Category: Diaries

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Diaries

Diary of a whore

Chapter 2, First Meetings

He and I met at a conference for bakers. Funnily enough, both of us were with our partners. He with his wife, a stunning brunette who must have been willowy at some point in her life but had now lost some of her youthful firmness. A beautiful woman, nevertheless. I noticed her across the room even before I saw him, partly because she stood stiffly in her high-heeled pumps in a dress of dreamy teal chiffon topped with a large statement necklace in blue. Turning to see who she was with, I saw him with his eyes locked in mine.

It sent a frisson through me, his frank and open stare, with his wife just next to him and looking in my direction as well – she’d probably turned to see what he was looking at. Smoothly, noticing her gaze from the corner of his eye, he turned his face to look at the fearsome-looking exhibit next to them: a large pink and yellow creation shaped to look like a princess castle. I noticed that he looked slightly appalled, as did my boyfriend, Amar.

“What the absolute f**k is that,” Amar murmured, pointing at the cake-castle. “You want to go and laugh at it?” he grinned, and taking my hand, led me to it. I checked to see where he was – he had moved to another exhibit down the table, and they were both intently listening to a woman baker explaining her tray of blue cookies and macarons.

I don’t remember much of the conference, nor the exhibition hall and its contents, but I do remember looking around the room several times to see where he was. I caught him looking at me a couple of times. The last time he did, he turned away with the slightest smile on his lips. On any other man, that smile would have said, ‘Gotcha!’

On him, it simply said, ‘I’d like to know you…’

We met each other a month later, again, by accident. This time, both of us were alone. And we made the time to go to a café. Nothing was said about our earlier meeting – it was understood why we were sitting across from each other having lattes at mid day. The question was, What were we going to do about this little thing that existed between us?

I could have, should have, done nothing. But I did.

Categories
Diaries

Diary of a whore

Chapter 1

Let me state right away that this is not a happy story, about happy people. It’s about not knowing anything about the future. About not having a future. About cliches and what happens when you let your heart do the talking, even when you know your story is not going to have a happy ending.

He was a married man and still I had an affair with him. I knew he would never leave his wife, and still I had a beautiful little baby with him. It didn’t help that she grew up with all his mannerisms, some of his looks, all of his charm. Like a small, curly-haired flashback to happier times.

I knew he would leave. And he did, and I still felt acute sadness. Mostly because I didn’t know what to tell my daughter. Why Abba was not at home any more. How he could just come one evening while we were out at the park and take all his clothes, his shoes, his papers, and never come back, even for a last look or chat with his daughter.

Because despite everything, I don’t want her to grow up with the slow burning hate in her heart, the kind that sours everything in life, the kind that feels like a dull burning in your chest all the time. The hate and the fury that I feel for him. I don’t want it to sully her.

So I make up stories to divert her. But she is going to catch on soon. Every time she asks for Abba, I tell her a story. A child that bright will make the connection, and possibly begin to dread it.

“Abba said he would buy me a cycle,” she begins, a trace of a whine in her voice. She knows I don’t like this particular conversation, mostly because he and I argued long and hard over it. She’s too little for a cycle, I kept saying, and he kept telling me I was too paranoid for words. Now I don’t want to relive that conversation, that feeling even more.

A story, then.

‘He always began every morning with his mobile phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. No, wait. He always began every morning sitting on the pot, mobile phone in one hand and cup of coffee in the other –‘

“Wait. Is this one more story about Abba? Because really, you need new stories.”

“That’s rude. No, it’s not about Abba. It’s about this person I knew –“

“Which person? How do you know him?”

“I knew him many years ago. I don’t know him that well…”

“And yet you know how he began his mornings.” She sighs and is about to roll her eyes, when a new thought occurs to her. “Wait. You still haven’t told me when Abba is coming home.”

She stares, waiting for an answer. Not to be deflected for long. All I want to do is hold her close and tell her the truth. But no. A story will have to do. I can’t tell her anything just yet.

I look at her honey locks, her smooth skin, her almond-shaped eyes. You are truly your Abba’s child, I want to say, but I think I might begin to cry. Instead, I strain to hear sounds from outside – I don’t turn my head around to peer at the door, as if to magically see through the wooden shutters into the inky blackness beyond. I cannot alarm her, make her think something is more wrong than it is. She is already so perceptive and I don’t want more questions about her Abba. So I square my shoulders and say, “A story, then.”

It helps to pass the time till I know how to pick up the pieces of our lives.

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Little people

Know a brave child? Nominate him for an award

The Ghanshyam Binani Children’s Bravery Award invites nominations for acts of bravery from those aged under 16 years of age.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The 15th Ghanshyam Binani Children’s Bravery Award committee is looking for the year’s bravest little people from around the country. The award felicitates brave acts of deserving children below 16 years of age and recognises the spirit of courage among children who risk their own lives while protecting others.

