Go West

On the train from Itarsi to Delhi last week, my seat happened to be comfortably nestled amongst a throng of Mongoloid-featured folk. Mostly in order to distract myself from the dizzying 40-something-degrees heat, I decided to spend the morning observing them to try and figure out where they were from. Reminiscing my China days, I absorbed with amusement the orange-dye of many of the young men’s hairstyles, the multiple ear piercings, pumped muscles, and their decidedly un-Indian basketball jerseys. I came to the conclusion that they were probably Bhutanese, or Nepali. Yet the fact that their foreign-tongue talks would sporadically be interspersed with loud, heartfelt Hindi tunes perplexed me, and seemed to rule out any non-Indian lineage. I decided to observe the eldest amongst the group, a red-robed, bespectacled old man who would only pause his beaded-incantations to enquire about the price of a cold Coke or bottle of milk. He was too religious to be Chinese, I thought to myself, and the fact that they were traveling from Bangalore didn’t make it seem likely that he was Bhutanese.

After a while, one of the young men came and sat down next to me. He asked where I was going, what I did, why I got in at a godforsaken hour from a no-name station (only to have to kick one of them out of their seats). Next, it was my turn to ask questions, and I learned that they were Tibetans, traveling from their home (near Bangalore) to their schools (in Dehradun).

Tibetans? It had briefly crossed my mind that they could have been Tibetan, but I had quickly ruled it out, thinking that Tibetans would not behave or dress in the manner of these youth. His admission, to my surprise, shocked me. I realized that my perception of Tibetans had hitherto been completely shaped by Seven Years in Tibet, a biography of the Dalai Lama, and a random Tibetan-themed restaurant in Varkala. In seeming contrast to my co-passengers, the Tibetans of my imagination were all peace-loving, non-materialistic, deeply spiritual, traditional people. I turned to the red-robed elder, thinking that, like all cultural communities these days, it’s probably the elders that are the repositories of the age-old traditions recorded in history books.

Just as I turned, the elder picked up a half-empty bottle of water, felt that it was warm, and threw it out of the train window.

I thought about the fact that there was no running water left on the train. How the sweltering heat outside was only magnified by the hot air billowing through the coal-fired train. How I had slowly drank the warm water of my bottle, careful not to spill lest any drops be wasted.

How times change.

**************
From China, to Chennai, to Noida, I’ve creeped my way out west again. Though I would never have thought that Ahemedabad -- this land of sugaredeverythings -- would ever be ‘home’, that’s what it is right now.

I’m working here with Indicorps, an organization that aims to bring back people of Indian origin to India for service, for connecting back with a place that plays a large role in their identity. So far, it’s been a lot of fun. Last week found me at an Indicorps retreat in the hill station of Panchmarhi, Madhya Pradesh (the nearest train stop being Itarsi), taking a plunge in a not-so-clear lake, discovering the joys of eating freshly plucked sweetandsour mangoes, and learning from Indicorps fellows about the trials and travails of building entrepreneurs among slum youth in Kanpur, and building self-esteem of orphaned youth in rural Andhra Pradesh.

I don’t know for how long I will be here, or whether any of my crazy plans will materialize (the entrepreneurial bug still hasn’t left me). I do know that I have much to learn about the world around me, and about myself.

Hope you all are well, and am hoping that this magnet-spot will allow me to see many of you soon ;)

Sting

Don't believe in miracles? Believe this.

On a visit to a small town in Western UP called Amroha, my sister and I decided to re-visit the dargah of Shah Sharafuddin (also called Saheb Vilayat Saheb for reasons that I can't remember). Anyway, the place is famous for its 'ahimsa' scorpions: they don't sting people within the premises of the dargah.

Naturally, I was skeptical of the whole thing and wanted to try it out for myself. The pictures are proof! (The hand coming out of nowhere in the badly lit picture, yup, that's me). I held a big scorpion on my hand for about half a minute, and it just crawled a bit over my hand.

The story goes that two brothers got into a fight, and one brother put a curse on the other which held that scorpions and snakes would infest his home (now the site of the dargah, I assume). The cursed brother then apparently went to a holy person for reprieve, who then 'undid' the curse by saying that though scorpions and snakes would infest the place, they wouldn't bite.

Theatre for Change

Pandies, a theatre troupe that uses theatre as a medium of social change, recently held a theatre workshop at a slum school called Saksham in Noida. Started in the 1980s, Pandies has evolved into an activist and possibly the only feminist theatre group in North India.

After a few warm-up activities at the school, they arranged children in groups of 5. Each group was to depict a gender-based scenario, and the audience was supposed to guess the scenario being portrayed. Following each performance were debates and discussions on the theme portrayed. The second picture shows the kids in the audience, while in the first you can see Sanjay (founder of Pandies) and Ishaa (a member of the troupe) talking to the kids. In the third picture, the group depicts a girl being sacrificed so that the mother can have a boy-child. In the last picture, the team depicts a drunken man beating up his wife, while the wife's brother looks on and comforts the children.

The discussion sessions after each performance were eye-opening. One team had depicted a cricket match in which 2 boys were playing. In the background, 2 girls were begging to play but were being refused entry by the boys; another girl was cooking for the boys, preparing for their arrival at home. Interesting questions were being tossed around. "Can girls play cricket?" asked Sanjay. One boy confidently stood up to answer. "Girls can play but they shouldn't play, especially near the boys. They should play in separate areas." Another girl, with tears of defiance glimmering in her eyes, stood up to say, "Girls should be allowed to play if they want to!" After another performance, in which a typical Indian dinner-table scene (mother cooking, boys being served) was being depicted, Sanjay asked, "Is it only a mother's duty to cook?" After a few girls and boys nodded in assent, Yogesh stood up and said, "Mother should cook roti-sabzi while the father should be responsible for chai-paani. Everyone should have a role." Upon asking if it was right that the mother should always eat last, a boy stood up and said, "No, no, everybody should eat together. The mother should cook and keep everything ready for the father's arrival so that everyone can eat together."

Interesting stuff, no doubt. Definitely got me thinking about gender and society in a different way.

I intend to write about both groups for the Hindu sometime soon since they both do specacular work, but this will have to do until then!

Theatre for Change

Every alternate Saturday morning, children living in the slums of Nithari, in Noida, wake up in a state of frenzied excitement. They rush to their school, an NGO called Saksham, and wait patiently for its doors to open. While a curious bystander might attribute the children’s extraordinary zeal to a large coffer of ice-cream behind the school’s closed door, the truth is more surprising. The children are in eager anticipation of “Sanjay Bhaiya”, who, along with the rest of his theatre troupe, has been conducting three-hour informative, entertaining and thought-provoking workshops for the children within the school premises.

