Voice of the Parivartan Children

Some additional photos

2009-11-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

http://brandeisandmumbai.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/hello-world/

Advocates of Change. For those interested.

2009-07-08T01:05:00.000-07:00

It’s been a week since we held our last meeting with Manjul.

At this point, I feel very aware. I’ve been recollecting all that I studied about Development Economics and Sociology. I’ve been thinking of the play we saw together, current news and have been objectively thinking on a more macro level.
Facts: The budget, it’s ambitions, slum rehabilitation schemes, builders, government, 60 lakh slumdwellers in Mumbai Thane region, 287 million illiterate people in India and only 1 in 10 who go to school make it to college. A question often asked- as advocates of change, where do/should we begin?

Another question I faced almost everyday during the project- what difference do you think this would REALLY make in the long term? Is this practical?

The question rightfully supported by facts: It’s all just a cycle- born into a poor family, illiterate, married early, atleast 5 children, not enough money to support them all- boy sent to work instead of studying- girl married off at the first opportunity, barely get to college- have children at an early age without enough income to support…back to step 1. Then there are the peripheral factors like societal norms, beliefs, classes and institutions that govern.

However, these questions and facts only reaffirm the philosophy of Parivartan and our project. It starts with education, with empowerment. What my mother said is true (at the time talking about the muck they have to walk through everyday), that unless they start to think for themselves, their situation wouldn’t improve. To understand their right to a standard of living, they have to be empowered. There's always room to work.

To donate: http://www.parivartansanstha.org/content/?q=node/9

Advocates of Change:
Revive: Mumbai: http://revivemumbai.wordpress.com/
Experimental Theatre Foundation (Manjul Bhardwaj): http://www.etfindia.org/Home.html
Parivartan: http://www.parivartansanstha.org/
AID: http://www.aidindia.org/main/

THE SHOW ONLY JUST BEGAN…

2009-07-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

For many of us, this was the end, the end of a “project”, the end of a trip, the end of a summer. But for the other’s it was just the beginning, the beginning of hope, the beginning of a future, and the beginning of a desire -- The hope of being “Somebody” someday, the prospect of a future and the desire rekindled within each one to reach their goals.
If there is anything that I have learned from this experience, it is that knowledge is the one thing that must be shared. In today’s world man knows only one thing, how to get ahead in life. Well I’m not saying don’t all I’m saying is give a hand to the people who have either fallen along the way or never gotten a change to walk. Show them that there is a future awaiting them. Most importantly educate them on how to get there. Give them the most powerful tool that nobody in the world can take away from them.

BE THE ADVOCATES FOR CHANGE!

Indian Express Article

2009-07-06T02:52:00.000-07:00

Indian Express Article by Sukanya Shetty
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/homemade-lessons/485334/0

Brandeis University news feed

2009-06-30T22:08:00.000-07:00

FYI: an article on the Brandeis University website about this project.
http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2009/june/revivemumbai.html

The end

2009-06-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

Day 20-30th June

Woke up and left relatively early to Juhi’s place for our closure meeting with Manjul. I was really sleepy as usual. I had mixed feelings. Couldn’t believe that the whole program was over and we would not be going to Wadala everyday anymore. I was happy that I could still go visit them at any point and that they would be able to study properly now. But it felt weird that it was over and now I’ll have to move on and do all my pending work at home. I literally had blocked out my entire world of friends and even family to some extent during this program. Many people were angry with me but at that point I was not worried. Those who know me well had understood how much I valued this program and the necessity to block out everything else. But now that it’s all over I have to get back to reality. During our meeting, we reflected on the previous day as usual. Then we talked about how each of us had gained from this project. We also spoke about our great leap form negativity to positivity. On Wednesday night we were at out heights of negativity and had lost all hope but after we had received a concrete plan and decided to be happy with whatever we achieve, enjoy our time with the children and not worry about the final product we had moved on and actually reached our goal. After this we spoke abiut our future plans and expectations. I hope to write more about our experiences in due time and put it together well. I also hope to do more amazing projects like this and to always be in touch and ready to help Parivartan, ETF and Revive: Mumbai.

Final Day

2009-06-29T23:35:00.000-07:00

June 29th, 2009- Monday

How do I feel? Elevated. Empowered. Ecstatic. In disbelief that its over. Why? I’m still trying to process… I don’t know where those three weeks went! I no longer identify with the “numb” and “surprised” person I was on June 10th (when I started this project). It seems like I’ve had a world of an experience these past days. It’s hard for someone else to understand or for me to justify this in words – let’s just say that sometimes the simplest and most available experience proves to be more valuable than something that we give up (not only monetarily) so much to attain.

Today was the last day, the final day with the children in the classroom. Zohar and I spent a good 40 mins at a shop buying some last minute gifts for the children, teacher and organization. The three of us were really excited during our ride to the school and decided to just let the children be – enjoy the last day. We reached there, played for a while with the kids until it started to get loud. We then decided to do a run through with the kids. Gave them a little pep talk, got them excited for the special guests that were coming today to see the play and for the surprise gifts that we had for them. We also told them to not worry anymore since we’ll be just doing the play inside as some of them (especially Sahil) requested. At that point Sahil suddenly got up to retaliate! He said that he spent all weekend getting ready to perform outside, now we HAVE to! Then some other kids started yelling saying that they wanted to do it inside..some back and forth…then a consensus- we’d do it inside AND outside! Everyone agreed to that decision, which I think was a first.

We then gave them a break to call their parents- more confusion- no one landed up with any of their mothers for individual reasons. During the recess time, we tried to coordinate the entrance of our family, photographers and friends. Since we took a little longer than expected, Gayatri teacher took quick charge of keeping the children occupied while we went to get the family (..sign of smooth team work again- the fact that we didn’t have to ask her, she assumed the role while we were gone instead of remaining apprehensive..)

There was a reason why I wanted my two closest friends, my sister and mother to see this. One reason was that I wanted to share and they had the right to know what I’d been so passionate about that I couldn’t spend much time socializing or why I didn’t get enough time to visit family since I’ve come back from the US. Another reason why I was excited about them coming to Sangam Nagar to see the play rather than on just video was so that through their reactions of walking in the community I could get a sense of volunteers for future projects. I asked the car to bring them through most of the distance so they didn’t have to go through the entire grind. However, as expected, they were completely surprised by the walk they had to go through to reach the class. Through the narrow dirty walls on the mucky mud, through the houses with staring and curious people, half-naked children running around, past the aimless goats and chicken, over the trash and red spit marks, with the distinct smell.. basically getting the raw experience of the slums. My mother was quick to note that ‘these people need to learn how to live. Its just so simple to put a plank over the mud to walk!’ Seems like a simple solution. Something I could relate to EVERYDAY. Everyday I saw problems with basic solutions. Everyday I discussed with Gayatri. Then I realized that its easy for us (the educated population) to comment, but only after talking to Shabana did I realize that most of the ‘simple’ problems are much more complicated than we think. Hence I decided that for the short term, it was best to not dwell into those concerns and trust that education will somehow propagate the needed cultural change in that community as well. With a little expected discomfort, they climbed the tiny stairs to the classroom.

We introduced the children to the guests. The children were delighted to see them, especially our mothers. Gayatri was very happy to see Ria after 2 weeks, as were the kids. At that time Gangadhar and Shoab had reached as well. As the children started the play, the guests got much more comfortable in the room. The children were extremely smooth and barely needed any prompting. The ‘leaders’ of the group assumed charge at times of slight confusion as the rest followed. Everyone was very confident including Sahil, Hina and Khushnuma. Hina had refused to be a part of anything until 2 days ago when they decided that they wanted to sing. Khushnuma had never been to school and had just come from the village for the first time. Her hindi wasn’t fluent and she was very shy. But she wanted to sing, and so she did. Both these girls were not consistent in being comfortable enough to sing. They refused during practice, but today they voluntarily stood up! Everything was falling into place. Shoab ended the play with a strong comment on “how are we supposed to work in a world like this when we have so many problems? We all have dreams and we want to be something after studying, but how can we when we live in a society like that !? Please tell me! Please tell me!”
Everyone was very impressed with the children, their acting, their message, their dialogues and with us. They got perspective. The children were very happy with their performance as well! Hearing everyone’s comments, their confidence level shot rocket-high and they were ready to go outside. We asked Gayatri teacher to lead the way while we followed. The children didn’t take much time; they started as soon as they reached. Soon enough, more than 50 people started to gather. Someone close by was playing loud music. As I walked into his house to request him to switch it off for 5 minutes, a little boy came running screaming out to the man to turn off the music! Many of the people possibly couldn’t hear anything..they still watched. Some commented, but they watched. Shoab was reluctant to end it, but he mustered the courage and did it well. I was proud and I’m sure it was the same for the children, Gangadhar, Gayatri, Zohar and Sriya. As the children started to walk back to the classroom, Gangadhar was calling the three of us over to a conversation where an old man was asking about the performance. The old man was a Congress leader and an influential person in the community (as Gangadhar explained). He said that he couldn’t see the play himself but within those few seconds heard about it. He wanted his son to be enrolled in this program that we were doing and wanted to talk to us. We explained that Parivartan is who he should talk to, but he wasn’t willing to spend money on education. That’s when we brought Gangadhar the conversation that led to some political topics. So we left.

We went back to the class, surprisingly my 2 friends and sister wanted to come back with us (the mom’s went back) and play with the children as well! We played the Jan, Feb,…game which got to a fun level of competition. After that, we danced for a while. All of us were having a great time!!! But ALAS! It was 10 to 5pm. We gave them the gifts.. which got very chaotic and nothing like I had planned (which seemed like a common theme throughout this experience anyway). After that, we took a few pictures with the kids and said our goodbyes. Saima cried and made me promise that Sriya and I would come back to visit. I promised in a heartbeat. She said that the only reason she came to school was because of us. But she will promise to continue. I still have the little plastic bottle she gave me as a gift.

THE day!!!