The nominations are invited from children, who have shown remarkable bravery and fondness for social concern during the period of January 1 to December 31, 2015.

The awards includes the ‘Bravery’, ‘Social cause’ and, the ‘Posthumous’ categories. The awards will be presented to both male and female candidates respectively in all three categories. Deserving  children  from the ‘Bravery’ category  will  be  given  a  public  recognition  and  awarded  with  a  cash  prize  of  Rs. 51,000, a Silver Medal of Courage, a Certificate of Recognition and a Citation each.

The ‘social cause’ category awardees will also  be  given  a  public  recognition  and  awarded  with  a  cash  prize  of  Rs. 25,000, a Silver Medal of Courage, a Certificate of Recognition and a Citation each.

The kin of posthumous awardees be awarded with Silver Medal, Certificate of Recognition and a Citation each.

An eminent panel of judges comprising of distinguished personalities in their respective fields will select the winners. The names of the recipients of the award will be announced in early 2016.

The Eligibility Criteria:

– The child should be below 16 years of age

– The act of bravery should reflect bravery against physical attack/violence or by risking his or her own life by saving a life and social cause should reflect humanity or for welfare of society.

– Nominations should be authenticated by documents, appreciation or coverage of the incident in the media.

– The act of bravery should be within the period of January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015.

Look up www.gbbraveryaward.com for details.

(Picture courtesy www.huffingtonpost.com. Image is used for representational purpose only)

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Little people

New age parenting: Frantic WhatsApp messaging

Parents are increasingly using WhatsApp to keep in touch with other parents and discuss their children. But is this wise?
Pooja Birwatkarby Dr Pooja Birwatkar

The red light on my phone flashed, indicating a new message on WhatsApp. It was a joke:

Mother: So what did you do in school today?

Child: Why are you asking? Didn’t your WhatsApp school group tell you what happened in school today?

It didn’t make me smile. Is it true that we are discussing our kids too much on social networking sites? It is possible that we have forgotten to draw boundaries around what we should and should not discuss.

My son’s school ends at 3 pm every day and he is home by 3.30 pm. This is when my WhatsApp mommy group gets super active. It starts with questions about homework and what happened in school, then takes the familiar path to criticism and gossip about everything their children tell them. I don’t think any of these mothers cuddle their tired kids after a day at school – instead, they whip out their phones and start a post mortem of the school day.

Sometimes I feel that technology has brought us too close. I take care not to respond too often, but I do read all the chats carefully. Many times, this makes me question my own parenting skills. The other mothers know so much more about school and what their children do, than I do about mine. The parent-teacher meets further make me question myself. The other mothers have so many questions to ask, while I have to rack my brains to ask even one. Most of my interactions with my son’s teacher end in a minute. I can feel the eyes of the other mothers on me; they must think I am a bad mother, that I don’t even have a question about my son.

This charges me up to behave like them for a few days, prompting my horrified son to put his foot down and say philosophical things about his rights. Better sense prevails and I realise that too much intrusion in my son’s life can curb his freedom.

My kid sure knows his rights – the other day, I stopped him from doing something and he protested and said children also have a life and that I was stopping him from living that life. I was taken aback – I had always thought I was a great mother who encouraged him to enjoy his childhood in every way. And here he was, hinting that I was a dictator.

It’s true – we often don’t let our children do the things they want to do. Instead we tell them what they should do and discuss them obsessively over social media. I don’t any of my son’s classmates but I know so much about them from the WhatsApp chats. This makes me uncomfortable – would we like it if our children discussed our shortcomings on social media chats? Parents compare their own children to others, they put up homework pics, compare handwriting and even laugh at their own children’s foibles. Is it fair to laugh over a child’s shabby scribbles?

All children learn to read, write, speak and add sums eventually. Every child learns. How would we feel if our children revealed our salary statements, discussed how we were about to lose our jobs, our medical profile on social media? If that’s not okay, why do we think breaching our children’s privacy is?

I think all parents need to let schools do their jobs. We need to interfere less, keep our anxieties to ourselves, let our children learn at their own pace. They have their childhood just once in life, let them enjoy it to the fullest. Take a deep breath and don’t burden your child. Also, put away your phone and use that time to be with your children. Talk to your children, don’t discuss them with others.

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Little people

‘Nutri gardens’ for children

Children in tribal areas of Maharashtra are overcoming malnutrition with a garden and organic farm concept launched with farmers’ associations.
by TERI Features Service

Three and a half-year-old Manish Hiraman Gowari, a resident of Khanivali village in Thane district, Maharashtra, was detected with severe acute malnutrition in 2013. He weighed just 9.9 kg then, when the standard prescribed by WHO is above 16 kg. Due to the introduction of a concept called ‘Nutri-Garden’, his life changed forever. Regular intake of protein supplements and balanced diet as advised by the project partners and doctors enabled Manish to increase his weight by more than 26 per cent in just three months.