The Delhi-based theatre troupe, which calls itself ‘Pandies’ - after a derogatory term devised by the British to refer to the Indian insurgent Mangal Pandey – is, as its name suggests, not your ordinary theatre troupe. Pandies prides itself on being the first and only feminist- activist theatre group in the country that is, says its founder Sanjay Kumar, “committed to staging plays relevant to our ethos and time.” Speaking about the troupe’s origins and ideals, he adds, “Pandies’ theatre is from the margins and is a theatre of children, women, slum-dwellers, the homeless, and of vulnerable sections and subsections within those margins. We are feminist and proud of being so. The issues that we choose revolve around women because the group believes if our society is to head anywhere, it has to become more women-oriented and woman-friendly.”

On this particular Saturday, Pandies members are performing short skits specially prepared for the children. One of the skits, though complex, is particularly riveting. It describes the story of a young, pregnant woman who is convinced by her lover to leave their village for Delhi in order to, ostensibly, escape parental wrath and marry. After reaching Delhi, however, the man takes the woman to a park behind Jawaharlal Nehru University, rapes and subsequently throttles her. Fortuitously, the woman survives and is cared for by residents of a slum nearby, where she delivers her baby. Uneducated and without any vocational training, she and her son are forced into a life of destitution and poverty.

Despite the sensitive nature of the multi-dimensional plot, Sanjay and his troupe mince no words when discussing it with the children. “Do you think the man loves the woman?” he asks. “What do you think of love?” “Do you think the woman should have left her village?” And, most astonishingly to all of us present: “Did you know that this was based on a true story?”
Each question is followed by a thoughtful silence, after which both girls and boys venture replies. “I don’t think the man loved the woman. I think he just wanted to use her for fun, which is not right,” says Azharuddin, whose father is a tailor in a garment factory. 15 year old Soni, whose parents run a roadside tea stall, raises her hand shyly, but speaks confidently and with emotion. “The woman shouldn’t have left without informing her parents or discussing it with anyone. This is the reason why education is so important, especially for girls. If she was educated, she would have been able to make a more informed decision, and at least would have been able to support herself.”

“These workshops are a window into a different world for these children,” says Nadira Razak, co-founder of Saksham. “Simply encouraging them to think and giving them the opportunity to express themselves contributes tremendously to their personality and self-esteem. These children are normally never asked their opinions on serious issues; giving them this platform has inspired positive attitudinal shifts,” she says. Indeed, within the short span of two months, she says, the impact is already evident in the children’s increased confidence; they eagerly look forward to their first on-stage performance later this year.

Begun as a small university movement in Delhi in 1987, Pandies has since grown into a robust troupe with over 70 members, many of whom are college students interested in social change through theatre. Isha, a recent graduate of Hansraj College, has been an ardent member of the troupe for two years – and doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. “Pandies gives us a space of freedom where we don’t have to worry about what we’re saying,” she says. “Not only do we get to voice our opinions, we actually do something about them as well. And because we all volunteer our time and skills, it is truly an activist forum.” The troupe has one or two major performances each year and in the interim, they perform at slums, schools, and colleges. They choose a topic and work on it over the course of a year; since its founding, Pandies has tackled issues such as rape, prostitution, HIV, the Mental Health Act and its relation to women, and the institutions of love and marriage.

In addition to their work in Delhi, Pandies has conducted workshops and performed in theatre festivals both nationally and internationally. In 2005, a year in which they had adopted the theme of “Anti-Communalism”, the troupe conducted a seven-day workshop in Gulmarg, Kashmir involving fifty-five children – Kashmiri Pundit and Kashmiri Muslim girls and boys - between ten and sixteen years of age. Says Sanjay, “It was a daunting challenge to put together a production in 7 days with children from these two volatile communities; in addition to their different religious backgrounds, many of the children were poor, some were orphaned, and most were traumatized by the violence they had witnessed. However, our methodology of individual and collective exercises, short story writing, creating twenty minute skits, and the final 90 minute production turned out to be extremely successful.”

At the moment, the troupe is rehearsing for their next performance at the Sri Ram Centre in Delhi, a montage of 3 individual pieces, each critiquing modern-day constructions of masculinity and the state from the perspective of a female protagonist. With elements from real-life stories and absorbing themes, the mid-August performance is not to be missed. For more information about Pandies, contact Sanjay at pandies@netscape.net

Dial 1091

I got onto a DTC bus this morning, number 392. Bringing a dash of color into the largely male-populated bus, a flock of ladies accompanied me inside. For those of you unaware of the government's attempt to 'provide for' the city's women, there are - correct me if I am misataken - 4 rows (8 seats) in every DTC bus marked for ladies, while the rest are, by default, for men.

Three of the rows inside my bus were occupied by men; four of these men dutifully cleared their seats for the ladies who stepped inside. Two however, sat put, avoiding all eye contact with the ladies around them.

Noticing that few ladies were actually asking them to stand up, and in need of a seat myself, I stood next to them and requested them to stand up, pointing to the sign that clearly stated that it was a seat for ladies. One of them looked down and pretended he couldn't hear me, while the other continued staring outside the window with an adamant look in his eyes, muttering some nonsense about "cleaning the seat with his own handkerchief", and thus, presumably, being entitled to the seat. WTF?

I called out to the conductor and asked him to get the guys up. A few feeble gesticulations later, he gave up. He glanced at me evasively and said that he tried, and went back to collecting money.

I stood there, silently seething. Sure, I could stand the whole way, but if I didn't do anything about it, wouldn't it encourage other men to refuse to give ladies their due? My eye caught a sign printed in archaic block-letter type:

Ladies Helpline Dial 1091.
Students Helpline Dial ***
Senior Citizens Helpline Dial ***

I got out my phone in the now-crowded bus and started dialing the Ladies Helpline number. I hesitated a moment: everybody around me would be able to hear my conversation; what if the helpline just laughed at me and hung up? Wouldn’t that only further embolden men to take over ladies’ seats, and discourage women from standing up for their rights even more?

Deciding that it was worth learning what the helpline did anyway, I called. The woman who answered sounded earnest and encouraging, and I briefly described the situation. She asked if I had asked the conductor or bus driver to get them up, and when I answered in the affirmative, she said that the next best thing that she could do was to file a complaint. When I questioned the usefulness of filing a complaint, she answered, “Madame, at least we will get the number of the bus and the name of the conductor on record for the future, so that when they park their bus for the night, some action can be taken.” This woman rocked!

She asked me to get the name of the conductor and the bus number for the complaint. Holding the phone, I informed the conductor that I was on the line with the Ladies Department of the police department, and that they wanted his name and address. Immediately, I noticed a sea-change in the attitude of the men who refused to stand up and in the bus conductor. Fear flitting across his face, the conductor began to motion to the men more vigorously and commanded them to stand up.

More importantly, however, people around me started rallying for the cause. A man sitting in a row behind where I was standing gently tapped my shoulder. “Tell the conductor that he must stop the bus at the police barrier if the men don’t stand up.” A young man sitting next to the conductor began accosting him to get the men to stand up. Pretty soon, men and women from across the bus were lambasting the men.

In a feeble attempt to salvage their dignity, they grumbled their misgivings but soon stood up and vacated the seats.