2009-06-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

Day 19- 29th June

Today was the last day, performance day. After Saturday I somehow felt like I didn’t want to expect anything in terms of the performance. I just planned to have fun with the kids and say our goodbyes. I didn’t even invite anyone to come. Juhi and Zohar called me in the morning and told me they were going to buy presents and sweets for the kids, Gayathri teacher and Gangadhar. I was happy, as I really wanted to give them presents. On our way to the school, Juhi told me that two of her friends, Ria and her mom were coming. She herself spoke to my mom who was more than happy to come. When we got to the school, we didn’t walk but went by car right till the inside. We went to school and all the kids were so happy to see us and we heard “Namaste teacher” for probably the last time. ☹
The kids also saw the number of extra bags we were carrying and immediately knew we had something for them! I noticed Asheep had a paper plane and got so excited since I love paper planes so much! I showed him how to make a different plane I knew. We all got into a circle and did the wave again! Then we tried playing this game called ‘message-receiver’ and then some other calm sitting down games in the circle. We were telling the kids that our mothers and were coming to see them. They seemed happy. We also asked them if they wanted to perform inside or outside and to our surprise they said both! They were completely prepared, excited and ready to do anything. It was really a great atmosphere and their excitement flowed in to me too! I was looking forward to having my mom there and wanted her to glimpse into my experiences of the past 2 weeks. After we played games, Gayathri teacher sent the kids out to recess and we asked them to bring their parents with them when they come back. During recess, I sat and spoke to those kids who stayed back. Heena finally came to me with her book and asked for homework. After I gave her homework she was back to normal and spoke to me properly again. I was so happy that she was talking to me. That’s all she had wanted. I sat with Asheep to play some more games. Then he made a rose out of paper and gave it to me! We also took some pictures with all the kids. As the kids started to come back from recess, our guests arrived. We led my mom, Juhi’s mom, Ria and Juhi’s two friends to the centre through the narrow lanes. I went just so that I could see their expressions. The tiny little stairs to the school was also quite a task to them. After they arrived, we introduced them to the kids and then there was the first performance! The kids were brilliant! I felt so proud of them. They went through the whole play by themselves. Gangadhar was also there to see them and took pictures. We also had a professional photographer. The audience shared their experience after the play. All of them thought the play was great and told the kids to be more confident and loud when they went outside. We headed towards the main street. Gayathri teacher led them. By them we got outside with all the kids, most of them were already in a big circle with a decent audience around them. They started with the song. Little Ahmed, as adorable as ever, led the group around as he sang- “dariya ki kasam, mauja ki kasam, ye tana bana badlega…. Tu khud ko badal, tu khud ko badal, tabhi to zamana badlega…”
We definitely attracted a great deal of audience. People came out of their houses to watch as the kids did an absolutely amazing job. They all looked confident. There were no mistakes and they all just went about doing their roles. After the performance, Zohar and I went and spoke to around 2 or 3 men and asked them what they thought of the performance. They all said it was very good! The kids went back inside while Gangadhar was talking to a politically important person of the community. He introduced Zohar, Juhi and me to the man. The man was talking about the necessity of school and how he really wants to send his grandchildren to the municipal school that was built after a lot of effort. However, he did not want to pay any money to send his children to school. Gangadhar had a little bit of an argument with him where he basically questioned how the man could think that way. After that we said goodbye to both moms and went back to the centre. Ria and Juhi’s two friends stayed back. When we went back we all joined the circle and sat down and played the January-February game for the last time. We asked the kids how they felt after the performance and told them that it was amazing. The happiest moment for me throughout this whole program was when Sahil shouted out saying that he was so strong and could do anything now. He wasn’t scared of anything anymore. This is exactly what we had wanted. We had empowered these kids to feel strong and have the attitude that they can achieve absolutely anything. It wasn’t about how good the performance was or how many people saw it. It was about how these kids who were once shy to even say their names out loud could now go out into the street and act out their dreams and lives. I was truly happy and felt like we had achieved something. Then we played music and danced on two songs. After this we decided to give the kids all the presents. First we presented a globe to the class and showed them where US is on the globe and where India is to show how much Zohar didi has travelled! After this we gave out coloring books that the kids fought for cause all the covers were different. When that was settled, we gave Gayathri teacher a present. Zohar was then giving out sweets as I said goodbyes. I was a little choked. I didn’t really want to leave. Especially when Asheep walked up to me and said he was leaving. I asked him to give me a hug. I don’t know if he realized that I might never see him again. Even if I do visit Parivartan (which I definitely will) he will be studying at the municipal school from now on. One by one all the kids started leaving. The older girls Saima, Sana and Sama were hanging around. Talking to us and making sure we say we’re coming back to visit. I spoke to Heena and Ahmed and told them that they should study well and come to school everyday. I told Heena that I would be calling Gayathri teacher to ask her if Heena came to school everyday and then visit only if she did. She agreed and promised to come to school everyday. I gave them all hugs. I really didn’t want to let them go. But they had to go home and so did we. Saima started to cry as she left and I gave her a big hug and promised to visit and never forget them. We then said bye to Gayathri teacher as well and walked out of the narrow lanes. We visited Gangadhar in the office and gave him his present that he refused to accept. We got to say bye to Shaoib and the teacher from the other centre. The three of us then walked out through the main road. Crossing the market with vegetables, fish and meat vendors. Passing by the goats, the scary dogs and walking through the muck because of the rain for the last and final time as the team of powerpuff girls!

HOSPITALITY AT ITS BEST…

2009-06-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

“MEHMAN BHAGWAN HOTE HAI”, this is a common phrase in Hindi that every grandparent or parent has imbedded into the minds of their children. The English translation being GUESTS ARE LIKE GOD. No matter who it is, it is important that you let the person into your house and offer them shelter and refreshments.
You would think that the people living in poorer conditions would be unable to provide or afford this sort of hospitality; once again we were proven wrong!
While we went from door to door asking people questions, a really nice family offered us refreshments, she insisted that we have something to drink and asked her child to run out and get a few bottles of coca cola. We stood there and chatted with her to learn that all her children are currently enrolled in school. At the same time Gayatri teacher gave us some news that hit me out of the blue, the lady living in that house was well off and she good afford much more than she currently lived in.
This got me thinking, why doesn’t she live in a better place, maybe she’s grown accustomed to the environment, she’s is drawn by the powerful sense of being part of a community? This question was left clearly unanswered as the lady just smiled and didn’t really have a proper response.
Juhi also met with this lady who lived across from the Parivarthan school, everyday when Juhi would leave and enter the school, she insisted that Juhi spend a night at her house. She hated us leave, probably scared of the day that we would not return?

It amazes me to see that even within soo much poverty there exists soo much love and selflessness. They are willing to give more than they are able to make and I strongly believe these are the people who make Mumbai what it is today ☺, after all slum dwellers make up approx. 60% of this city

Performing outside

2009-06-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

Day 18- 27th June

After the meeting yesterday, we were on our way ready to have fun! We reacher earlier today as the excecutive board meeting was scheduled for 12 noon. The members present at the meeting were Gangadhar, Gayathri teacher, Shakil, Devi, Rushabh, Sukanya (who we met for the first time- Part of Indian express, executive board member and Shakil’s friend) and us. We were only listening for most of the meeting. At the end of the meeting we asked them for the thoughts and reactions to our 2 weeks with them. It was nice to hear form all of them that they appreciate our work and would also like to talk to us about future projects. Shakil said that it was one of the policies of Parivartan that for all volunteers and staff the learning should be mutual between the children and volunteers. He said that we had followed with this policy and I completely agree that the learning has been mutual. Towards the end of the meeting all the kids arrived and sat quietly along the other side of the class that we sat. When we were done with our meeting all the members of Parivartan stayed to watch the children perform. It was their first experience performing without us guiding them. Zohar, Juhi and I stepped back and let the children run through their play. I felt SO proud of them! It was their very first time and they did a wonderful job. Everyone knew their respective roles and went through it beautifully. I was really happy. It was nice to see that Shakil was also really happy with the performance as he clicked some pictures. After the first run through, we decided to add another scene about ‘cleanliness’ hoping to get all the little kids to act it out and thus give them a role. It was really hard getting this organized. Saif Ali, the big kid, came today and he really wanted to be a part of the play but unfortunately he has to go to the municipal school on Monday and so we could not give him a proper role. Shoaib did an amazing job. He told us today that he had passed his 10th standard and gave us all sweets! He had told me the first day I met him which was also my first day at Wadala that he was here on a job as Gangadhar’s assistant. He was the one who had guided us through the community and led us from one place to another. We asked him to say a few words to help conclude the play. He did a great job improvising. After that we had our little dance party again! I wasn’t really in the mood to dance and kept sitting down a few times until when Asheep actually came to me and called me to dance! I was so happy to see the change in him. He was back to his original self the first few days that we had seen him. After dancing and also being flung onto the floor by Shoaib, which was quite hilarious, we had a photo shoot during recess. Ahmed suddenly appeared wearing his raincoat and looked as adorable as ever! We took many pictures and kept getting jumped on by all the kids. At this time, Heena was on my back and I was just talking to her casually when she said something about me coming everyday. I told her that Monday would be the last day that I was going to come. Then she said that if I don’t come there then she too would stop coming. This really disturbed me. I really hope this doesn’t happen. I really don’t the kids to stop coming because of us not being there. I really think we should talk to them about this and I also hope to visit them even after Monday. When the kids got back from recess, we took them out to the street for an actual run through. This did not go well at all. The kids were really scared, most of the boys were all over the place running around. Some were shy, some just seemed really happy being able to run around and some just seemed lost. The crowd that gathered to watch was quite large but they did not really seem to understand what was happening. They all stared and none of them clapped even when the kids were clapping after each scene. The circle the kids made was quite small and so no one could really see what was happening. Just one man came up to us and asked if we were doing a survey. When we said that this wasn’t for any survey he just assumed that it was for entertainment. I really wanted to tell him that this for awareness and to help change and develop the community. However, I couldn’t bring myself to put it into words and did not say anything. After the performance, which the kids didn’t even end properly, we went back to the centre. There we all sat down in a circle and decoded to reflect on the performance. Most of the kids were sating that they were scared and that they did not perform well. Even Gayathri teacher was shouting at all the kids. The three of us did not shout at all. the way the kids had acted was completely justified. It was the first time they were being made to perform something all by themselves out in the open. There were some people they recognized outside and most other were strangers. I’m sure they felt very uncomfortable and the fact that they even went through the whole play, although shabbily was a great achievement. Sahil, the boy who played the role of a drunken father was the only one who had played his role very badly compared to usual. He kept laughing and just said all his dialogues softly and without any expression. The rest of the kids as well as Gayathri teacher were shouting at him while he was really quiet. We called him close to us and spoke to him. We asked him how he felt when he acted the role outside. He said he felt shy and he would not like to do it in front of the public, as there were people he knew. He also said he would never do it in front of his parents. He said that he was comfortable and would do it well inside but he was not sure he’ll do it well outside. We told him that he has the courage and was a very good actor and that the point of this play is to show everyone outside what is really happening. He agreed to do it on Monday but said he doesn’t now if he’ll do it well or not. The older girls, Parveen and Aisha, were very scared at first to perform outside but they did a great job and seemed to look more confident inside. I even heard Parveen say to another kid that she was never scared. After this we let Gaythri teacher teach the class since we had used most of their time today. As she taught them the three of us just sat at the back of the class. After a while we just decide to leave early. Juhi was exhausted and I also felt we were only being a distraction by sitting there. While saying bye I noticed that Heena was not talking to me at all. That’s all I’ve been thinking about the rest of the day.

The First Run Through

2009-06-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

June 27th, 2009- Saturday

Sleeping in the car on the way to Wadala is ALWAYS a bad idea. I was SO exhausted when I reached that I could barely open my eyes. Infact, I was really tempted to take the car in instead of walking all the way..Zohar and Sriya pushed me to get out-they said the walk would wake me up..I guess it worked along with the 5 cups of amazing cutting chai that I downed once I reached the class room.

Following up with Gangadhar’s request, the three of us joined in at Parivartan’s bi-weekly meeting. This time however, they decided to keep the location the class room where we worked. I thought it was an amazing idea for them all to get a feel for the children in class. Our agenda was to just observe since we did a lot of talking last time..that’s when there were more of ‘us’ than ‘them’ at the first meeting. This time we had Devi, Sukania (assumed spelling) and Gayatri teacher join in as well. Devi and Sukania are also on Parivartan’s executive board but I’m not sure of their specific roles. We didn’t really get a chance to talk to them personally since the meeting started late and the children were already lining up outside the classroom. I was really glad to see that there were some important issues that were being addressed by Parivartan- an image I didn’t really get last time. Towards the end of the meeting, we asked them to go around and tell us about their experience of us working in Sangam Nagar. Gangadhar was saying that he was really happy with the turn out of the number of children that have been coming to school, he said that this was probably our influence because usually children don’t come at this time. It takes a lot of energy to get them to class. That point was really heart warming for me.. Devi mentioned that initially she and Rushabh were convinced that we would be one of those volunteers who would go back after two days of coming to the community. She said that the first time she met Zohar, she knew that Zohar wasn’t going to turn back. Devi was very impressed that we actually continued..Rushabh and Shakil, along with a nod of approval, were happy with our work as well. Gayatri teacher was glad that it was a two-way stream..she said that there was a lot that she learned from us while we learned from the children and the children learning from us. I’m sure I’m leaving a lot of the words out, but these our some of the important points that I remember..we just listened the entire meeting..I liked that.

