rapidly changed and went on to produce interesting pieces of abstract art. In fact, one of Manisha’s drawings was so interesting that Omita decided to bring it back with her and Manisha was much happy to sign and gift it to Omita. The older girls, on their return, changed, lazed around for a bit, chatted with us and then all trooped into the kitchen for lunch. As the maid who cooks their lunch was late in arriving, we had ordered some Matar Kulcha for them; this spicy treat was joyfully gobbled down

After lunch, the younger kids unanimously decided to watch Stuart Little from a long list of animation movies we had got for them. The arrangements were swiftly made and soon a bubbling group of children were transfixed to the laptop screen, as perfect silence and discipline ruled. For the elder ones we had organized an audio-visual interactive session, in order to discuss with them some significant social issues and find out their views and opinions on them.

We began the session by showing them some advertisement clips with our popular stars urging us to buy fairness creams, which they claim would change our lives as we know it and we asked them to share with us what they felt about these. It was very good to hear their opinions; they were smart, realistic and very confident about their views. While they were convinced that the colour of their skin had nothing to do with success or achievements in life, they were willing to give in to the scenario that having a fair skin tone could be a better attraction for having more friends and popularity in a social circle. It was an interesting debate that followed.

In succession to this topic, we forayed into the next concept we wanted to discuss with them—bullying and peer-pressure. We learned that all of them have faced bullying at one point or another in schools and still sometimes experience peer-pressure in varying degrees. It was very heartening to know that they all had successfully come out of it and most of the older girls had advice for the younger ones.

The girls were also delighted to know more about the upcoming Commonwealth Games and about some famous personalities like Chanda Kochhar, Indra Nooyi and Lakshmi Mittal through our slideshows. To sum up, it was really nice to interact with such bright young minds and we also had an insight into their feisty opinions and views (warning to all those who create public nuisance). As we called it a day, after distributing some stationery we brought as gifts, we waved goodbye to a warm ‘come again soon’ from the girls.

Hi everyone,

Continuing with the volunteering initiative, two more groups went to the Udayan Care Shelter Homes on Friday June 25. While Sangeeta, Aastha, Nigel and Deepak went to the Mehrauli Girls Home; Nilanjan, Anindita and Samira spent a meaningful day with the boys of the Mayur Vihar Shelter Home.

Anjali

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

White Water River Rafting at Rishikesh

Last weekend I and Kundan with our families, planned for white water river rafting. We booked a camp and a raft with a vendor and started off from Delhi on Saturday morning at 7:00 A.M. According to our plans we had to travel 230 Km as haridwar is 210 km and then 20 Km more for Rishikesh, but due to pathetic roads and horrible traffic jams it took us complete 12 hours to reach there. So we reached our camp at 7:00 P.M. Then we had a bath in the sub river of Ganges and had some snacks. The camps were good but a little bit humid, might be because of the weather.

We had our dinner at 9:00 and then went for sleep as we were very tired of long driving. In the morning we wake up at 5:00, and had a view of the marvelous sunrise in the valley. Then we went out for a small photo shoot. Had our breakfast at the camp and then we got the call from raft manager.

After a couple of minutes we were at our raft listing to the instructions and commands which we were supposed to follow. We were a team of two boys and 7 girls.

After this session we moved our raft in the middle of river Ganges with a started off with huge cheers, saying "Ganga maiya ki jai", thrice. Soon after starting we met our first rapid. We met four rapids in our 16 km journey. Out of them "Roller Coaster" was the biggest. Our raft was going up and down on 16-20 feet waves. In between our guide asked us to jump in the water. That was a thrilling experience as the water was chilled and we were moving in the current with support of a single rope on the sides of the raft. In midway we did cliff jumping. There was a rock, around 10 feet high. We were supposed to jump from there into the flowing river which is 50 feet deep. That was the most rocking experience we ever had. When you stand at the top of the cliff and look down at the gushing current, it increases your heartbeat and you have to gain a lot of courage, but once you jumped, it feels like you are falling without any gravity. We jumped three times, and were willing to do more, but due to time restrictions, we moved our raft towards Laxman Jhoola and ended our adventurous journey there. Then we drove back to Delhi which again took 9 hours. In between we visited Patanjali Ashram of Baba RamDev. The road and driving conditions are really pathetic. Except this the rafting experience was marvelous. It was a life time experience.

Visit to Udayan Care Homes in Noida and Mayur Vihar

As a T&F India CSR initiative we visited the Udayan Care Homes in Noida and Mayur Vihar on Friday 18 June, with a plan to bring the children together for a cricket match. In our group were Aman Pilani, Vikram Asthaniya, Sudhanshu Goyal, Pankaj Bhardwaj, Rajeev Kant, Harish Arya, Ankit Gupta, and Ashish Purwar.