In the midst of all this, the woman from the Helpline was still holding the line. Breathlessly, my heart pounding from the confrontation, I thanked her as I sat down in my seat. As enthusiastically as she had answered the phone, she answered that it was no problem -"call us if you have any more trouble!”

So Ladies, don’t hold back – Dial 1091!

INDIA BEATS

Tales of resilience

SMITA JAIN

A tour organised by street children offers rare insights into their place in the micro community of a railway station.

Photo: Yashas Chandra

New beginnings: Street children in the Salaam Baalak classroom.

HAVE you ever wondered what life is like for street children who live in and around the New Delhi railway station? If you're anything like me, you'd probably never have even noticed them as you scrambled your way to catch the train to your vacation destination, or as you arrived, bedraggled and dreaming of your bed at home.

For most commuters, the lives of the station-children strike in brief bursts of horror and pity: the near-naked boy with no legs who slides his way through the filth of our compartment's floors; the little girl with sun-streaked, matted hair who wafts through the compartment singing a tuneless melody. By and large, the ephemeral lives of these invisible children — who wander bereft of permanent shelter or family — remain hidden to even the most discerning of eyes.

Innovative initiative

Not for much longer, however. An innovative initiative, spearheaded by Salaam Baalak Trust, aims to demystify life on the streets in an ingenious manner: a two hour tour of the New Delhi Railway station and its environs, led by its true connoisseurs — children who have grown up on the streets.

I arrived, breathless and apologetic, at the appointed hour and location, just as the tour began. Two young, smartly dressed men addressed the group in near-perfect English and introduced themselves as the tour leaders. The first, Shekhar, described his career as a debutante actor. Javed, the second, discussed his aspirations to work with the UNDP after completing his Masters in Social Work.

The excellent oration and the finesse of the leaders baffled me, and just as I opened my notebook to check whether I had misread the part about the tour being led by children from the streets, Shekhar added that he had, as a runaway child from Bihar, spent much of his adolescence on the streets we were standing on. Javed echoed his story. They had both encountered Salaam Baalak Trust in their teens, and through it, were able to slowly unravel themselves from the addictive web of street life.

The tour leaders took us across railway platforms, through traffic-choked arteries of Paharganj, and to favourite street children-hangouts. Seemingly nondescript locations were transformed, through the eyes of these unlikely storytellers, into an animated stage upon which the budding dreams and blighted hopes of children were played out every day. Pointing to the train-washing track, Javed revealed a nugget of street-life wisdom. "Children take their showers on those tracks, usually on Fridays, as it is a special day for station-dwellers. Not for religious purposes, but because that is the day that Bollywood films are released!"

As we stopped on Platform 12, Shekhar gave us a first-hand account of the station mafia in true Pacino style. "Nearly 300 runaway children arrive at the station every day. The mafia leader of a particular platform captures some of these children and trains them in "skills" such as picking pockets, singing and begging.

Symbiotic relationships

I walked ahead hurriedly, stopping at a fruit stand. "Railway children have a special relationship with fruit sellers and chemists," Javed pointed out. "Immediately after a luxury train arrives, children run through them to find uneaten fruit and then give it to the fruit seller. In return, the vendor allows them to sleep on his vendor ceiling at night, and even protects them when the station police arrive. The police sometimes beat the children for no reason, though," he said ruefully, "and that's where the chemist shop comes in handy."

The importance of these symbiotic relationships is not to be understated, the leaders emphasised. "Though there is suffering, life on the railways is also about friendship, love, and a strong feeling of community. Even in the direst of circumstances, people look out for each other."

My admiration for the leaders peaked as they told me of their plans to publicise the tour in an effort to draw national attention to the lives of station-children. "We want more Indians, especially students, to join us and learn about the issues that these children face," said Shekhar. For an inimitable insight into the courage, determination, and resilience of the human spirit — and for some fun — book your place on a tour. For more information, contact Shekhar at: +919873130383.

Voices

Do you know of inspiring people, places, or ideas that could use some publicity? Leave a comment or send me an email with the idea and I'd be happy to follow it up and write about it if possible.

Everything Is Possible

INDIA BEATS

Everything is possible

SMITA JAIN

Walk on fire? Why not? A novel approach to corporate training and organisational solutions.

HANDS-ON APPROACH: Making change possible in organisations.

IN the corporate world, it may not be uncommon to overhear an employee describing her weekly presentations as "walking on fire", or describing himself "hypnotised" during an especially boring talk. But for Training Alternatives, an organisational development training consultancy, fire-walk and hypnosis are just some of the unconventional weapons used in its corporate trainings. "The biggest challenge in personal and organisation change is the lack of individual conviction that change is possible," says Santhosh Babu, founding director of Training Alternatives. "Most of us think that we cannot walk on fire. In a similar manner, we believe that we cannot achieve a certain target, or reach a personal goal. The tools that we use help us challenge these deep-set beliefs and unlock our potential, and through this, the potential of the organisation."

Changing beliefs
In a typical fire-walk, a thick board of firewood is lit up and set on fire. Immediately after the fire has died out, the red-hot, burning remains are spread out into an eight-foot bed. One by one, participants walk across it — though not without a measure of trepidation. "When it was announced before the session that our team would be walking on fire, a lot of employees said they wouldn't do it, reasoning that `it wasn't a part of their QRA'," admits Shankar Prasad, COO of Airtel UP East. "But not only did everyone participate, the most hesitant ones walked over the bed repeatedly because they were so excited they could do it!" Over 5,000 people — including the management of top-tier blue chip companies such as Electrolux and LGE — have undergone the trainings. "At one workshop, we had asked the senior management of LG to put a snake around their necks," says Santhosh. "Though they were reluctant at first, they were amazed at what they had done. In fact, after our `changing beliefs' sessions, people are astounded at their achievement." Indeed, Training Alternatives has found that unleashing the power of the individual is the magic mantra of successful change within organisations. "Our workshops are geared at building the power of the individual. Tools such as hypnosis help show employees what the human mind is capable of, and help us step out of our comfort zones," says Santhosh, who is a trained hypnotist. At a hypnosis show recently conducted at IIT-Roorkee, Santhosh turned normally meek, well-mannered IIT-ans into crying babies, drunken wanderers and Brad Pitts. Not your typical day at IIT, for sure.
In fact, Santhosh stands as a testament to the immense potential latent within us. A self-taught hypnotist, magician, amateur actor and palmist, he has consistently sought new ways to understand himself and the world. "Experience is the best teacher," says Santhosh, "so our focus has been on providing memorable and meaningful experiences."

Specific solutions
Training Alternatives' hands-on approach to training — emphasising an "experiential" versus the traditional lecture-demonstration approach — sets it apart from others in the training sector. While many training companies offer standardised trainings, Training Alternatives' workshops are built on the assumption that, like human beings, organisations are dynamic entities that require specific solutions to their challenges. "We stay away from a `one size fits all' approach to organisational solutions. We develop customised training to tackle specific challenges," says Santhosh.