During the 2nd half of the meeting, the children had already line up outside the door, on the staircase. Since it was 1pm already, Gayatri teacher let them into the class and asked them to sit on the side. It was amazing how disciplined they had become while there were new people in the room. No one talked, no one moved, it wasn’t something I’d seen in a LONG time. Given that, we asked the kids to perform for everyone in the room who was at the meeting. They did an AMAZING job! It was really pleasing to see the expressions on everyone’s face in the room. From my impression Shakil was impressed/happy, Devi and Rushabh had a good time, and Gangadhar -I couldn’t tell. The best part was that the children themselves were very happy with their play!! That was the first time that they had performed without any directions from us. They followed through carefully without too much commotion. So much so, that I thought it would be a good idea to add another scene at the end where all the little children would be included. The scene is on cleanliness (against littering and spitting)..Along with this, Shoab (Gangadhar’s assistant) agreed to close the play with a few lines to the audience. It all worked perfectly well.
Next, the kids really wanted to dance. We didn’t do it yesterday for various reasons, but today we thought they deserved it. We switched on the music and within seconds everyone had a move. It was full of energy..everyone was having a good time. After a few numbers, we let the children go for a 15 minute break..after they came back, we took them (after a LOT of difficulty) outside to try the play. The kids made a circle, did the song, but some of the boys were feeling “shy and conscious” so as a defense mechanism they ran off and weren’t acting like they usually do. We couldn’t do the last scene that we practiced in the class. We took them back to the classroom and talked to them – asking them how they felt. One boy, Sahil, who was doing the drunk man’s role wasn’t ready to do the scene outside. He said that people would make fun of him if he did that in the open. Also, if his mother found out, he would get beaten up. This is a situation that we need to talk about, and find a solution. The others had a good time and wanted to do it again. After talking to them for a while, we decided to allow Gayatri teacher to teach. Once we sat down, exhaustion was starting to creep up my limbs, numbing every part of my body including my brain. Zohar was exhausted as well since she’s not been sleeping a whole lot so we left at 4:30pm instead of 5pm. Walked back silently, we were very lucky with the weather today. We decided to go over by the short cut.. the heap of trash so that we could just dose off in the car. Spoke to Manjul briefly- it felt like an effort to open my mouth or hold the phone. Headed home for the first time reached at 7:30pm.

Rainy Day

2009-06-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

Day 17- 26th June

Woke up today on a relatively bad note… both mom and dad were saying how badly it was raining outside and how we really shouldn’t be venturing out today. I thought about it. It did seem quite bad and scary. BUT I really wanted to go and knew we needed to be there today. So when my dad said that I should go if it’s absolutely necessary, I decided that it really was and set out. During our car ride there all three of us were really quiet and kind of slept off. When we got there it had stopped raining and Juhi mentioned how we were so lucky that it stops raining when we have to walk. She said that too soon. At that minute it started pouring. Juhi and I had chai before we walked to the school in those really cool glasses that all the chaiwallas around Bombay have. SO GOOD. Then we decided to the school using the shortcut with the bridge of pee. BAD DECISION. It was all good until we got to the heaps of garbage. That was the worst experience I have ever had in my life. It was absolutely disgusting. As I felt my foot sink into the garbage, that had become all squishy because of the rain, I actually screamed. It was the most horrible feeling ever. It was black mucky water with onion peels, plastic bags, definitely pee, poop, school bags, dirty cloth kind of things. And the worst part was that as I stepped ahead and felt like I was about to puke I had to keep moving forward to get out of the place. We got through it in the end and made our way to the school after washing our feet using a water pump on the way. As soon as we climbed up the stairs and entered all the kids shouted out “Namaste teacher” louder than ever today! They even came running up to us to shake hands! This they had never done before. We went and sat down while Gayathri teacher continued telling the kids a story. After that we got the kids to stand and run through the play, right from the song in the beginning of the play, to the drunken scene. It went really slowly. The transitions from one scene to another takes a lot of time and the most of the little children are just so distracted. The bad points for today are that Abhid Ali wasn’t there. We had to get someone else to do his part. First we chose Nazir to do it and he did quite a good job. However, Saima was at school today and is so demanding that she finally took the role. I think we ran over the play around three times with the kids. During recess, Gayathri teacher got us chai! In between rehearsing I was giving “jhoola” rides again and doing the “fugdi” with Heena, Asheep and Afreen! Then when we everyone got back we started all over again. I found that all the children enjoyed watching the drunken father scene so much. They were most disciplined during this scene and always wanted the kids acting in it to do the scene again. They actually seemed to enjoy it and I didn’t feel too good about that. We did another scene about gender discrimination in terms of education. During the last run throught for the day, Zohar, Juhi and I were just sitting down and watching. We spoke and told them to move on but they mostly went about it by themselves. Most of the kids were just bored of doing the same thing over and over again and did not co-operate. This is understandable as they are kids after all and doing the same thing is boring when they think that the whole thing is a game and we were only there to play. A really good thing I noticed today was that Parveen was really loud and was no more the really quiet grown up girl. She did a great job as teacher in the play. She also was telling the other little children to sit down or to speak loudly and instructing them. Especially after she had heard that other people (excecutive board of Parivartan) were coming to watch them tomorrow. At the end of the day, the kids came running to me for homework like the last two days. They really wanted and were ready to do a lot of homework even if it’s the same thing as the previous day. One girl said that she had nothing to do at home and so wanted homework! Everyone wanted to dance again but then Juhi want up to it and came asked me if we should. I didn’t really want to dance either not only because I felt a little tired but also the kids had been all over the place unlike yesterday when everything had gone smoothly. When we told them that we had to leave as it was raining heavily and that we would dance tomorrow if they acted out well they were surprisingly very understanding. We left and walked back the long way, which was also a mess because of the rains but much better compared to the shortcut with the garbage dump. Today was just like the weather outside. We had progressed but it had been hard. It was gloomy. We then had a meeting with Manjul at my house. After reflecting our thoughts for the day Manjul told us to write down the answer to how we have impacted the children/parents/staff of Parivartan and community in the two aspects 1) live life interventions and 2) theatrical interventions. My thoughts were expression, initiative, education (priority of parents/community), loud voices and belief in teaching using the methods of theater. Then we had to write about the impact of this whole program on ourselves in the same two aspects. My answers were that I am definitely more self-confident, feel useful, not so worried about other peoples thoughts when I believe in what I’m doing and what I want to do, think it is definitely important to make my family a part of everything I do for it to go smoothly, have seen another side of my own city that I always knew existed but never experienced, learned a lot from all the new people I have interacted with, learned to appreciate what I have even more than I already do, “hold my space” much more than I did before and have learnt and now believe in the use of ‘theatre of relevance’. A great accomplishment overall! We then discussed some concerns about the play and heard Manjul’s advice for performance day!

Everything's not ALL that rosy :-/

2009-06-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

June 26th, 2009 –Friday

It was POURING outside. There were rumors that it’s going to be a huge flood since it was also high tide at the time. My sister had been stuck in traffic for 3 and half hours and my dad for 2. Zohar and I decided to wait it out, called Gangadhar, checked with a few people and decided to go regardless of the parents’ concerns. This is important, last 2 days. We can’t let the children down. The fact that Sriya was assertive with her parents meant a lot to me..

We got on the road. It really wasn’t as bad..although we did take 2 and half hours to reach. I fell asleep in the car since I didn’t get much sleep the night before, instead of feeling fresh, I was more tired..chugged some tea and shook myself awake. What really woke me up was the heap of trash that we decided to walk over. It was the short cut and we though it was a brilliant route that we hadn’t taken full advantage off! Walking on it while it was pouring wasn’t a good idea at all..all of a sudden those extra 20 muddy minutes of walking didn’t seem so bad. The trash smelled of urine and I couldn’t stop thinking of the lady who told me that she threw the dead white/yellow cat in the trash! Everything was coming back to me, I was about to throw up and didn’t have the courage to look up at how Zohar and Sriya were doing. I just screamed out to them to not think of anything..it was hard considering my shoes were letting in all the dirt..i could feel it with my toes. While I was staring at my feet after the walk, a boy looked at us and said ‘kitna bekar hai nay eh jaga?’ (isn’t this area disgusting?) I don’t know if he was mocking us, or laughing at the situation – since there’s nothing else he could do. It struck a chord with me..can’t say how, but got me thinking..

Anyhow, we made a collective decision to never do that route again..

We reached the class late because of the traffic. Gayatri teacher was teaching, but yet the children screamed at the sight of us and ran over to shake our hands as we entered !! I’d never seen them so excited to see us!! It threw me aback, but I was extremely thrilled. After Gayatri teacher was done, we practiced the play once.. it was OK. Gave them a break, came back and practiced again. COMPLETE chaos. I was slightly disappointed in the lack of progress..but it was still nice to see the children high in sprits. Their ability to sustain that level of energy ALL the time always amazes me. We wrapped it up, not feeling the same as yesterday, but still happy. Zohar said that she was really glad with the way things went. I couldn’t say that for my experience.

We met up with Manjul at Sriya’s house. He made us write down 10 points of achievement from a perspective of ‘life’ or ‘theatre intervention’ for the students, organization, community and ourselves. We then shared it with each other.. I realized that there was a lot more that we had to be proud of than thought of before. In discussion, I realized that when we started this project, all the organizations involved- Parivartan, AID, ETF, Brandeis University, Revive: Mumbai and us had a different purpose in mind. Now, they all connect through us. Another reason for pride. We talked a little more about some of the issues with a few students and the most diplomatic way of handling them. Speaking to Manjul helped clear out our options. We were all set for the weekend!!!

You Don't Need To Know Hindi To Dance

2009-06-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

June 25, 2009

Whenever you fall you get up.

When “things are bad, they can only get better”.

After yesterday- a blur of anger and resentment- today was fresh.

Heavy rains waking me up, I put Teva sandals on my feet instead of sneakers

This is a change in me. Before this project others had told me “wear close-toed shoes in the slums, you don’t know what kind of things are on the ground there.” When it rains the grounds are muddy and in that mud can be bugs, trash, non-hygienic things relating to the bathroom, etc.

Today I saw past it all. In truth, wearing sneakers isn’t that helpful anyway because they get wet and muddy- but there is still a sense of protection.

With my sandals I had a new attitude for the day. The past few days have been a blow to my self-esteem and confidence- doubting my skills, leadership abilities and interests in life. I have been more passive role in and out of the classroom, have not wanted to connect with the children, and in one word: distance.

Calm, fun, be with the kids.

Passing the spot where the cat used to lie, we are asking the family nearby. “It died yesterday. Got washed away by the rains…” This was a completion, (maybe to my major frustrations), and a lead in to the birth of the play.

Peeping my head from the ladder into the classroom I hear the kids screaming “teacher!” It still gets to me. Every time. The excitement in their voices, smiles, hands waving.

Immediately I notice the leader of our class, worried anxious upset?

I start thinking of reasons: she is nervous for the play because we have given her such a big part? She is starting to realize that we are leaving in a few days? She is looking out the window longingly, gazing at the rooftops: is she thinking that we are a symbol of hope like Manjul said, but that she is losing hope in herself for the future? I don’t know.

We show the kids a videoclip on children performing street theatre. Interested in their reactions I am looking at them all watching…smiles on their faces! When the boy in the dvd starts hitting the girl (as a drunk man coming home and hitting his wife) many of the kids, specifically the boys, had huge smiles on their faces and were laughing at this. Even one boy was clapping. Why? Why does it bring this reaction to them when they are dealing with this reality on a regular basis? These kids are starting to think about their lives, but are they thinking that this physical abuse is wrong? If this is the way they are brought up and aren’t exposed to much outside culture and customs (except t..v occasionally), then what gives them the moral understanding that this is wrong?

At recess Gayatri turned to me, positioned her arms to play the swirling game and asked if I would play. WHAT?! A sign that today would be full of liveliness! I twirled with her, she was so happy and free.

The music played from the laptop, and all of a sudden the bare classroom turned into a playful fun house. Jumping, Bollywood dance moves, swinging kids upside down like planes, shaking bodies left right up down, we were laughing, having fun, twirling more with the kids we were in it. Everyone was smiling, kids were excitedly coming back from break. Now there is a new definition of recess. We were actually playing and enjoying each other’s company.

We asked one kid: what do you want to be when you grow up? “Police”. Us: Who wants to be a policeman here?

4 boys stood up and improvised a scene. Came Everyone contributed (the rest of the kids who are sitting in a circle) to the scene by making sounds of a police car.

Next: who wants to be a teacher?

Two girls went up and immediately a bunch of little ones went up to play students…

One of the “teachers” was confidently in charge, she went straight into saying “a is for apple…” teaching the kids a lesson. It is true, this is a moment where the kids can believe they are in their fantasy job world. Next was doctor.

One of my goals today was to appreciate the kids. It is starting to sink in that I am only here for a little more time!

Time to practice WAH! We changed the word after a while to “Sooonooo”, which means listen. Today’s agenda was working with the kids games that we had played during the week (Manjul’s idea) and adjusting them to themes related to their lives and ultimately the play..

We practiced walking in from a line clapping, singing the song and going straight into the Soonooo Soonooo. The older boy looked proud leading the group, and all the kids were involved- yes!