Many children like Manish in the tribal areas of Maharashtra have benefited from a project launched by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) and the Thane Zilla Parishad (TZP), which was implemented with the help of Kisan Seva Kendras (KSKs) of IOCL and TZP. The project has today reached out to more than 900 children in 42 villages in the district.

Methods and measures

Khanivali village in Wada block was selected to implement a pilot project between June 2013 and February 2014. The project aimed to address the prevailing issue of malnourishment among Severe Acute Malnourished (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnourished (MAM) children and to assess if SAM and MAM children could be brought into the normal category.

“To ensure sustained positive health impacts on the SAM and MAM children, it was not only essential to provide enriched nutri supplements like protein powders, vitamin tablets, but also include appropriate nutritious food ingredients in their daily diet,” says Dr. Anjali Parasnis, Associate Director, TERI. While assessing the potential of available resources like land, water and manpower, TERI promoted the concept of “Nutri-Gardens” to ensure local availability of four focused ingredients, namely spinach, papaya, sweet potato and mushrooms, which could be easily cultivated in the region, and if cultivation is not possible, the same are easily available in the market at affordable rates throughout the year.

Given that women play an important role in the health and wellbeing of a family, the focus of the program was centered on the mothers of SAM and MAM children and aanganwadi sevikas (child daycare centre workers), responsible for providing mid-day meals to these malnourished children of Khanivali village. They were provided with a “Nutri Kit” comprising resource material in local language elaborating on the crux of the issue of malnutrition, the strategies to overcome it, easy-to-follow recipes, seeds and methods to grow the identified food ingredients.

Regular awareness programs, encouragement to consume the identified food ingredients and monitoring helped bring down the number of malnourished children. When provided with protein rich milk supplements as a short-term strategy, along with balanced diets, to the targeted 140 malnourished children for a period of three months, it was observed that around 68 per cent children, who were earlier designated as MAM, showed improvement in health and were assigned into a normal category, whereas, 32 per cent SAM children were upgraded to the MAM category.

“Given the ease of adopting the concept of “Nutri-Garden”, its long-term impact and encouraging results, the concept has tremendous potential for replication in other areas,” adds Dr Parasnis. Furthermore, TERI is currently focusing on the issue of malnutrition in both rural and urban areas through its program called PROTEIN — Program to Revitalize the Overall health of the Tribals/Teenagers by Ensuring Intake of Nutritious food products.

For more information on the project, please contact Dr. Anjali Parasnis, Associate Director, TERI (anjalip@teri.res.in).

(Picture courtesy www.thebetterindia.com. Image used for representational purpose only)

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Little people

City-based NGO is reuniting lost children with their families

A wonderful nation-wide initiative to reunite children currently living in children’s homes with their families was kickstarted in Mumbai last week.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Every parent’s worst nightmare centres around their children – that they are hurt, lost or dead, and that the parent is unable to keep their child out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, and despite all precautions to the contrary, some parents are faced with the trauma of losing their child. India registers staggering numbers of ‘missing’ or ‘lost’ cases of children every year, where most are abducted while the others run away from home. In most cases, however, the child is a victim of trafficking.

Where do children go, once their link to their home is abruptly broken? Some land up in children’s homes across the country, while thousands of others continue to remain ‘lost’ forever. How do children housed in children’s homes find their way back, if they ever do?

A city-based NGO, My Home India, has been doing notable work in reuniting children housed in children’s homes with their families. Over the last year and a half, the NGO has successfully reunited 166 such children from a Dongri-based children’s home, and helped four more children from Shahadra and Tis Hazari, New Delhi. The NGO is now going national with its noble work – last week, it launched ‘Sapno Se Apno Tak’, a nationwide programme that seeks to reunite all children sheltered in children’s homes  in India with their families.

Said Sunil Deodhar, founder, My Home India, “Under this project, we first try to gather all the details about children from the Children’s Home authorities. Later, we attempt to track the child’s family through a nation-wide network of our volunteers and then extend all possible help to the family in completing the legal process of release. However, our job doesn’t end here. We make an effort to keep in touch with the reunited children and their families.” He added that on a regular basis, the NGO conducts counselling sessions, medical camps and festival celebrations at children’s homes in coordination with the authorities. “We will work in association with various Government authorities and NGOs to spread awareness about this problem and obliterate the root causes of child trafficking in the country. We have recently received permission from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Maharashtra to work at all children’s homes in the State.”

The launch of the initiative took place at Veer Savarkar Sabhagruha, Dadar, and was dedicated to the memory of Eknath Thakur, Chairman, Saraswat Bank and former President of My Home India.

The NGO intends to set up a My Home India unit in every children’s home in the country, hoping to reunite every child with its family over the next five or six years.

(Picture courtesy tbtchome.blogspot.com. Featured image used for representational purpose only)

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