And of course, an element of fun is always a part of the equation. Santhosh and his team are constantly experimenting to add to their stock of unusual training techniques. They are soon going to introduce a theatre component to their trainings, "as it helps to break inhibitions, opens one to criticism and opens new communication channels," says Santhosh. So don't be surprised if, at your next corporate meeting, your boss is "acting" more baboon-like than usual; you just may have Training Alternatives to thank for.

India Beats features stories on the unusual, the exotic and the extraordinary.

A Delhi Dekko

(Photo credit: Yashas Chandra)

(Photo Credit: Yashas Chandra)

Have you ever wondered what life is like for street children who live in and around the New Delhi Railway station? If you’re anything like me, you’d probably never have even noticed them as you scrambled your way to catch the train to your vacation destination, or as you arrived, bedraggled and dreaming of your bed at home.

For most commuters, lives of the station-children strike us in brief bursts of horror and pity: the near-naked boy with no legs who slides his way through the filth of our compartment’s floors; the little girl with sun-streaked, matted hair who wafts through the compartment singing a tuneless melody. By and large, the ephemeral lives of these invisible children – who wander bereft of permanent shelter or family – remain hidden to even the most discerning of eyes.

Not for much longer, however. An innovative initiative, spearheaded by Salaam Baalak Trust, aims to demystify life on the streets in an ingenious manner: a two hour tour of the New Delhi Railway station and its environs, led by its true connoisseurs -- children who have grown up on the streets.

I arrived, breathless and apologetic, at the appointed hour and location, just as the tour began. Two young, smartly-dressed men addressed the group in near-perfect English and introduced themselves as the tour leaders. The first, Shekhar, described his career as a debutante actor. Javed, the second, discussed his aspirations to work with the UNDP after completing his Masters in Social Work.

The excellent oration and finesse of the leaders baffled me, and just as I opened my notebook to check whether I had misread the part about the tour being led by children from the streets, Shekhar added that he had, as a runaway child from Bihar, spent much of his adolescence on the streets we were standing on. Javed echoed his story. They had both encountered Salaam Baalak Trust in their teens, and through it, were able to slowly unravel themselves from the addictive web of street life.

The tour leaders took us - a mélange of foreigners, Indians, and foreigner-Indians - across railway platforms, through traffic-choked arteries of Paharganj, and to favorite street children-hangouts. Seemingly nondescript locations were transformed, through the eyes of these unlikely story tellers, into the animated stage upon which the budding dreams and blighted hopes of children were played out every day. Pointing to the train-washing track, Javed revealed a nugget of street-life wisdom. “Children take their showers on those tracks, usually on Fridays, as it is a special day for station-dwellers. Not for religious purposes, but because that is the day that Bollywood films are released!”

As we stopped on Platform 12, Shekhar gave us a first hand account of the Station Mafia in true Pacino-style. “Nearly 300 runaway children arrive at the Station everyday. The mafia leader of a particular platform captures some of these children and trains them in skills such as pickpocketing, singing, begging, etc. The mandir,” Shekhar explained, pointing just across the station’s boundary wall, “is where the mafia leaders stay. A mandir is actually the safest place in India for a criminal!”

Trying not to contemplate the whereabouts of the gang leader of the platform I was standing on, I walked ahead hurriedly, stopping at a fruit stand. “Railway children have a special relationship with fruit sellers and chemists,” Javed pointed out. “Immediately after a luxury train arrives, children run through them to find uneaten fruit and then give it to the fruit seller. In return, the vendor allows them to sleep on his vendor-ceiling at night, and even protects them when the Station police arrive. The police sometimes beat the children for no reason, though,” he says ruefully, “and that’s where the chemist shop comes in handy.”

The importance of these symbiotic relationships is not to be understated, the leaders emphasized. “Though there is suffering, life on the railways is also about friendship, love, and a strong feeling of community. Even in the direst of circumstances, people look out for each other.”

My admiration for the leaders piqued as they told me of their plans to publicize the tour in an effort to draw national attention to the lives of station-children. “We want more and more Indians, especially students, to join us and learn about the issues that these children face,” said Shekhar. For an inimitable insight into the courage, determination, and resilience of the human spirit – and for some fun – book your place on a tour. For more information, contact Shekhar at +919873130383.

(To be published by The Hindu)

*********

Dear Reader: I didn't mean for this to be an article, really. I thought I would it would be an interesting experience, for experience's sake. But I enjoyed the tour, thought the idea was fantastic, and figured that making an article out of it would be a great way to spread publicity about it. So, the article is to be published at some point, but I've put it up now to start spreading the word..

A Walk in The Clouds

The Hindu, April 16th 2006

For a touch of heaven on earth this summer, head to Sonapani. While many popular hill stations have come to be synonymous with traffic, pollution, and crowds – in short, all that the wary city dweller attempts to take a break from – Sonapani, with its rare combination of rustic charm and pristine natural beauty, is a welcome respite. Nestled in a forested grove and offering a stunning view of the Himalayan ranges, Sonapani is paradise for the senses and for the spirit.

Sonapani is a two hour drive from the nearest railhead of Kathgodam, which is an overnight journey from Delhi. The estate is located a short trek away from the nearest road, “in order to begin the traveler’s immersion in nature,” explains Ashish Arora, co-founder of Sonapani. The trek to Sonapani is breathtaking: ruddy-cheeked pahadi folk stop their work to wave at me from the fields; a herd of lively goats, bells hanging around their necks, announce their arrival in front of me; the pine-studded, cottage-flecked valley below looks straight out of a Swiss postcard. Following the meandering path and crossing a short patch of pinecone-carpeted woods, I catch the first glimpse of the red-bricked cottages of Sonapani, which look like they have just sprung up from the earth.

At the entrance, a staff member of Sonapani welcomes me with a glass of steaming apple-ginger cider. Its freshness astonishes me, and I remark at the richness of its taste. Not an untimely observation for my arrival at Sonapani, as Ashish explains: “The British established themselves in these parts during the Raj, after experiencing the extraordinary medicinal properties of the water found here. They called the area Sonapani, which literally means ‘gold water’.” A 100-year old stone cottage on the estate, currently the residence of Ashish and his family, stands as silent testimony to the legend.

Creating the resort at Sonapani wasn’t easy, however, explains Ashish. “The house and estate were in shambles when I first came, but I fell in love with the place and so I built it up with my own hands.” Ashish had come to Sonapani from Delhi, where he wanted to throw off the ‘suit and tie’ mania of the corporate world. Having been born and brought up in Kathgodam, he yearned to return to the hills and begin a project that would connect city-people to the natural beauty of the mountains, and also create a source of local employment for people in the area. “For want of employment, pahadi folk are often forced to migrate to the cities, where many end up in urban slums. Imagine having to give up this,” he says, his hands sweeping across the magnificent landscape in front of us, “for life in a slum!”