Next we worked out the scenes from our original script- which is great. Started off with scene of drunk dad coming home to beat up mom. Originally we didn’t have the boy who had told us his story, acting it out. Too personal?

In the end this boy really wanted to act out the dad. We let him do it- and with full confidence and expression and energy was it acted out! So well! Watching Gayatri’s expression the whole time, it was full of sorrow and excitement and pride and nervousness.

A girl who came out and sang then inspired another girl to come out (who had been in the corner the whole time!)

That’s how it works- peer pressure or peer support. Works both ways. You want to be the cool one= the person who is entertaining, who is confident, who has the spotlight.

We ended with the kids sitting in a meditative position with eyes closed and hands on their laps, open.

Meditation: On how this has been a great day and not to forget what we have done!

Then DANCE PARTY RETURNED! FULL BLAST!

I have never sweat like this before in my life.I believe I was at an ultimate high because: 1) dancing requires no verbal language 2) I love dancing in general.The kids were remarkable: Shaheel was doing a sort of breakdance routine. The whole time- nonstop.

I couldn’t have asked for more.

Complete disbelief: how did this happen?

I am very proud. It seems like after all the sweat and panting all the way through training and reflections, if anything this day was the day that proved to me that it was ‘worth it”.

Everyone was having fun. We didn’t divide the class, as I had thought was completely necessary to be productive.

Also a touching moment was at the end of the day when all these kids went up to Juhi and Sriya with their notebooks asking for homework. They wanted us to write them words to learn. I want this scene in the play. (Look at picture on the right)

What a hunger for education. You don’t see this everywhere. It was beautiful.

ECSTATIC!!! :D

2009-06-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

June 25th, 2009- Thursday

WHAT AN AMAZING DAY!!!! We started off as usual at Sriya’s house to go over and recreate the game plan for the day. Yesterday had completely put us in a different mindset and I was ready to rethink everything. We threw out our old script and decided to start thinking like the kids. What do they really want to do? What does this ‘play’ really mean for them? How could we work with their frame of mind? There’s SO much energy there that we could channel.. but we can’t force it in any direction..and I think were trying to take too much control over that channel. We realized that we were trying to make them do something that they weren’t necessarily interested in or our expectations were too high. Yes, we saw the potential for change and yes, we want to do everything in our power to make that change..but we needed to rethink our purpose, how much we’d already achieved and where we were planning to go from here. Manjul directed us to rethink all of that yesterday in our oh-so-intense meeting. He mentioned over and over again that I referred to the children as “them” and used the word “people” to refer to them in third person. That showed a major disconnect and possibly the core of the problem. I had lost track of when I started to look at the project from a birds-eye-view/ as only a teacher/ as an organizer and not as a level headed person building confidence within these children by directly relating to them, by being WITH them.. it all seems SO obvious now..

What I’m glad about is that not only did we recheck our attitude, we also implemented the new trade of thought and ended up with an extremely positive result! This time, after creating a general plan and goal, we weren’t as meticulous in planning during the car ride as we usually are. We decided to ‘let things flow’.. follow the energy in the classroom. We entered the classroom, briefed Gayatri teacher with the plan of the day as usual. While the teacher was teaching, I was observing the children from the back and felt a sudden surge of love for them all. I saw the beauty in the uniqueness of each child and it wasn’t ‘annoying’ or ‘frustrating’ anymore..it was something I was excited to work with!
We showed the children 2 videos of street play done by ETF with children of their age. They saw one of the videos twice. Apart from three children who were completely disinterested, the rest enjoyed the videos thoroughly. It was really interesting to see their reactions in specific scenes..

We asked Gayatri teacher to lead us into singing the opening song of the play. After singing it a couple of times, we opened the leadership opportunity to anyone who was interested. One of the boys (who’s usually very good at remembering songs and loves singing) took up the job. We then added in the 1,2..CLAP with the song while they went in a circle. They then rehearsed “hum Bache”..till it became chaotic. Then for some reason they were given a break by Gayatri teacher without a warning. That turned out to be a good thing in disguise because we decided to turn on some music in the room and started dancing. I don’t completely remember or understand the transition to this moment. All I know is that everything was out of control..and this time in a good way. We (including Gayatri teacher) danced for a good twenty minutes, which burned out a lot of their energy for the moment. Taking advantage of that fact, we got them to get into the circle and then picked on one boy and asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said police. We asked who else wanted to be a police? Three other boys enthusiastically raised their hands. We asked them to come in the center and act out their impressions of being a policeman. They were stumped and didn’t know what to do. I gave them a few ideas, they accepted them, put them forward to Sriya and Zohar..we decided to shortlist two and combine them to make one scene. They improvised on our advice in a beautiful way.. similarly, we had a teacher, doctor and singer..We then asked one boy to lead them again into “hum bache..” That’s when we started to lose their attention again. So we decided to open up the floor to another game that we played before and the kids loved called “WAH”. We replaced the “WAH” with “SUNO” which would lead into the “hum bache” song.. we played another game and then got them to sit back into a circle. We then asked two boys and a girl to act out a domestic abuse scene. Initially, I wasn’t comfortable having the kid who told us the story about his parents to do the father’s role for various reasons. But he really wanted to.. He wouldn’t sit still! We gave him the shot, and he did a brilliant job !!
They practiced the whole sequence again. I noticed Gayatri teacher sitting with a big smile on her face. That’s when I knew that the children had impacted a large part of the community. The teacher’s smile spoke a thousand words. I could see a whole new level of respect for the children in her eyes and that meant a lot to me.

We ended the day with some meditation and reflection time. It was 5pm, but the children wanted to do some more dancing. We danced for atleast another half an hour and EVERYONE was dancing! I was soooo impressed by some of the moves!

I’m going to take the night to get myself down to earth again, have to be ready to face the chaos if it occurs tomorrow. Have to remember to work with what we have (i.e. creativity and energy) and remain calm, because there’s always a way to work things out. Today I felt the most connected I have with the children. I have completely fallen in love with them, and am enjoying every moment of this experience :D

Putting on the Dancing shoes!

2009-06-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Day 16- 25th June

Ahhhhh…AMAZING DAY… today was just loads of fun… loads…. I was really tired this morning but looking forward to it at the same time…. after the intense conversations yesterday and a new idea, I was excited and just wanted to go try it out and see what happens. Juhi and Zohar came home as usual and we spoke about what we could do today. We decided to play the games we had been playing with them throughout last week, show the kids the video and try to use our new strategy to progress with the play. We were on our way and in the car we spoke less about what we were going to do when we were at the school. We didn’t have as concrete a plan as we had been making the last couple of days. But I still felt ok about that. Was just looking forward to the children and kind of a new start after the horrible day yesterday. We were laughing and joking a lot along the way as we walked to the school. Like Zohar even said in the morning… I was feeling the energy and really felt positive. On the way to the school we found out that the cat we had been seeing the last few days had died. It was sad. As I turned the lane to the school I was hoping that the chicken and the little kid who threw it on me wouldn’t be there. I really did not like that yesterday. We entered the school and sat down. It seemed like Gayathri teacher had been late today, as she seemed to have just started teaching. She said that majority of the children had been admitted to the municipal school and will be leaving Parivartan next week. She wanted to hand over the class to us. I noticed a couple of new kids in class today. I later found out they were old Parivartan students. Juhi then started setting up her speakers and I set up my laptop on a chair in front of the class. We played the 10-minute video that Manjul had given us. Some of the children were really enthusiastic that they were getting to watch the video. Although most of the enthusiasm was just for the fact that they were being shown a video on laptop, which is probably something they have never seen before, some kids actually paid attention. They recognized the clapping, singing and formation of a circle, which they had done too. They also watched it a second time. Then we also played a 7-minute video featuring one of Manjul’s previous works that was covered by “M TV.” After this most of the children went home to eat lunch as it was recess. Just as I had put the laptop away, one kid asked Juhi if she could play music and so we set up the laptop with speakers and music. We danced for half an hour. It was great. The energy level was really high and all the kids were up and about dancing. Even gayathri teacher was enthusiastic and joined in. After that all the kids came back and then we sat in a circle. They all sang the song they had learned yesterday. Ahmed volunteered that he knew the song and so we guided him to lead the rest of the group. Then Kushnuma, a new girl who had just come from the village and is new to Parivartan came up and volunteered to sing a song. It was the first time I heard her speak out loud. It was amazing to see that change. She had been very quiet on her first day. And now she was up singing a song all by herself. Then we made the kids whose dreams were to become police come up and act like they were policemen. It was amazing. Ahmed became a policeman’s bike. The whole group created sound effects. Then Asheep became a thief and Sarfaraj and Sahil became the police who both caught Asheep and came up with their own amazing dialogues. Then we created a classroom scene with Parveen and another new girl as teachers and a whole bunch of kids who volunteered to be students. Again, they came up with the dialogues completely by themselves and beautifully. Lastly we had the doctor scene with Asheep as the patient and Nazir and new girl’s sister as doctors. They were great too. After this we played the January-February clapping game with the kids and tried to change the words so they could use it as part of the performance. This didn’t work too great. Then we played the “wah”game and change the word to “suno” (listen). We also got Abhiday to say some dialogues that he turned out to be great at. He is one of the older kids of our group and is one of the calmest kids I’ve seen. I’m so glad he’s a part of this since he only joined us this week. After this we actually managed to run through everything from the beginning. This went surprisingly, very smoothly. We couldn’t be happier. We still had some time left and decided to try and do another scene. We wanted to show the scene of alcoholism and domestic abuse. Sarfaraj was trying to be the drunken father and this is where I thought that showing them the video had been a good idea as he actually said, “Accha, video kai jaisa karna hai.” (Oh, we actually have to act like in the video). Sahil then enthusiastically volunteered to be the drunken father, so we gave him a chance and we had Sana reluctantly do the part of the wife who gets beaten up. Although we would have like Saima to do she had left early since she had a headache and wasn’t feeling too well. Ahmed and Sarfaraj acted as sons. Sahil did an AMAZING job acting and with his own dialogues which were better than anything we could have come up with. Probably since he has grown up watching such scenes in reality. We were all hesitant in giving him this role since he has actually experienced it and if his parents watch him acting out such scenes they could probably hit him for doing it. But I don’t think anyone could do it better than him. I hope that his parents do see it and realize their mistakes. Gayathri teacher also seemed really surprised/impressed with Sahil’s acting. After that we had planned to wrap up for the day, extremely happy with the progress and glad to have something created in the name of a performance. BUT Abhiday came up and asked for music to be played. Then I connected the laptop again and played music. We danced like CRAZY for a whole hour! I just felt it. I was thinking a lot. The number of days I’ve spent there. The first time I saw those kids and they saw me. And now things had changed. From both ends. We all were up dancing. I was swinging some children around. Giving them “jhoola” (swing) and airplane rides. And I thought oh my god. This is so much fun and we have such little time left. I am seriously attached to these children. And I cant wait to go back tomorrow. :)

On our way back Gayathriji showed us a shortcut. We passed HEAPS of garbage. HEAPS. It was horrible. Urgh. I wish I could do something. I’m going to try. It was obviously worse because of the rain. We then crossed a bridge of pee!!! And Juhi stepped in muck! But then we got home safe.

The cat still manages to breathe

2009-06-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

June 24, 2009

My mind is thrashing, my ears aching and my confidence desires wishful thinking has been swirling all day into a big pile of mud.

I do not remember the last time I felt so hopeless, so exhausted, burdened by expectations, limited by communication, reliant, and transparent.

Every day now this past week, the group of us has passed by a dying cat on the way to the school. I always think when I pass the cat that this will be it- the last time- but the cat somehow continues. It is caked with mud, spots of yellow die, it’s legs are as thin and fragile as legs, and we see it’s body rise up and down with every last breath in the narrow lanes of the slum while people pass over it carrying piles of rice and construction supplies.

I felt like this cat today: barely making it to the next breath- yet still managing to keep on keeping on.

Before school the three of us sat down for 2 hours compiling a skeleton of the play itself based on the ideas brought forward by the young boy the day before. We had an elaborate sketch of a play covering issues such as domestic abuse, gender discrimination, education and cleanliness. We were excited by this completion, hoping that the kids would fill it in with many bright colors.

When I brought up the title of the play Juhi mentioned that maybe it should be something involving the word Parivartan, which means change and is also the name of the school.

