A Day At Udayan Care Mayur Vihar Home

As part of T&F’s CSR, Samira, Nilanjan and I got the chance to visit the Udayan Care Boys Home in Mayur Vihar last week on 25 June. We started with introductions and a slideshow about famous historical monuments and places of Delhi. There were several questions but, no problems — Nilanjan had answers to most of them! We then took the children out to one of the sites shown on the slide show—Agrasen ki Baoli. This is a step-well (14th century, Tughluq monument) in Hailey Lane, in fact quite close to our office! As the shelter is conveniently close to the metro station, we took the metro to Mandi House and walked to Hailey Lane. The children had a lot of fun exploring the site and managed to scare away some bats who till then were peacefully drowsing away. There was hardly any water in the step-well and we could see the three visible levels of the step-well constructed with arched niches on both sides. The baoli has been designated a protected monument by the Archaeological Survey of India. The venue presented us with a lot of photo opportunities and the little ones were prompt in taking advantage of them. After spending an hour or so at the baoli, we decided to head back home for lunch. It was back to the metro station (this time Barakhamba because the boys wanted to go to another station). We reached Mayur Vihar at 2 p.m. and met Mrs Gupta (the mentor-mother) who told us about the children, their hobbies, education and career prospects. Post-lunch, we had a quiz session where the children managed to get almost every question. They were, however, a little stumped by the section on contemporary music (as was I).

Then it was time to relax. We distributed the gift packs (colouring books, crayons, geometry boxes) we had brought with us and the younger ones immediately started using them. The older ones were content to sit and chat with us. We talked to them about their aims and interests. While it is uncertain how much they benefitted from our visit, we certainly came away enriched by the experience.

Anindita

DEWY PIECES OF TORN PAPER, PANINI PUKHRAMBAM AND A NEW LANGUAGE

I knew the
We saw the
I feel eh
I will tell you the
                           Torn pieces of papers lie dew-drenched
                             in the windy harvested fields
This is not a children’s examination
He is an old man;
When the sentence is complete
The messenger from the big boat will reach this land
And the flood will go dry.

                   I is
                You am
                He are
        What the hell is your Yorick tongue prattling about?
                     
                 The dew is cold by the side of the mountain.
                   (Are you damn rats to burrow so quick
                    To follow me under the ground?
                    O I will move hence!)
                    English is a strange tongue to me
                    I am learning to string words mechanically together –
                    Nothing the I saws
                    The nothing I doesn’t knows
                    I will to say yous that
The rosy nose elongates, touches the walls
The point clattering about the rafters.
                   I wills to tell you
                                 The harvested fields are empty
                           Dewy pieces of torn paper fill the fields
      (O! Are they everywhere, the ghostly rats
     To such words from every lip, to knock things with their eye-balls
     To pluck the tongues if they prick, and hollow a cave out of the crowns?)
     I woulds to tell you note this

The linguist walks round reading the grammar of tangled roots and boughs
Parsing the morphemes of the wind through the leaves.
                 O lovely little girl
                    Who brought you here on this lotus leaf
                    In the middle of the sea of a puddle?

                The ugly mother toad and her obedient son,
                    I hate to be his bride in the marshy castle
                    So they intern me in this leafy cell without walls.
                        
                  I don’t love                 I love
                    I don’t want                 I want
                    I hate the                     I hail
The brown leaves sough confusedly without a gust of wind
They amputate the limbs of sentences.
Now waters do not flow from the springs to make meanings
The trees are brown and the air dusty.

He has many gurus who do not teach
But to learn worlds from.

A butterfly fluttered about a little auburn crow
                 Anne, Anne, Sister Anne,
                 You look so sad and homesick!

            No, no, not at all! I wait or look for none
                  Happy am I here on this tower!
                  (Set to trust none I do not know.)
Anne’s rosy nose touched the tear dampened granite floor
It could push out through the casement and knocking against the stars, The dragon at the dark corner blew fire at the winged creature
And a spark burnt the magic thread round his neck –
The grammarian had a long fall into the puddle
Frightening the little girl on the lotus leaf.
                 But
                 not happy
                 not pleased
                 freedom fighters

             (Did the earthen mouth move?
                  Do pieces of paper like in the vacant fields?)
                     
                 Mimics sing in any voice
                  They represent your voice
                   But you sing a different song to me
                   They know you sing a different song.

                  Let’s kill the rats for our moksa!

The emaciated flame dies off the dry lamp wick
The old grammarian is left in the musing darkness

Pukharambam Thoithoi

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