As my eye catches the iridescent sheen of a tiny hummingbird, the truth of Ashish’s words hit squarely home. The sheer abundance around me is so astonishing that it seems as if the word ‘want’ would simply not exist in the vocabulary here. Energetic wildlife – the busiest creatures on the estate – buzz, fly, sing and perch around us. Hundreds of species of birds call Sonapani home; magpies, bulbuls, and woodpeckers are just a few of its frequent visitors. Butterflies of striking design and color emerge in regular intervals to brighten the azure sky. Fruit trees abound; in front of every cottage, says Ashish, are fruit trees that are “opportunely located so that our guests can pluck fruit from them and eat them from the comfort of their cottages!” Vegetables – most grown organically - are located in neat patches between the cottages, where they find their way to the delicacies stirred up in the kitchen.

Indeed, if there were just one reason to visit Sonapani, it may be for the food. Despite being a self-proclaimed non-food aficionado, I found myself eagerly looking forward to the three mouth-watering meals -- and everything in between. The recipes are of traditional north Indian style, with the key difference from plains-food being the organic, fresh and local ingredients used. Herbs, such as rosemary, sage and thyme are grown on the estate and incorporated into the meals; garlic, being a commonly used ingredient in pahadi cooking is often used for light flavoring. Home-made fruit jams and chutneys, preservative-free and rich with local flavor, have become a Sonapani specialty. Just as I was about to ask if I could purchase a bottle of the maddeningly delicious apricot chutney, Ashish informed me that though they do not sell products now, they hope to begin an environmentally-friendly agribusiness in the future in a further effort to bolster the local economy.

The most memorable part of my visit to Sonapani was the incredible warmth of its people. Ill-prepared for a nippy evening, Ashish’s wife Deepa promptly offered me one of her sweaters. “We want our guests to feel at home,” she explained. So visit Sonapani and revel in its splendor - but beware, you may never feel like returning home. For more information on Sonapani, contact Ashish at: 9719005900 or access www.himalayanvillage.com

A Child's Rights, and You

Women's Feature Service, April 2006

http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs594.htm

When asked what she would like to become when she grows up, Khushboo, 12, promptly responds, "A doctor." Firoze, 10, beams and adds: "I want to become a teacher so that I can teach many children." Ask Subodh why he attends school and he says, "Because I want to learn more about the world and gain knowledge. I also want to go to America!"

In the mall-infested, increasingly elitist metros of our country, it is not uncommon for children to harbour such gilt-edged aspirations. Yet, for Khushboo, Firoza and Subodh, simply imagining career trajectories requires an enormous leap of the imagination. Like slum-dwelling children across the nation, they live virtually invisible to our modern-day social structures - non-existent to the government and civil society, bereft of dependable educational and medical welfare - they live, literally, in the fly-infested, dung-splattered crevices of our society. The statistics are staggering: 17 million Indian children (the largest number in the world) are child labourers, less than 50 per cent between the ages of 6 and 14 go to school, 74 per cent below the age of three months are anaemic. And the list goes on and on.

"What is happening to India's children is constitutionally illegal, and demands immediate accountability from the State," says Ila Hakku of CRY. To draw national attention to the alarming state of child rights in India, CRY - formerly known as Child Relief and You - formally changed its name to Child Rights and You on March 30, 2005 and unveiled a Child Rights Charter. "The name change reflects the evolution of our work towards a rights-based approach over the last 27 years, and is not meant to represent any dramatic shift in our work. It is merely a formal step in the process," explains Ingrid Srinath, Chief Executive Officer, CRY.

However, the name-change represents a shift in CRY's public message, intended to bring child rights into the political arena to demand justice for children. "Every alternative to a rights-based approach is illegal, unjust and ineffective," says Srinath. "A relief-based approach can provide a 'Band Aid' type of solution, but it is not long-term or sustainable." CRY advocates a holistic approach to promoting child rights, which comprises examining the root causes of the injustice meted out to children and seeking the implementation of policies and laws that address these causes.

Critiquing the scheme-based, relief-oriented approach adopted by many governmental and non-governmental organisations, Hakku says, "We need to move from the narrow prisms of education, health and violence to the underlying causes of injustice, such as caste, gender and slum demolitions, and mobilise efforts to address these."

The name-change is also a not-so-subtle exhortation to citizenry: CRY strongly believes that ordinary citizens, especially from the middle- and upper-classes, must get involved in order for children's rights to figure on the national agenda, the corporate agenda and the media agenda. "Child rights can only become central to a country's agenda if its people choose to make it a priority by ensuring government accountability to actualise the rights of children," says a CRY press release.

Through a diverse array of newly-unleashed communication strategies - such as films, public service announcements and web-based initiatives - CRY aims to incite action from local citizens and, ultimately, the government. Referring to the apathy of citizenry and media to the enormous number of child-deaths in this country, Srinath rhetorically asks, "A 'genocide' of sorts occurs on a daily basis in this country, yet why do we not see a public outcry similar to that produced after the acquittal of the murderer of a page 3 model?"

Activists Aruna Roy and Jean Drèze were present at the press meeting to discuss the relevance of a rights-based approach based on their experiences with rights movements. Roy, who has pioneered the path-breaking Right to Information movement, noted the ways in which the various rights-movements could benefit from and support each other on a national scale.

Right to Food activist Drèze says, "India has some of the worst indicators of health in the world despite its runaway economic growth. The most astonishing aspect is that health goes virtually unnoticed and unspoken of in Indian media. Emphasising a rights-based approach is a means to challenge this silence." Putting an issue in the 'rights framework', he stresses, can create a large impact on a macro and micro-scale, as rights lend bargaining power to citizens, can be put in a legal framework to bolster the directive principles enshrined in the Constitution.

It is in this context that CRY had put forward its demands of the government's budget in February 2006 to coincide with the Union Budget Session. These demands, in brief, were:
* Increase expenditure on education to 10 per cent: Additional resources - and not just the two per cent cess and foreign loans - should be committed to ensuring quality secondary education. This would mean taking a broader, long-term view. It would translate to:
- providing quality education till the age of 18.
- ensuring that secondary schools are within a one km radius of hamlets
- employing well-trained educators on tenure , instead of hiring inadequately trained para-teachers on contract.
* Renew commitment to child protection
* Provide for a universal healthcare programme
* Prioritise child rights

The Child Rights Charter drafted by CRY "to stress its commitment to the fact that all children have equal rights, promised to them in our Constitution and in international treaties" will be presented to the President of India, in CRY's first political effort to demand State action. In a country where youth are often left out of decisions - both in the private and public spheres - CRY's message to the public is well-timed, and much needed.

(In the picture are Kapil and Nishar Ahmed. They live in the slum of Nithari in Noida, and attend evening classes run by an NGO called Saksham.)

A Closet Within The Closet

Women's Feature Service, March 27th 2006 (Titled "Gay, But Not Equal")

Skirted by mainstream media and general politics, discussion on homosexuality is not typical coffee-table talk in India. The government is not known to be outspoken or forthright about issues of sexuality; when a Canadian journalist recently asked for his views on same-sex marriage, Manmohan Singh replied: "I am sorry, I don't understand your question." Despite this fact, the gay rights movement has slowly been gathering support and momentum in our society. In contrast, the lesbian rights movement is yet to cover the same ground. Homosexuality is more acceptable for men than it is for women in Indian society, owing to patriarchal norms that govern the media and social attitudes.