We started off by reaching the two centres to begin our fun-filled day. All the volunteers brought their own vehicles for the convenience of the children. We reached the Boys Home at 8:30 am, collected the children, seated them in the volunteers’ cars and departed for the playground near Udayan Care Girls Home in Noida, Sector 52. There we divided the children according to their age groups. We arranged two matches, one for younger children under the captaincy of Sudhanshu and Rajeev, and another for older ones under the captaincy of Pankaj and Ashish. Everybody had a lot of fun playing their matches. In the senior category, we had a match of 15 overs and the team headed by Ashish won the match.

We came back to the Boys home in Noida, distributed snacks to the children and played an animated movie for the younger kids. For the older children, we played a documentary film on the Top 100 Guinness World Records. After this show we had an interactive discussion on their interests and career goals. The children shared their hopes and aspirations and we gave them some tips on how to go about achieving their aims. Then we wound up, because it was time for the children to study. All of us left feeling very positive after our day spent interacting with the children at Udayan Care.

Ashish Purwar

A Day at Udayan Care

As part of T&F India’s CSR programme we (Anjali, Tessy, Surmeet and I) set out to spend a day (Friday 18th June) at Udayan Care’s Sant Nagar Girls Home. We prepared for the trip by getting together material for arts and crafts activities, put together a fun and interactive quiz and took along a couple of movies we thought the girls might want to watch.

On arrival we found a number of student volunteers at the home and sought their help in conducting our planned activities. We began by sitting in a circle, getting the girls to introduce themselves and tell us about their hobbies, interests, likes and dislikes. This was a fun icebreaker with answers ranging from ‘I enjoy playing football’ to ‘My hobby is fighting!’ After we’d got to know everyone’s names, we had a session where we shared how to meet and greet each other in the different languages that we knew – French, Spanish, even Malayalam.

We then asked them what they would like to do and at their request began with the quiz. Three teams were formed and the school volunteers helped their respective teams by giving hints, but not outright answers. A lot of fun and excitement ensued, with answers flying thick and fast, as the bright young girls came up with intelligent guesses (with some help from their volunteers) and won toffees and chocolates as prizes. We asked the girls what they wanted to do next and they voted to watch a movie.

It was almost 2 so we decided to take a break for lunch and sat down to eat with the girls. Conversation and information were shared along with the meal, for by now the ice was well and truly broken. After lunch we assembled again in the activity room and gathered round to watch a movie. They choose the movie from among the CDs we had with us. ‘Madeline’, the story of an orphan girl in a boarding school was their choice. The girls laughed aloud at Madeline’s adventures and cheered as the spunky little girl helped defeat the evil plan to shut down her school. The movie ended with clapping and requests for ‘one more!’

We chatted with the girls, they showed us their drawing books and charts and Tessy conducted an interactive session on France, showing them pictures of its famous monuments and cultural highlights. The Mona Lisa’s unique feature of her eyes appearing to follow the viewer wherever they stood caused much excitement, with many of the girls walking from one side of the picture to the other in wonder. They asked us to play them some music and when we asked them what they wanted to hear, ‘Waka Waka’ was a popular choice. Luckily Surmeet had it on her phone and played it for them, while they tried to sing along.

We distributed gift packets from T&F India and took some photos. This led to an impromptu photo session where the children enjoyed taking pictures of each other. Surmeet was at the centre of the photography session while Tessy helped some of the girls with their school work.

We bid goodbye to the girls, promising to return, and left deeply touched by the warmth and affection we had received from the children. While this may have been one day spent at this centre on behalf of T&F India, I’m sure I will be back again to spend more of my time with the bright young girls at the Udayan Care Home.

K.E. Priyamvada

First Batch - Udayan Care

Dear All,

I’m happy to inform you the first batch of volunteers received a tremendous response from the children at Udayan Care. A total of three groups went to the shelter homes at Noida, Mayur Vihar and Sant Nagar on Friday, June 18. ‘Most fulfilling and heart-warming’ has been the unanimous response of all the T&F volunteers. As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words, the Udayan Care subfolder in the Common folder of P drive has its own story to tell.
The three groups comprised the following T&F volunteers:
Mayur Vihar Boys Home
Pankaj Bhardwaj
Aman Pilani
Vikram Asthaniya
Sudhanshu Goyal

Noida Boys Home
Ashish Purwar
Harish Arya
Rajeev Kant
Ankit Gupta

Sant Nagar Girls Home
KE Priyamvada
Anjali Madan
Tessy Margaret Rajappan
Surmeet Kaur

Am in the process of forming more groups for the volunteering activity. Look forward to everyone’s collaboration.

Priyamvada’s report on her group visit to the Sant Nagar Shelter Home for Girls follows after this entry.


Best wishes,

Anjali