When arrived Gayatri told us that she had been told her to go survey the community and take care of some other tasks, but we were a little let down by this. This project is for the growth of the students, teachers, administrative staff, families, community members and ourselves. As a side note, I think it is imperative in the future when this type of project happens which includes training, that all teachers and administrative staff be present for at least part of the training.

Juhi went over the script overview we had written with Gayatri while the kids played a game that I initiated with Sriya. That game in English is called “Indian chief” and involves taking turns being the leader. The brilliant thing was that the kids were all jumping all over the place wanting to lead the group- great initiative. Empowering?

The second we said that we were working on the play all the kids jumped with excitement! We immediately assigned the roles and eventually when we were trying to work all together (younger and older kids), the little kids were running around like crazy- filled to the brim with ENERGY.

Sriya took the younger ones to one side of the room to create invitations with them. Since they don’t know how to write, we had them draw images and we will write messages on them later.

I was helping Juhi with the directing. By helping I mean I was standing there not knowing what to do. I have been feeling this for the past few days now, just lost in my role there.

I know that I could direct kids. I can direct adults. I have had experience, in very challenging and experimental settings, but with this specific case, I am at a loss. The language comes back to haunt me time and again. I don’t want this to be a crutch, seriously though. I would hate to keep sticking to it.

I am standing there, not knowing what it is I should do with myself. Should I continue to discipline the children, babysitting them? While Juhi is directing, she is telling the kids where to go and sometimes what to say, and I told her that maybe I should give the visual of where to stand and she will fill in with the lines, but I stopped myself. Wouldn’t it just take double the amount of time doing it this way? Isn’t it quicker if she just does it independently and I help with the “housekeeping” tasks?

I was questioning what it was I was doing there. I was evaluating my skills as a director, as a practitioner of theatre. I was aware of the time, as my other facilitators kept asking me what the time was. I was aware of my hunger. I was aware of my tiredness. All this was a signal to myself that I was not being present and invested in my work. I just felt handicapped without being able to say the words and fully understand the children--- and that handicap keeps tripping me…

At that moment Gangadhar appears with Devi, the third member of AID Mumbai that I had met the first day I came to see the community.

She met the other girls and said that it looks like the kids are enjoying me despite my early worries that they wouldn’t be able to communicate with me.

We practiced moving on stage in a line clapping into a circle. The kids were sort of in unison, and Gayatri had sketched out a circle with chalk on the ground.

Once the circle was accomplished, chaos continued.

We were left with the kids, full of energy jumping jumping jumping.

Wanting to play.

And we had our play in mind.

Although we had great lead actors they were also being distracted.

While rehearsing Sayma, one of the students was getting nervous about performing. I patted her on the back and say that she was doing great!

There were two kids that volunteered to be waterpumps. They stood there with their arms like waterpumps for more than an hour straight- so disciplined, maybe the best actors of the day.

After a while, when all the kids were distracted, the little kids were running on stage, I told juhi to do a meditation with them asking if they really want to continue on with the play. We spoke to them about how we are here for a specific purpose- not just to run around and play.

One the kids left, the other two were exhausted from yelling and having the kids climb all over them, but I was exhausted from the opposite- from feeling like I am not doing anything.

The second we left the building one of the kids threw a live chicken at sriya. Here is the picture of the event, of which I was very proud of Sriya considering her fear of animals.

Then came the meeting with Manjul, which was…

Well it was like stuffing that Paan into my mouth. Except instead of a rose explosion it was an explosion of expectations, hopes, understandings…

The first part involved a lot of venting. For 2.5 hours we talked and talked about the day and our hesitations. I said that I think tomorrow we should split up the older and younger kids. That we put the older ones in the center with the office and leave the younger with Gayatri.

After explaining the day in depth, we started asking Manjul really for some concrete suggestions for moving forward. He told us that the problem was that conceptually we are seeing an “us and them”, meaning that we are seeing this as our project and not the children’s. We need to let the children lead us.

TOTAL CHAOS

2009-06-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

Day 15- 24th June

Today we were supposed to meet early so we could formulate a script, atleast in skeleton form that we could start working on when we get to Wadala. We were very happy to write down a script that incorporated all the problems we wanted to portray and thought we had written it down in the simplest form so its easy to understand for the kids. We planned all along the way, in the car and had our script ready.

When we got to the school the kids had been writing and learning Hindi alphabets and words. They all showed us their books that had words that had been neatly written over and over again. Then Juhi decided to go through the whole script with gayathri teacher. At this point the kids were a little restless and so I asked Zohar if she could suggest a game that we could play to keep them occupied. Zohar did think of a gaem and then we got into a circle to start. The rules of the game were that there is one prson who goes way to corner and there is a leader in the rest of kids in the circle who keeps making some actions that the group is supposed to follow. When the person whose turn it is comes back, he/she has to guess who the leader is. Yes, complicated. And only the start of mess. The biggest change today was that earlier when we played something we had to get the kids to come out and volunteer being leaders and keep encouraging them. TODAY was wayyy different. EVERYONE wanted to be a leader. Actually, not everyone. Some kids just remained quiet as always. But a whole lot of them were jumping about and of course fighting. It was definitely a goo thing they all wanted to be a part of it but I just couldn’t handle all the fighting and jumping. We then started to play the January-february-months-clapping game. By this time Juhi was done with Gayathriji and we all got into the circle. At this point, the kids started fighting with each other to hold my hand. I wasn’t even sure if they wanted to hold my hand. It seemed like they just wanted to fight for the sake of fighting. At one point I stood with my hands on my head. Cause I didn’t know whose hands to hold and my hands actually hurt from being pulled by everyone. I went and held Zohar’s hand and then saw that Heena looked really sad and was looking at me. I then went and held her hand and stood in the circle. We did the wave thing around the circle cause the kids wanted to. Then we picked out the main actors of the play. Juhi and me went to one side to start working with the older children (main characters). Gayathri teacher made all the little kids sit down and learn the song “ dariya ki kasam, maujo ki kasam, ye tana bana badlega…. Tu khud ko badal, tu khud ko badal.. tabhi to zamana badlega.” They really seemd to pick up fast from what I over heard. After a few minutes, Gayathri teacher just disappeared. The little children were ALL OVER THE PLACE. Jumping, shouting, swinging, fighting. Then as Juhi tried to get the play done, Zohar and me decided we could engage the small kids with coloring to make invitations to the play. I made them all sit down in a circle. Handed out paper and stationary and got them to start coloring. It was all happening very nicely. Then problems stated coming up. Fighting for colors, for paper for everything. Someone’s paper tore. Someone’s pens didn’t work. Someone had too many crayons. Everyone wanted his or her way. Gangadhar and Devi (from AID) came to the center at this point. As they sat down and watched I was having a hard time telling the kids what to do, answering their questions and trying to find more colors when I had two kids on either side of me and one on my back. They then had recess. I played games with Asheep who had come and told me that he wanted to do so. That was the only part of the day I enjoyed. We got into the circle and tried to do the clapping with the singing. It didn’t work at all. The only day that Gangadhar had come to watch. These kids seemed to have no clue what they were doing or why? After that, more kids wanted to draw, some who should be practicing the play all excited to draw. Some kids wanting more paper to draw for the second time. Some others trying to get the most crayons. Some throwing the caps of the colors all over. One creating a tower of pen caps. PHEW. I don’t think I ever get so fed up with kids. But this was probably the first time. I didn’t want to be there. I just wanted to go away. Then Juhi started calling all the kids to a circle and I collected all the drawings from them. And just sat quietly. Having no clue what to do. Gayathri teacher was missing all this while. Juhi gave them a lecture and made them think about what they were doing. She said a lot of things to motivate them to work and do something and listen. I could see she was losing her voice/patience/sanity. I wanted to help but I couldn’t think of anything to do. When they all got up again it seemed like the talk had helped a little. But then they all went back to jumping and shouting. Juhi was asking if we could just finish off early for today. I was thinking the same. I didn’t mind playing a game and not thinking about the play. But I didn’t have any hope that it would go well. Gayathri teacher came back at this point. When all the kids had left, the three of us went into a CRAZY fit of giggles. We had seriously lost it. To add to everything, while walking down from the centre this girl who had her face painted pink for some reason THREW A CHICKEN ON ME!!!!! She thought it was a game. IT WAS NOT FUNNY even though I laughed. I was really scared of that chicken. And when that kid was throwing it at me all I wanted was to go home RIGHT THEN! We were depressed, negative, fed-up, needed help, lost, worried about how we had such less time and tired beyond imagination.

Then we went to Juhi’s grandmom’s house to meet Manjul. Hoping for some advice and help in this situation. The meeting started off with reflecting our thoughts and experience for the day. Then Manjul went into some analogies and spoke a lot and made us think. When he told us to write down what he thought he was saying, my thoughts were-
Not to be worried about the final product/performance
Believe in ourselves and appreciate what we have already done
Think like the children and not about how we think the performance should be
I really doubted how much we have actually done. I felt the change in me but I wasn’t sure if there really was a change in the children. But Manjul assured us of the change and made me see it. After this I was lost for rest of the conversation. Had no clue what everyone was talking about and too tired to attempt understanding. Then finally when Manjul asked us to perform the script we had made, before we could even start he positioned the three of us and gave us a very simple option of getting the performance together. It was like the bell noise Juhi makes, in my head. TING. It clicked. It was like whoa. Why didn’t we think of this? I was happy. And suddenly felt awake and up. We have an idea and I couldn’t wait to try it and was really interested in seeing the results of it. I came back home and somehow felt so motivated and so positive and like there was so much time left to get this together and we really didn’t have to worry. Our script was literally out. And there were new ideas in my head. New visions. And HOPE.

F.R.U.S.T.R.A.T.E.D.

2009-06-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

June 24th, 2009- Wednesday

I walked back to the car at 5pm completely frustrated- with the children, Manjul and myself. I mentioned in one of my blogs that script writing was the biggest challenge. Quite wrong! There’s no such thing as the “biggest challenge”! Everything is a challenge! For the first time I GAVE UP! This is very unlike me. Also, I lost my sense of calm which I usually pride in and started to freak out. I sensed that Sriya felt something similar and Zohar seemed lost. I know she wants and can to do a lot. This is HER thing and I really want her to experience this more than ever..but language seemed like such an issue at this point, that for a large part Sriya and I have assumed control while she has started to slowly retreat. This was not the intention.

Anyhow, the start of the day, we reached early at Sriya’s house, started to write a script. We were doing really well, being creative at the same time real. We discussed it further in the car- had a skeleton and now we had to get the children to give us the dialogue. It all seemed so clear and easy! Little did we know what to expect…We asked Gayatri teacher to teach the little kids a song we were going to start off with while Sriya and I took the older kids aside and gave them a synopsis of their roles in the play. Then the commotion.. some didn’t agree with their roles, but didn’t have a preference. Some smaller kids wanted a major role, but didn’t accept anything else offered. The first scene required the children to go to sleep. ALL they had to do was lie down .. but it took me a good 15 minutes to get them to be in their spots. (All this time Sriya and Zohar were trying to entertain the children by making invitations for the play) Once they FINALLY got into their spots, the mother and father had to exchange some dialogues. The great thing was that they were amazing and came up with their own dialogues. The mother (actor: Siama) whispered in my ear that she was actually starting to feel the dialogues as she was saying them- that they were coming from her heart! This was the highlight of my day..However, soon enough Saima wasn’t feeling as confident any more so she started to give up. While I was trying to give her a mini- pep talk, I lost the father who ran away to make an invitation card with the smaller kids and refused to come back. The kids who were sleeping all this time, were getting antsy as well. Two of the boys started to fight with each other.. I was losing it.. all control…didn’t know what to do…

Somehow we managed to get a few rehearsals of the first scene, and then Ganagadhar and Devi (from AID Mumbai) came in and watched us for a while. Gangadhar’s presence made the children nervous and they didn’t want to act. At that point some of them were hungry so we decided to let them off for break - much needed for me to gather my thoughts and rethink my strategy. We waited for a while, talked to Devi. Then in an informal setting started to talk to the lead actors and made them do some mini- scenes with their own dialogue..they did it really well. Excited again, we gathered all the students ..didn’t work..too distracted..did the 1..2…clapping thing (the only think that works to keep them quiet) and getting into a circle. Tried to perform the song learned in the morning..they forgot it. The clapping wasn’t in order, they repeated every word I said..it was cute, but really not helping our purpose. Tried to get back into performance mode..lost some of my actors who wanted to play more but when I tried to replace them, they kept running back…lost control again…this time of myself. I yelled at them to get into the ‘sitting in school format’ asked them to close their eyes and reflect on what they achieved in the day and if they were happy with it. Again explained clearly the reason for this play. Gave them a lot of courage and instilled hope.. they listened quietly and paid attention. I was really happy. They got up, tried the play again…same routine.. lost control..gave up..asked Zohar and Sriya if we could call it an early day.