The media has played a large role in lending legitimacy to the Indian gay rights movement. It is not uncommon to wake up on a Sunday morning to an interview with a prominent gay designer on the morning news, or to walk into a theatre and find a film featuring a gay character. Movies such as 'My Brother Nikhil', in which the life and death of an Indian gay man are sensitively portrayed, help build public empathy for the cause of the gay movement. The Canadian-British production 'A Touch of Pink' gracefully portrays the cultural challenges faced by an NRI gay man in his relationship with his partner. Humorous and moving, the film successfully drives home the point that two successful, affable men can be in a loving relationship.

Lesbians, in contrast, are less visible in mainstream media; when lesbian love is portrayed, it is often stereotyped and misrepresented. The homophobic film 'Girlfriend', for instance, both demonises lesbians - through its representation of the lesbian woman as an irrational, violent, jealous and dangerous lover - and offers lesbian lovemaking as erotica for men. By perpetuating this stereotype of lesbian relationships, the film underscores what the plethora of lesbian-porn films has indicated: lesbian relationships are perceived to be trivial, shallow and, most importantly, 'enhanced' objects of male desire.

Misrepresentations of lesbianism fuel misunderstandings and ignorance about lesbianism. "Nearly 60-70 per cent of the calls that we get on our hotline are from men," says Maya Shankar, coordinator of Sangini, a Delhi-based lesbian rights group. "Some are prank callers, and some call because they think it is a phone sex hotline." From research conducted on the calls received by the hotline, Sangini has gathered that much misperception about lesbianism can be attributed to male-centric attitudes. "Many men think that women become lesbian because they have been abused by men, or that lesbianism is just a phase that women will grow out of when they 'experience' a man. One young man called our hotline to ask us if he should have sex with his sister in order to 'cure' her of being a lesbian," she adds.

Indeed, patriarchy often lies at the heart of misunderstanding and non-acceptance of lesbian desire. In a largely patriarchal society such as India's - where a woman is often assumed to be bereft without a husband and children - lesbians are confronted by the challenge of assuming a lifestyle that is contrary to traditional societal dictates on what the role of a woman should be. "Many parents assume that their life's purpose is to 'settle' their daughters through marriage, regardless of the daughter's desire," says Shankar.

This is emotionally and psychologically taxing for lesbians, and has resulted in many adopting painful escape mechanisms: abandoning thoughts about their sexuality, running away from home, or even taking their lives. Despite the pressure, there are lesbian women who have been able to carve out spaces for themselves. "I've met several women from small towns who live together, and have been able to sensitise family and neighbours about their relationship. Some are even married to each other," says Kriti, coordinator of PRISM, a queer activist forum.

Yet, as sexual desire is largely perceived to be the prerogative of the male in our society, these instances are usually the exception rather than the rule. People are often uncomfortable with the prospect of a woman being open about her sexual desires, and even more so with women who express a preference contrary to what is assumed to be 'correct'. Tarun Khaitan of the Alternative Law Forum, a lawyers collective that uses law to address situations of marginalisation and disempowerment on the basis of sexuality, explains the double marginalisation of lesbian sexual desire as follows: "Patriarchy, in denying any sexual agency to women, makes it imperative for lesbians to first come out as sexual beings before they can articulate their alternative sexual orientation, thus making the task doubly difficult."

Even when lesbian women have come out of the closet, the search for a partner is not as easy as it is for gay men, largely due to constraints on social mobility that women face in the public sphere. Gay men in most Indian metros, like heterosexual men, can meet potential partners in cruising areas, at nightclubs, and even in parks and coffee shops. Women do not have this fluidity of movement - due to lack of safety in public spaces, lack of safe transportation, or due to family norms that regulate a woman's movement outside the home. "One of our group members had to give her parents a different excuse every week in order to attend our afternoon meetings. It is even harder for women to get out at night," says Shankar.

Financial dependence on the family also makes it difficult both for lesbian women to come out of the closet, and for the family to accept her choice. "It is hard for a lesbian woman who is financially dependent on her parents to reveal her sexuality, and refuse pressures such as marriage. Parents of the upper and middle classes are often not comfortable with the prospect of a girl taking up employment," says Shankar.

Entertainment establishments also 'penalise' women for this perceived dependence; restaurants that might cater to gay men are not necessarily lesbian-friendly. "There are very few restaurants or bars that organise 'lesbian nights' because owners believe that lesbian women don't have the money to spend at these places," says Archana, member of a queer activist group called Nigaah Media Collective. Even when spaces do exist, few lesbians attend. "Many so-called lesbian-friendly nightspots are not comfortable spaces for women as there are usually men who stand and stare," she adds.

Undoubtedly, the struggle of lesbian women against patriarchy is the struggle of all women against patriarchy. When our society begins to understand and accept that women of all sexual orientations have the right to live their lives the way they choose to, Indian lesbian women will have their day - and, one hopes, their night.

Contact Sangini's helpline at: 011-55676450, or email info@sanginii.org

Covered Enough?

How many metres will ever be enough?

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For the Blank Noise Project Blogathon 2006

I Say No

May 1999: I was on a rickshaw one evening, and I was going home. Two men on a motorcycle came right up to the rickshaw and one of them grabbed my breast and squeezed it, like it was a horn.

Like he had a right to my body.

Laughing and jeering, they zoomed off, giddy with the excitement of their momentary conquest. The old rickshaw-puller looked back at me for an instant, and then turned around and continued pedalling me home.

I was flooded by waves of rage, humiliation, hurt..and powerlessness. Biting back silent tears, I continued the journey home.

******
Say No to sexual harassment. Voice your experiences of sexual harassment - as a victim, perpetrator or bystander - at work, at home or in the public sphere. Participate in the Blank Noise Blog-a-thon, on March 7th.

Blank Noise Project Blog-a-thon 2006

Sharing Dark Silences

Women's Feature Service, February 6th 2006. (Also published at: http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs548.htm)

By all indicators, she is a successful woman. Her career in the booming Delhi retail market is taking off, she enjoys her work, and she has a loving family. Like still water that runs deep, Jyoti’s scars aren’t perceivable to most; only those closest to her are aware of the violently jarring images from her past that continually shape her present. And she doesn’t like getting close to people.

Jyoti was only 5 years old when she first encountered Harish, the man who would sexually abuse her every day for the next 7 years. “It’s hard for most people to understand what it means to be a survivor of child abuse. They think that because there are no visible signs of any ‘attack’, it’s not worth bothering about. They don’t understand that though it doesn’t continue any longer, it affects everything that I do,” she says.

Jyoti isn't alone in feeling this way. “The long-term effects of sexual abuse," says Anuja Gupta of RAHI (Recovery and Healing from Incest), a Delhi-based support centre for adult women survivors of child sexual abuse,"can permeate into every area of a woman’s life and affect the ways she thinks, acts, feels and behaves.” Through a diverse array of services aimed at raising awareness about CSA, RAHI aims to break the silence surrounding incest in India and has pioneered efforts to bring this largely stigmatized and taboo subject into the mainstream. “People in our society often harbor the myth that incest is an issue of slum people or poor people. It is important for people to understand that it has nothing to do with education or wealth,” she adds.

Jyoti grew up in an upper-middle class Marwari family in a small, conservative town in Uttar Pradesh. She was sent at a young age to the first English-medium school in the region, located in a larger town nearby. In order to ensure that Jyoti adjusted well to the school, a tuition teacher called Harish, a friend of Jyoti’s cousin, was appointed to tutor Jyoti and her brother.

She soon failed the first standard.

“I still remember how, even as a young child, I dreaded waking up each morning because the first thing I could think of was, 'How can I escape from the clutches of that man today?' But I knew he would come to our tuition room that evening, as he did everyday, and sit near me to ‘teach' me. And then there was no escaping from the hand that would creep under the study-table to touch me in a way that disgusted me, from the big stick that he never failed to use to discipline my brother and I,” Jyoti recounts.

At school, she couldn’t interact normally with other children nor could she concentrate on her schoolwork. Seeing the carefree lives led by other children her age aroused in her feelings of sorrow, jealousy, and even hatred. Constantly tortured by the thought of her tuition teacher, she struggled with schoolwork and often just barely passed her exams. Though she despised Harish’s presence, Jyoti couldn’t bring herself to discuss the sexual abuse with anyone. She felt hurt, worthless, and very alone.

Jyoti recently told a few family members about the sexual abuse she faced as a child. Though it revived difficult memories of the past, she knows that speaking out about the abuse has begun to slowly unravel the layers of hurt that seemed embedded inside her.

“Since the abuse takes place in silence, for women who have been sexually abused as children, speaking out about it is a way to break the silence and begin the healing process,” says Gupta. RAHI provides counseling services for women survivors and facilitates the sharing of their experiences with others through peer interactions. “Though it is initially difficult for survivors to speak openly with others about the abuse, once they begin sharing, they come to draw great strength from each other’s experiences,” says Anuja. “Families and friends, even those with the best intentions, often wrongly believe that if the survivor stops speaking or thinking about the incidents, the pain will go away.”

Recognizing the necessity of raising awareness about the nature and extent of sexual abuse, RAHI has developed various programs to reach out to different groups within the larger community. On the preventative side, RAHI conducts workshops for NGOs designed to increase NGO workers’ knowledge about CSA and enable them to be effective interventionists within their respective populations. The trainings involve information on the detection of abuse, symptoms of an abused child, and abuser profiles.

In colleges, RAHI has been working with young women since 1997, when it introduced a basic module on CSA and information about support services available to survivors. Over the years, as awareness about the issue has grown, the program has also expanded in its reach, says Gupta. “We have found that many women now want to learn how they can support friends who are survivors and how they can get involved in preventing abuse from happening in our society.” RAHI’s Peer Education program was launched in colleges in 2004 with the intention of creating groups of ‘peer educators’ – women who could raise awareness about CSA and provide support to survivors in their colleges. Soon, RAHI plans to introduce the program in men’s colleges as well.

By encouraging women to speak out about abuse, RAHI aims to help women develop from victims to survivors, and eventually, to contributors. Yet even for those with the courage to speak out, the journey to complete recovery is often a gradual and painful one, the pace of which can be decided only by each survivor herself. Looking towards the future, Jyoti writes:

“Though the truth that I have lost my childhood will keep hurting me, optimism is my best friend. I know I have the strength to defeat my past and I have a hope that one day I will receive life with my arms wide open.”

Forgotten Caretakers of Our Cities

The Hindu, Sunday, January 29th 2006

THEY deftly distinguish between various types of plastic, glass and paper; they charter toxic, dangerous terrain with no protection other than the clothes they wear. Daily, they increase the value of their work material multi fold; their work saves taxpayers over Rs. 10 crores each year.

Yet they are not highly paid scientists or academics involved in cutting-edge research. They are the waste picker-women of urban India, identified by their unruly, matted hair, white gunny bags slung over their bent backs, and their torn, dirty saris. Across the socio-economic spectrum, their presence is usually met with disgust, and often, scorn.

Valuable services
This is unfortunate because waste pickers, despite the inhuman conditions in which they work, perform extremely valuable services for society. Their work aids in the reduction of handling and transport costs of waste; they save municipalities lakhs of rupees each year. They recover material from places where few dare to venture and supply raw material to recycling factories, thereby saving space at the dumping ground and also helping protect the environment. They collect biodegradable waste from households and produce rich compost. Their work directly impacts our lives in ways that many fail to notice: can we imagine how dirty our streets would get if waste pickers stopped collecting trash?

However, the contribution of waste pickers — most of whom are women — to our society is not well known or appreciated, and their plight has been all but ignored by the Government. "The State Government does not take cognisance of the benefits that these women bring to society," says Jyoti Mhapsekar, founder of Mumbai-based Stree Mukti Sanghatana (SMS), that has pioneered efforts to improve the lives of waste picker-women through its programme Parisar Vikas. "Waste pickers are the poorest of the poor in our country, yet there are few avenues available to help them improve their work and life conditions," she adds.

In a study of 1,000 waste pickers conducted by SMS in Mumbai, they found that 85 per cent of the waste pickers were women, 90per cent of whom were the primary breadwinners in their families. Many were widows or had been deserted by their husbands; the majority of those married had husbands who were alcoholic and unemployed. Nearly all were illiterate, with no alternative skills. The study also found that in addition to themselves, waste pickers often had to support children, parents and extended family members.

Exploitation by middlemen is a major challenge they face. After collecting and sorting the dry waste from the dumpsite, they sell the sorted waste to middlemen who offer them only a few rupees per kg. The dry waste is then passed to the hands of various other middlemen, its value increasing multi fold every step of the chain, until it finally reaches the recycling factories where, says Mhapsekar, "it is sold at the price of gold". Waste pickers are forced to accept the low prices offered by middlemen because they have no alternatives for generating money, and are unaware of the value of the sorted waste. In addition, they are dependent on these middlemen who often act as moneylenders, accountants and advisors. "Though recycling factories operate on the hard work of these women, the women get peanuts, while the middlemen quite literally become millionaires," says Mhapsekar.

Combat exploitation
To combat the exploitation faced by waste picker-women, SMS has established various programmes to increase their bargaining power and social organisation. Microsaving schemes encourage women to build the habit of saving; micro credit schemes allow them the financial security to make business decisions to improve their situations. The provision of autorickshaws to the women enables them to cut out the `transportation middlemen' from the chain, thereby sizably increasing the women's profits. Additionally, SMS has lobbied to secure direct waste-collection contracts with residential establishments and with the Mumbai municipality, thus allowing women to have access to more valuable and less-dangerous household waste.