Driving home from this frustrating day, I felt like I was ready for our meeting with Manjul. I wanted to let out the fact that all we did over the weekend wasn’t really working. We have the confidence in US, but still don’t know how to work with the children!!! At this point I felt like it was the kids versus us.. that we couldn’t work together. There were a LOT of thoughts going through my mind, my brain swirling as I once again looked into Manjul’s eyes. I let it out..vented. Felt good, but still needed direction. The meeting went on for 3 hours. There was a lot of questioning and understanding..I was determined to not feel the sense of calm that he’s so good at transferring until I was sure of wanting to feel it. Didn’t want to admit it- Manjul was right. There was something completely wrong with the level of negativity since Monday and I didn’t see it. Instead of letting ourselves remain with the kids, we are trying to hard to get them to reach OUR expectations. Then we were getting attached to those expectations. I still have a few questions unanswered, but for the most part I know what I want to do tomorrow. Lets see how it works out.

The journey of change

2009-06-23T22:16:00.000-07:00

Day 14- 23rd June

When I woke up I was really excited to be going back to the school today. Juhi and Zohar came to my place like yesterday and we made our concrete plan for the day. Our focus was trying to find a way to get a script from the children. We had our activities planned out, bought the required stationary on the way and went to the school. Today was a rainy day. But we were really lucky that it stopped raining when we were walking to the school as well as walking back. The path was mucky and gross as expected. The garbage seemed more visible. We decided to meet gangadhar at the office on the way to the school and give him an update that our plans for the outing were canceled and that we planned to show the kids some videos of other plays instead. We reached the school and glad to hear the now familiar “Namaste teacher” with smiling faces! The kids had been learning the Hindi alphabets and words with Gayathri teacher. They all had their notebooks out which they showed us. The kids seemed really noisy today and Gayathri teacher had to spend time shouting at them and even hit some children. We finally got them into a circle to start. We did our ‘wave’, like we had done last week with the children in the circle. It was fun. Then we sat down and asked for volunteers who would come up and act out how their facilitators (i.e. Juhi, Zohar and I) have acted in the past week. Saima and her girl gang came up and acted out a scene where they wake up in the morning and the general things that they do when we wake up. This was similar to the play that the three of us had acted out the previous week. When we further tried to make them understand and act out our ways, they observed exactly how we were sitting at that moment and Saima chose 3 girls to sit in front of the 3 of us in the same positions we were. At one point I found it really funny that when I moved my hands about, Saima came up to me and said “Didi, aap aise karoge toh kaise hoga?” (what will we do if you keep doing such things?) She actually meant that I had moved my hands and so placed them back in the exact same positions. One thing I noticed at this point is that, this girl Rukhsana, who always stayed out of activities and never wanted to reply to my questions whenever I had tried interacting with her, actually came and sat by my side and put her hand on me. We exchanged smiles. It was really sweet. This was the first time that I had seen her come up and join an activity. After this activity we told the kids it was recess and told them to come back on time as we were going to paint. During recess, most of the kids stayed back and watched. We got everything ready for the painting activity. This was to create some kind of visual art that would get them express their thoughts and feelings. We had figured that since they were already good at painting and drawing, we would use this to get them to come out with their thoughts. We made 3 groups according to ages like yesterday and they also had the same topics. The kids also had the same 3 topics that were Gender discrimination, education and cleanliness. The kids had to be motivated and we had to keep asking questions to get them to do something. When the kids were doing this I started playing some games with Asheep and another kid. They asked me to join them playing some games with their hands and we had some fun doing that for a while. After painting, we played a game using props that the kids were extremely creative with. Their imagination ran wild. The group I was sitting with had a broom for the prop and they had to basically think of different ways it could be used. They used the broom as a fan, bat, umbrella, bottle, fish, bird, car, rod, wooden stick to even an airplane. They not only just said that the broom could be all these things but could actually use noise effects and actions to show them. After that we got into a circle again and were going to re-do the plays we did yesterday but then the children wanted to play this other game related to months of the year that was completely unrelated to anything we were trying to get at. Then we just decided that since we didn’t have much time left we would just sit down with the children and start penning down the script while we spoke to them. We decided the script should start in the morning when they wake up. Almost all the children agreed that the mother woke up first, showered and then made food. The father woke up showered and then asked the mother for tea and breakfast, the father then went to work. All the children then woke up and had their showers as and when they woke up one by one. The children then did housework and then went to school. As we spoke to the kids about all this some of them were getting fidgety as these were mostly the questions we had been asking them most of last week. We told them that those who wanted to go home could leave. Many children did stay back and speak to us. Finally Sahil, his sisters and another boy stayed till the end. Sahil spoke a lot about his different experiences at home and his thoughts. I felt really amazed, shocked and worried about all the stuff he said. The tone he used to say everything matter-of-factly was more surprising than the actual events he was relating. Hearing the stuff we did from a 10 year old like him was completely heart breaking. Then we said bye and all started waking towards the car to come back home. On the way we saw that the market was really really busy. Full of vendors with spices, masalas, toys, mangoes, vegetables, clothes and many other things. Some things we had been walking past the previous few days really got to me today. The cut chickens and cows we saw on the way along with the fish. I saw some blood on the ground and was disgusted an felt pukey. The smell of the meat and fish was unbearable. Added to it today was the sudden traffic of autorikshaws and taxis….the perpetually scary goats and DOGS and the people who stared at us all through the way. The mucky dirty conditons had gotten worse. We were lucky again that it wasn’t raining. On our way in the car we discussed the day and spoke to Manjul over the phone. We have decided to meet for a long meeting tom before we go to the school. We plan to make a final script that is definitely to be subject to change and then start working on the play. The kids today had been extremely sticky with us. Many children had spoken out more than usual while some of the loud ones had become a little quiet. The children were really loving and all over us. Fighting to hold our hands and to sit closest to us. Though it gave me a feeling of being loved and I loved that the kids wanting me to be there with them it was a little overwhelming at times having so many of them on me thinking I was some kind of game. At one point today I actually had 5 children on either side of me hitting my hand as I shouted! They wanted me to carry them while they stood on my feet and actually fought a lot over who would hold my hand. The girls definitely fought more than the boys but I also noticed some boys who came up and wanted to hold my hand. We have a plan for tomorrow and a general idea. These kids do actually have a lot of things to say and even though I feel that we should have started questioning them more in the beginning to get more ideas of their lives, it is only because they have spent so much time with us that they now don’t mind telling us and are pouring their lives out to us. They definitely do not realize what we view as “problems” in their lives, as they have never seen the other side to know about them. I feel a little hesitant in planting these thoughts in their minds that what they’re being made to do is wrong. I feel like this might create a lot of changes in their houses. This change can be good in terms of them getting hit less and having to do less housework and study more or also the families could dislike that the school they’re going to is encouraging rebelling thoughts like this and could stop sending them to school. We really have to plan out what we’re doing tomorrow and how the script is going to get this message across without creating controversies. So looking forward to tomorrow and hoping for the best…

Images of the Wadala community

2009-06-23T12:01:00.001-07:00

Entrance of the community
Water pumps to collect water for home usages
One of the many stores that sort and work with cloth

Ladder leading up to Parivartan school's office

Rain, paint, and letting it out...

2009-06-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

June 23, 2009

Monsoon finally hit today. It is no longer a myth in my mind…

I immediately noticed the change in traffic. With the rains our commute is even longer- about 2 hours. When we arrived lucky for us the rains had just stopped.
Walking through the slum was incredibly muddy- but not flooding thank god. Gangadhar later told us that only a few months ago did these main roads in the slum shape up- that before then it was very difficult to walk down the roads during monsoon time.

At the school we started by having the kids act out what they had been learning in class from us. This was an idea suggested by Manjul so that these kids would be reflecting on their own experiences and turning it into a performance. We told them that they could act out us, which they ended up doing. Some volunteers went up and first acted out what we were doing exactly at that moment (I was sitting videotaping, Sriya was sitting watching, etc.) Then another group imitated the skit that we had performed last week. So, instead of creating a performance based on their learning necessarily, they copied the skit we had done. Although this wasn’t really the objective, it still worked on confidence in performing.

During the break we prepared the materials for the painting exercise. All the kids gathered around as we poured the paints onto the paper plates…anticipating.
Each group had the task of creating a collage of images regarding their specific topic (one had gender discrimination, cleanliness and education). Again, the activity didn’t go exactly as planned. The kids drew more of what was on their mind it seemed, rather than on the topic. But in the end we put up three posters with all the kids drawings on them. It stretched their creativity in another artistic way after all of this theatre!

Then came one of my favorite times. We had them play a game from “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” an American t.v. show. Each group gets a prop and, using their creativity, have to come up with many different usages of the object. One group had the classroom broom, the other the classroom dustpan, and the last group a Lego piece. Left picture: Sriya with the kids painting on the topic of Education

Each group had to brainstorm ideas of usages, and then as a mini competition we went from group to group and each time a group member had to say what the object was and show the group what it was (by acting with this imaginary object). I have led and played this activity with people of all ages, and it is always a great hit. Here imagination flew- coming up with endless amount of usages. I loved the fact that they could now see ordinary objects from their everyday lives in a different light- as more. For the kids the dustpan no longer is just a dustpan.

The energy was at such a high.. It was difficult disciplining them, but I do think that the kids understand that when we hold each other’s hands and form a circle that they must pay attention because it is a transition to a new activity.

I noticed that at one point Gayatri had taken a straw from a kid and thrown it out the window of the school (so it landed on the rooftop outside of the window). I was baffled. I understand that culturally maybe awareness of the effects of littering may not be that high, but as a class have been discussing cleanliness and hygiene for the past week. As teachers are role models for the children, won’t the children follow their teacher’s lead in littering? This is just like when the kids said that a lot of them hit each other during a fight, when they also shared that their parents hit while fighting. Trickling down…

It was time for SCRIPT! After class, two boys ended up staying after to talk more abouo their experiences. One ended up talking with us for about 45 minutes all about his home life experiences. It included a lot of domestic abuse, and was hard to listen to (I heard the translation afterwards). The others told me that it was a strange experience for them hearing a boy this young telling these stories in such a “manner of fact” way. My friends asked: “ did he even understand what he was saying?”

Manjul is right in saying that these kids have all the survival skills.

I am thinking now about all the kids in the class, and how we have only heard the personal accounts of one of them in depth. If only we had the time to sit with each child, and make them comfortable enough to voice these stories. It is therapy in and of itself to just tell someone else these life experiences, even if it doesn’t come in play format. To voice these stories, and be listened to is the first step. This kid kept saying “let me tell you more”, he needed to talk.

We voiced our concerns and questions about the script with Manjul later. I asked if it is ok if the script is based on the stories of only one child. He said that as long as we write it in third person, then it is fine because it most likely echoes the stories of most of the children in the class. Also, telling these stories to the other kids tomorrow might inspire others to share.

The kids are getting progressively clingier and attached to us. I am excited to see what happens tomorrow with getting lines from the kids for the script. I hope they will work off each other’s ideas.

I don’t know what challenges these rains bring in terms of performing outside on Monday. I guess time will tell!

Mission Script.

2009-06-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

June 23rd, 2009- Tuesday

It FINALLY rained today! Although there were some obvious downsides we were dreading of while planning this summer program, it made me really happy. Like yesterday, we left early this morning to brief up before going to Wadala at Sriya’s house. Although we had a long conversation last night, there were some things that needed to be finalized- like the actual games, back up plans. Believe it or not it became increasingly important and challenging for every minute to be planned. The biggest challenge (amongst the many that we face on a minute- by –minute basis) was the script. We knew that it was to come from them, but given the fact that they don’t write and have limitations on what to express, we felt almost stuck. We had to be innovative with our ways. We decided to work on different aspects of the children apart from creating a script. We focused on building more confidence of the children, opening up their minds to more creativity, and finally probing them to think of the concept of “change”. We made a quick plan and got on the road soon enough however, stood victims to one major downside of rains in Mumbai- traffic.