Though household waste is the most desirable option among different types of waste, organized networks of men usually dominate residential contracts, with most waste picker-women being relegated to the dumpsite. "At the dumpsite, every kind of waste is mixed together: medical, industrial, chemical and household waste. As a result, sorting the valuable waste is not only difficult, it is extremely dangerous," explains Mhapsekar. Injuries from glass and metal pieces, acid bottles, needles and animal bites are common. Certain kinds of chemical waste, when exposed to sunlight, give off dangerous gases, which are highly flammable and cause respiratory diseases. "Sometimes men light their bidis atop the mounds, setting miles of waste on fire," she adds.

Quality of life
Recognising the importance of health, training and education in improving the quality of life of the waste pickers, SMS regularly holds health camps for women and children along with workshops on topics such as disease, sexuality and women's special health needs. Trainings on biocomposting, vermiculture and gardening have enabled nearly 250 former waste pickers to gain alternative employment. SMS also organises awareness-raising sessions for children of waste pickers on issues such as adolescence, drug de-addiction and value-education.
They have initiated various education programmes for girl-children of the waste pickers to enable them access to employment options other than waste picking.

Despite the enormous challenges in its path — threats from middlemen, apathy of the government, extreme poverty and ignorance of women, to name a few — SMS has succeeded in building an innovative, successful model for waste treatment. "We are happy that numerous organisations from around the country have replicated our model in their localities," says Mhapsekar. Perhaps a major reason for Parisar Vikas' success has been its dogged pursuit of collaboration with the government, private sector and ordinary citizens, as a result of which they have been able to land key contracts with municipalities and waste treatment plants. Their efforts have greatly expanded the horizon of employment and learning opportunities for waste picker-women. "The work of Parisar Vikas," concludes Mhapsekar, "highlights the reality that women from marginalised groups need not be passive victims of poverty and human rights violations; they can successfully participate in the struggle to survive, to gain control over economic, social and political resources, and lead a life of dignity."
Send comments to the writer at: smitainasia.blogspot.com

Read the article at: http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/01/29/stories/2006012900150400.htm

Micro No More

Women's Feature Service, January 16th 2006

For most people, an earthquake merely connotes disaster. Yet for many women of Maharashtra's Sonvati village, it was the Latur earthquake of 1993 that heralded positive transformation in their lives. Indeed, that was when Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) began its microfinance initiatives in their village and in villages across disaster-affected areas of Maharashtra.

Each woman assembled at the self-help group (SHG) meeting in Sonvati eagerly awaits her turn to describe the remarkable change that microcredit has brought into her life. Before SSP began in her village, Serekha Mude says, "I could never leave my home. Not only could I not talk to other men, I was even forbidden from speaking to other women." She began secretly
attending SHG meetings when her in-laws and husband were working in the fields. She initially applied for a loan of Rs 1000 to buy an ice-cream maker, and began a modest enterprise. Today, with a small clothing store, and more pieces of machinery - including an oil-press, mirchi grinder and atta chakki - she has a flourishing business and even employs several people. "Attitudes have changed dramatically. My husband has stopped drinking and beating me, and is proud of the work that I do," she says.

Mude is, in fact, part of a growing tribe of small-scale entrepreneurs from around the world benefiting from the growth of microfinance, a form of banking that provides financial services to those who traditionally have not had access to these services due to social, economic and geographical barriers. From Bolivia to Haiti and Congo to the Philippines, poverty-stricken people - many of whom are women - have been able to improve the quality of their lives due to improved access to financial services through socially-driven microfinance initiatives.

In India, microfinance initiatives have largely been initiated by NGOs that offer financial services - small loans and savings services are the most common - to groups of poor women. (Group models and sizes differ around the world, but in India the most common operating model is the SHG model, in which 15-20 women form a group.) The microfinance initiatives are usually packaged with a diverse array of support services aimed at improving the lives of the women. SSP, for instance, regularly holds awareness-raising workshops on issues as diverse as health, technology and water conservation for its SHG members.

Development institutions have been quick to recognise the importance of microfinance as a weapon against poverty; the United Nations had named 2005 as 'The Year of Microcredit'. Research has found that poor people not only benefit from access to affordable credit, but they also benefit from and value a diverse package of financial services. Through unique offerings -
such as savings schemes and cattle, crop and life insurance - microfinance initiatives in tandem with appropriate social interventions can help cushion the impact of a disaster that would otherwise have the effect of pushing poor people further into poverty.

Microfinance Institutions also differ from mainstream banks in that most specifically target women clientele. Grameen Bank of Bangladesh - the success of which inspired thousands of others across the world to replicate the experiment - has nearly 3.7 million borrowers, 96 per cent of whom are women.

But in a world where men constitute the majority of the labour force, why target women? In his autobiography titled 'Banker to the Poor', Grameen Bank founder Mohommed Yunus writes, "Not only do women constitute a majority of the poor, the underemployed, and the economically and socially disadvantaged, but they more readily and successfully improve the welfare of both children and men."

Indeed, not only are women more successful than men in improving their own lives and those of people around them, they also make for more creditworthy clients. Research indicates that along with being more likely to repay their loans on time, women also build social networks that encourage others to repay their loans.

Leading Indian microfinance institutions Spandana and SKS mandate that all their clients be women. The banks' low default rates and high returns on assets indicate that this is not a bad
strategy. According to Mix Market, a web-based microfinance information platform, in 2005, Spandana reported a return on asset of over 8 per cent - a rate better than that of even some of the most successful global banks.

The prospect of realising profits while providing financial services to the poor is creating a ripple among mainstream financial sectors. Though some decry what they consider to be "profiteering from the poor", more and more mainstream institutions across the world are beginning to dip their toes in the sector as they realise that the poor can be creditworthy and valuable clients who, like the wealthy, also are in need of financial services. ICICI, India's largest bank, has seen its microfinance portfolio outstanding grow from US$ 4.5 million to US$ 227 million over the last four years, and plans to increase these figures significantly over the decade. (United Nations Capital Development Fund, October 2005) Other banks, such as HSBC, Citigroup, and ABN Amro are showing interest. Private equity is also starting to trickle in; last month, private equity investor and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla made an equity investment of US$ .25 million in a Hyderabad-based microfinance institution called Cashpor.

A consensus is emerging that commercial interest in the sector is not only welcome, it is vital if microfinance institutions are to be sustainable, and if microfinance is to truly make a dent in global poverty. Studies indicate that the global demand for microfinance is tremendous; the
Economist magazine (November 2005) estimates there are thousands of crores worth of unmet demand in India alone. It is widely acknowledged that traditional sources of funding - from donors, development and charitable institutions - are insufficient to meet the demand.

More credit availability would certainly be welcome to women like Premila Jadhav, who would like to expand her business. She wants to open a bakery, and has approached her SHG for funds. While adjusting her pallu, she looks thoughtfully at the piece of paper in front of her and completes a profit calculation. One woman explains how she is happy because microfinance has
given her knowledge of the world around her (gyan), while another adds, "I'm grateful to microcredit; it has given me experience and courage."

Though it may not be a cure-all, the twin bottomlines offered by microfinance can only be a good thing for Mude and her sisters.

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Published by the Deccan Herald: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/Jan202006/she1344202006120.asp