As soon as we reached we walked in the muck (the second major downside of rain) over to Gangadhar’s office.. little did I know that I was picking up a whole lot of muck on the back of my salwar ..courtesy, my not-so-muck-friendly flip flops. Gangadhar’s office didn’t have any electricity so he was standing outside where we decided to stand and talk. We went over the alternatives to our “exposure” plan and settled on showing the kids a video of a performance or something of the sort. We also quickly went over the plans that we have for the kids and informed him of our future plans with this project. He said that he was reading the blogs (as I suggested yesterday).. I’m really happy to hear that since it might help to understand our intentions and work process as well as keep with the value of transparency.
After that, while Sriya and Zohar were talking to Gangadhar I peeked over to the little theatre next to Gangadhar’s office I’ve always been curious about. On Thursday Manjul had looked in and mentioned that the theatre was “quite impressive”.. and that only increase my level of curiosity. The first time I intended to look in, there was a large group of men standing outside- so I decided to check when the crowd was less. So this time, there were only a few men standing around- three at the ticket table. I looked over and a man (..eyes lined with kohl pencil) gave me a peculiar look. I took this opportunity to ask him if I could go in and see the theatre. He said I wasn’t allowed because I’m a woman. I was visibly quite taken aback by that statement so he replied by explaining that if women came to the theatre, they would have to be accompanied by men. So they’ve restricted it to men only. On asking, he told me that the only theatre that allows women and men was IMAX, which isn’t necessarily accessible to most of these women. When I asked Gayatri teacher her opinion later, she mentioned matter-of-factly that women wouldn’t be there because men would smoke and so on in the theatre. Besides women can watch the movies at home, its not like they have a restriction there. Anyhow, I convinced the guy to let me take a quick look. He did and I was surprised by how big it was! They sat on the ground and had fans that brought it to a comfortable room temperature. They play mostly old movies, but they have a minimal charge of 5Rs per ticket. I noticed Sriya getting slightly uncomfortable with my interaction, so we quickly left for the classroom.

We got there and decided to let the children study till 2:30pm. We started with recapping on their learning since we arrived at Parivartan. In addition to theatre and games some of them mentioned that they learned to keep up their confidence and hope from us. I was extremely glad to hear that- because that’s exactly what we were there to do! We started off asking them if they knew what the word “Parivartan” meant- i.e. change.. did they believe they could bring it? How were they planning on doing the same? We made them repeat the song that Manjul taught them on Thus- “Hum bache, kehna chahe apni baat” and “hum bache, hum badlav laynge” –we children will bring change!! Again, we went over the intentions of the play and the importance of creating a script. We then opened up the floor for anyone to volunteer and act out what they learned/ or imitate any of the teachers. There are several things that came to mind from this activity- one being that they seem to have a high level of respect (especially for Gayatri teacher) so they wouldn’t really act it out. The other thing that they acted out about their learning was just the same household scene of one girl washing dishes, cooking, cleaning the floor, etc. Again, showing the limited vision. We gave them a 10 minute break until we got them to the next activity of painting.

We split up the groups into the same groups as yesterday- older, middle aged and youngest- each with their respective topics of gender discrimination, education and cleanliness respectively. We had bought paint, 3 chart papers and a bunch of brushes. We asked them to paint whatever came to their minds w.r.t. these topics. There was a good amount of guidance needed, however, they were quite creative with their thoughts and techniques. They were also forced, yet again, to work on teams together without yelling and hitting each other. We put up the charts on the walls along with their previous drawings. After that we played another game suggested by Zohar which I completely loved.
Keeping these groups, Zohar gave each team one random object from the class and each team had to envision different objects it could look like/ become. Whoever has the most, would win. This time the kids were smart to ask of what the prize would be. I just said that same thing that one of the kids told me- “..if you win, you’ll be the king of the day!” They gladly bought it. :D The imagination levels were amazing. In my experience with my team, I noticed a significant difference in the level of cooperation within the group. Each got a chance to speak and each directed each other when they had a chance. However, I was getting a little worried about the leaders since their role now seemed of diminishing importance. There’s always been that struggle of overpowering versus empowering..I’m still working on this front.
We then finally played a game they wanted to play. Since by then it was already 5pm, we asked only those who wanted to stay to stay to write the script. We started of with about 7/8 children between Sriya and me. While we scribbled down our notes, we tried to ask them standard questions from a given day at their houses. We went through every minute detail for a general consensus. However, slowly the number of students decreased to 2 boys. One of them around 8/9 while the other would be mid-teens. The older boy was not only more careful of what he was revealing, but also had a relatively supportivet experience with his family. The other boy slowly opened up to us, and shared with us the issues in their house. He spoke with no expression as if it was something normal- something that was to be accepted and doesn’t really matter. He voluntarily continued to tell us stories and some horrifying facts about the family dynamics. We realize that although there are a lot of families that might not have the same experience, there are many others that do. We asked the boys to give us lines for a message that they would like to give society that they wouldn’t be able to say in person. Given these ideas, we decided to go work on a skeleton, a story with some lines and have the children fill in the lines with their own dialogues while we note them down.

Due to a prior commitment of mine and the fact that the traffic took up an hour more of our time, we couldn’t meet after coming home from Wadala as usual. We called Manjul to give him some updates and ask for some more guidance on the next steps. Although the conversations with him never lead to a concrete answer, he entertains all our doubts and works through experience.

Tomrw morning Sriya, Zohar and I will be meeting early to actually, finally, get down to the script.

JUST ONE WEEK TO GO!!! AHHH!!!!!

2009-06-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

June 22nd, 2009- Monday

OMG- WHAT A DAY!! The rollercoaster ride never ends!!!..or maybe I’m exaggerating it—but that’s an integral part of describing this INCREDIBLE experience!

So today I woke up extremely lazy, as if I had to go to work after a long weekend..a really odd feeling. It took me the entire car ride to Sriya’s house to wrap my head around the fact that we were going back to Samna Nagar, back to our children. To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I was completely excited. I had felt the peak in my energy levels the week before and now it felt like I was exhausting- slowing but at an incremental rate. At this point, not only did I feel physically exhausted, but also mentally didn’t feel the same. Anyhow, I was still excited about our progress with the children- so Zohar and I left early to meet at Sriya’s house for a meeting before we entered “the zone”.
From the plan that we had made for the week during training, we had decided that today we wanted to finalize the script topic, identify the leaders within the children and instill some more confidence and focus in them and update the Parivartan staff on what we were up to and what our plan of action was for the week to come. So we planned for half an hour at Sriya’s house and also for an hour on our way to Wadala. We reached there at 1:15pm and went directly to Gangadhar’s office. He mentioned the fact that Gayatri teacher wasn’t at school yet as she had to take care of some work for student’s admissions in the formal schools. We spoke to Gangadhar for a while, giving him updates, and then we told him about our idea of taking the students of our class for an “educational trip” planned for Wednesday. Wednesday was impossible, so he shot that down within one go- we suggested Thursday, but he was reluctant. He said that there were many issues involved but it was possible- so we should have a meeting with the teachers and us after school. The plan we had in mind was to take the students by bus (which was to be arranged as a donation by Sriya’s mom’s friend) to South Mumbai to see another street play that Manjul was working on with kids from Seva Sadan, possibly have our kids do a little skit for the kids from Seva Sadan, then go to Mani Bhavan, The Gateway of India, and then possibly meet and interview a doctor, lawyer and policeman. The purpose of this was not only seeing and experiencing theatre through children they could relate to, it was also experiential learning- build their confidence, get some visuals – try being creative and get inspired by actually coming face to face with their dreams.

So after speaking to Gangadhar, we went over to the classroom – regaining some levels of energy and excitement on hearing my favorite salutation “ HELLLOOOO TEACHERRR!!” :D The three of us walked in when Gayatri teacher was working with the kids on the Hindi alphabets. I noticed (then soon confirmed) that there were atleast 4 new students I hadn’t seen before. We quietly sat at the back until she stopped to come over to us. We explained what we planned to do today. I mentioned to her that we would need all her help possible to go through this process- she readily agreed. By then it was around 2 pm. She asked us to take over the class until she went and called all the kids to come to school. She said that this was an everyday routine as that was the only way they would come. Some of them were too busy playing, some were doing some work and then some have gone to some place with their families and couldn’t get back in time for school.

We first sat in a circle and went over names and saying “one thing that you would like to do when you grow up that you haven’t been able to do before”. Eg: I want to fly a plane. This game went extremely slow as expected. So we switched it up- shook it up a little. Broke up the group into 3 groups and then worked with just them. Gayatri and Zohar were together and I helped a little with the translation- but mostly Zohar managed as she always miraculously does. Sriya and I had our own groups- and each group had 1 or 2 leaders that would tell the rest of the students on how to act. We gave them objects like ‘tree, house, train, animals, etc”. After a while we made it competitive and got the students to show it to each other- while the others have to guess.

Next game we got them to get into a circle and then mentioned scenarios. Asked those to step forward if anyone related to them. Eg: I would ask one kid “what’s your religion”- she said “muslim”- then all those who were muslim had to step forward. The one that got me thinking was when I asked someone “when I fight with someone I resolved the problem by…” he said “hitting”.. then many children stepped forward- I told them to step back since it was a bad thing. One boy ran as far as he could, laughing the entire time. I asked him why he did that? Hitting a lot? He, just like the other kids, didn’t realize that it was wrong- just seemed like a “done thing”. It got me thinking- the reason why we’ve been having such a hard time with the script has been because these kids don’t really identify with these situations as ‘adversarial’ but just a part of their daily routine. Their exposure so limited that they haven’t really experienced a life beyond. Which made me think that maybe ignorance IS the key to happiness at present. Empowerment is one thing- what about the consequences of empowerment!? There are many questions of development that don’t really have a straight answer- which make it even harder to work with conceptually. Anyhow, the game ended when we were all really close to each other. We gave each other a huge group hug and then said something that now sounds cheesy (but is still important) “spread only love and not hate”!!

After this we decided to let the children off for a 15 minute break- more because I needed it than them. Although things were going OKAY so far, I can’t really type out the energy levels in the class room. For some reason today everything felt like a challenge. The students were extremely restless and I was getting worried about 1 or 2 kids losing interest. Sriya, Zohar and I tried to brainstorm on how to change things and proceed to make optimal use of time for the purpose of our script. We finalized a few ideas and then got broke up into 3 groups again. This time however, we decided to break them up by age. Sriya and Zohar worked together on the middle aged group with the topic of education, Gayatri teacher worked with the youngest kids on the topic of cleanliness and I worked with the oldest kids on gender discrimination. Now, although we had the groups broken up- it was EXTREMELY hard to get the students to focus and work together as a team. I finally gave in, assigned them roles and gave them specific scenes to work on. It was extremely chaotic but we pulled of a great 10 minute play! :D Each group performed for the others. The audience wasn’t really paying as much attention – and there was more chaos, but they still enjoyed it.

We finished class 20 minutes passed deadline, Zohar and Gayatri’s phones were on silent so they didn’t see Gangashar’s missed calls until we were done with class. We walked over quickly to his office, ofourse he wasn’t in the best mood. Ashni teacher (the other classes’ teacher) was already there. I gave them a quick update on what our plans for the outing was. That’s when Gangadhar intervened and said that he didn’t think it was a good idea. He gave us some reasons that I could detail in the next post when I’m not as exhausted. Basically, there wasn’t really a conversation with the teachers. He said he spoke to Shakil and they collectively came to the conclusion that there was no way that the students could go. That was a dissappointing moment, but we calmly tried to understand his views. We had that meeting for a good half an hour and went back an forth with the options and addressing all administrative and conceptual concerns- but came to the conclusion that it was a bad idea. Ashni teacher barely said anything, but Gayatri teacher walked back with us to the bus stop..chatting the entire way there.

We came home to Sriya’s house again, went over the day- reflected, noted issues, and tried to go over the next day’s specifics. However, we were quite flustered with a few issues- 1) How do we make a group of diverse students who can’t read or write – write a script!?!?! 2) There were a few students that were losing interest. What do we do with them? How do you keep everyone interested!? 3) We needed a back up plan for the exploration trip. We really wanted to avoid calling Manjul until Tuesday. We did anyway- felt MUCH better although after an hour long conversation we didn’t have a concrete plan. His sense of calm and confidence always calms me down.

For now that will get me the sleep...

Training for the Trainers: Day 2

2009-06-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

June 20th & 21st , 2009- Sat & Sun

The “training”..an incredibly unique experience. On Sunday when we were to separate after we were done, Manjul asked us to answer a bunch of questions.. for us to reflect. I had limited words. I was processing the experience. I didn’t want to think anymore. I was mentally exhausted..It’s Tuesday now, and I finally decided to fill in these days since they deserve their due words.

My friends and family think its crazy how much time and importance I’m giving a project like this, instead of looking for a job- like any other graduate should or going out for close friends’ birthdays. But this weekend I just wanted to focus on this. I didn’t want to think of anything else and was a 100% with the 3 of them. This is what I love about this whole experience. Not only am I working with the best possible team (including ETF, Parivartan staff, Revive: Mumbai and AID) but also they’re all very much committed to the cause. Especially the four of us (Sriya, Zohar, Manjul and I) have voluntarily made this project personal, our own and are enjoying every moment of it with pure passion. This is also probably why this team has worked so well. All of us have had a hard time with peripheral issues we’ve had to deal with, but for us, this project has remained priority. We have all put in hours and effort, faced an equal amount of apprehension,.. have stood by each other, taken risks and faced challenges regardless of several constraints. Manjul proved the same this weekend. Although I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing his methods and his personality..I justify it by my admiration for him. In general, I can’t yet point out what I learned as such from the three days rather than building more faith in our efforts and getting an experience in acting for us to relate to the kids. All I can say is that passion is our driving force and this weekend just highlighted it.

We woke up at 630am, had some tea/ coffee, went over to the Carter Road promenade for a walk. Manjul then gave us 3 potential spots to do a random performance. The goal was that we needed to be verbally acknowledged by atleast 2 people. We did a terrible job the first time and didn’t really know what to do. Given that we didn’t have a choice, we decided to “just do it” strategically. We thought of a simple topic- environment, a way to grab people’s attention- clapping/ voicing a slogan, and (as Manjul calls it) holding our space. We got progressively better by the 3rd performance. After several passerby observers, we finally had one who told us that we did a good job. I was quite proud of us…my first ever performance!!!

We then hung out at Joggers Park for a while, came back, showered, breakfast with the amazing Sriya-family and then got down to working on the play Sriya, Zohar and I were to perform by Sunday. It was a monologue written by Zohar and directed by her as well. We had a blast preparing for the play- at one point I rolled all over the floor hysterically laughing at just once glance from Zohar. I was quite amazed by Sriya’s and my creative abilities and by how much I enjoyed acting.. In general I’m a very confident person, but when it came to theatre, I was extremely nervous and it didn’t help that I am terrible at learning lines. However, Sriya was amazing at learning all the lines! She and Zohar helped me out through the performance in an extremely smooth fashion. So when we performed on Sunday, I never freaked out because I knew that if I needed help, all I had to do was take a look at them once.

While we were preparing for the performance, Manjul had to lock himself in the room..I felt really bad for him since he’d just have to use that time with his thoughts. After about 2 hours, he came out and we worked on looking over Zohar’s daily journal entries. We read through all the days.. it was interesting to see the transition Zohar went through. A part of her strength lies in her positive and confident personality, and a part of the ability to go through this huge challenge is the strategic training process that she went through with Manjul. The reason to analyze these documents was to get an idea of how a given person goes through a process as such..what are the transitions, what are the steps taken and how to apply it to other people (i.e. our children). The next morning we performed the play! I was extremely happy with our performance, although I had a hard time with the lines again.

There’s a lot to learn from Manjul..and this weekend was a lot of that for me. I haven't been able to document everything and tend to leave out a lot of the details, but I feel much closer to the group now. Seeing Sriya get more confident by the minute has been an amazing experience, Zohar understanding her potential better, and I building a whole new level of comfort with everything. Ofcourse to add on, Sriya’s family was very inviting and it was great to get to know them better.

There’s just a lot to learn. Never Ends.

Training for the Trainers- Day 1

2009-06-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

June 19th, 2009- Friday

I was surprised with the first day of training. When Manjul asked me if we still wanted to do the training this weekend, I spontaneously said “yes” but I didn’t know what to expect or what I was going to get out of it. All I knew is that I was ready for some guidance and that I was extremely curious of this workshop I heard so much about from Zohar. Manjul is a very interesting and strong personality..I’m not going to lie- another incentive for me to follow through with the workshop was to understand him and his ways better. So far I’ve done a lot of that. I’ve been critically analyzing everything we’ve been doing so far and every deep thought that we’ve shared. Trying to find purpose and strategy- if any. Maybe I’ve been over analytical, I’m going to try to do less of that today.

We started off on a surprisingly very relaxing note. When we entered Sriya’s house, we all absolutely loved it. Manjul sensed the positive vibration and decided that we were going to start off in Sriya’s room itself. We first reflected on yesterday, which seemed quite surprising for Sriya. If either of us misses something, we usually just call each other up and give them updates. This time however, Zohar and I were at a loss for words that evening. Personally, I didn’t really even know how I could share my experience in words. So we didn’t tell her anything until today. However, looking back helped analyzing the purpose of what we did. Which helped me think of what we needed to do with the children in the next coming days. Next, we individually penned down the agenda for the weekend – in terms of what we expected to do and what we wanted to cover. This weekend I wanted to have an agenda for the rest of the week, to create a bond within the 4 of us- such that we can appear together for the children and then to learn from Manjul. After we shared our agendas, we started working on the one for Parivartan. We started to write our individual agendas until we stopped to drink some amazing coffee-courtesy Sriya’s amazing mom :D

We then decided to go for a play called “Project S.T.R.I.P.” which is supposed to be a comedy with the base story about development and its issues. Although I really liked the acting and direction, the end of the play left me completely flustered. I hated the fact that I was sitting in a developing country with increasing potential and where the growth has been exponential but the externalities of such growth was not given its due seriousness. The ending left me understanding that there is no possible connection between the people who are environmentally conscious and the people who are all for corporate expansion and invariable effects of development. I realized the common practice of writers not giving enough thought and importance to the end of a script in Bollywood or theatre. It's just so impotrant to leave the audience with the right message when you leave the theatre! Anyhow, we had a nice conversation in the car ride back home. Ate some pav bhaji and then retired for the night.

An Emotional Rollercoaster

2009-06-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

June 18th, 2009- Thus

It wasn’t until today that we realized what we got ourselves into. For me, these 24 hours have been an emotional rollercoaster that I often don’t really experience. For me, it was because of a cumulative set of things going on in my life at simultaneously that were catching up. From Zohar, I sensed a similar vibe.
Sriya couldn’t come today as she wasn’t feeling too good and Ria had decided to drop out of the program since she had to start her internship on the coming Monday. Things felt completely shaken up and for some reason Zohar and I were not in our normal high-energy-exuding-positivity mode. Today was the first day that Manjul came with us to meet the children. We introduced him to Ganagadhar first and then walked over to the classroom. This was the first time that we had reached early, before the class started and before the children were there. So we entered into an empty classroom- I freaked out at first but slowly the children started to fill up the room. Once we had around 20, Manjul took charge and started singing songs with them. For the first time, I got to experience being the quite observer and I took advantage of that opportunity.

It still amazes me how much these children value the simple pleasures of life! Who would think a chicken song would be as exciting!? All this time that Manjul played with them, I watched, analyzed and stood perplexed. I started to film, wanted to capture every moment. Manjul was careful to not stand out as the only ‘teacher’. He still wanted to keep us in charge, so we alternated activities with him. All of a sudden I lost my spontaneity and didn’t know what to do. Zohar and I looked at each other with a familiar sense of loss. It look me a second to shake myself up from an observer to an active participant. Although Zohar and I had planned the day like we do everyday, the energy levels were too high for us to follow through with our plan. So we had to improvise as usual, only problem being, both of us felt completely ‘out of it’.
So when in doubt, my strategy has always been if you can’t lead, allow to be led and see where that takes you. So that’s what we did. The children taught us how to play ‘Kabadi’- a game that requires 2 teams. Zohar was in one and I was in the other. Other than this being a team building activity and creating a higher level of infirmity, it was really nice as the children got more vocal and took charge. We observed the leaders amongst the kids and eyed them for the rest of the day.
As expected and planned, Manjul took the children out on the street so that they could get a feeling of what it was like to be confident and noticed on the street. He got them lined up against the wall (in the corner) of the street, got them clapping in unison and got them to simultaneously make a large circle in the middle of the street. It was there that they started to sing their song “Hum Bache..kehna chahe apni baat..suno suno..suno suno”..(We Children..want to speak our thoughts..LISTEN LISTEN..) Just the first to words have extreme power in them- empowering themselves as children. After a few rounds of singing this song, about 20-30 people/ passers by gathered around to watch the commotion. They stood and watched expectedly. It was an amazing preview to what would be a week from now..
We went back to the room- Manjul gave the children back to us. Again, in high energy, didn’t know what to do. By then, Zohar had a break down. Understandably, she didn’t want the children to see her so she preferred not to be a part of the next activity. I really wanted to be there for her. All this time, I felt like I had lost my sense of positivity and calm and that there was too much happening around me..but for Zohar- I can’t even imagine. This is definitely not a project for the weak hearted, but Zohar has outdone herself so far, and I couldn’t have asked for better team members than her and Sriya. It would have really been nice to have Ria or Sriya at that moment because I never had felt so alone in this project. Having had no theatre experience and having had seen a very limited number of plays in my life didn’t really help. Again- shook it up and took charge while Manjul guided. Within a few seconds, rebuilt my energy and got excited again.
We decided to start playing the ‘acting out a scene from the streets of the slums’ game. I picked up on the mini-leaders and asked them to build different objects. One became a house, the other a water pump, a boy taking a bath at the water pump while the other filling water at the same pump. We also had a goat and a random kid going to school. At first, it all felt chaotic and I felt like I lost control- when Manjul jumped in subtly helped out. Then, we redid another scene that was followed through with much more control. I was proud of our little street scene- I think we did a good job :D
We closed the day as we usually do- with some sort of reflection and then meditation. Seeing the confidence of these children rise was amazing. I felt a sense of pride in them embracing their project, slowly building faith in our presence and giving our purpose more seriousness. Later, in the car, Manjul mentioned the meaning for the children to feel noticed and of value by the exercise on the street. I agree, but again, I feel the beauty in the simplicity of thinking of children. They just follow without really thinking. These children probably didn’t really notice what was happening. It’s the community that probably felt the presence of the children more than vice versa. However, I hope that when they go home they think about this. We won’t be going to Parivartan tomorrow or on Saturday as we will be going through an intense training from Manjul of our own.

Reaching a new level of comfort

2009-06-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

June 17th, 2009- Wed
Today was a new level of comfort and familiarity. As soon as we walked into class, all the children screamed “Welcome Teacher” as they always do- puts a smile on my face as soon as we enter.
As usual, we had planned the day, with today’s focus being the team building activities and moving towards the specifics of theatre. We had taken a bunch of notes and suggestions from Manjul the evening before. We tried to implement these ideas into games of our own. I tried to get them into a ‘musical clapping session’ which didn’t really turn out to be as planned. So we switched over to another game suggested by Sriya which reminded me of Brandeis orientation week. ☺ The name of the game was ‘WAH’ which works on building quick thinking and reflexives. It also works on them building confidence and becoming loud in a theatrical sense versus screaming.
There was a lot more that I could write, I’m just exhausted more than anything today. All that’s very important is that I know that the children were much more comfortable today and we were building a relationship. One girl asked me to teach her how to write and read. She was one of the girls who didn’t come to school regularly.
A lot of these students haven’t been stopped from coming to school from their parents. The community has always been very inviting of us. Infact there is always one woman who asks us to stay overnight in the slums with her and her children. However, there are many underlying problems that I haven’t yet completely grasped.
1) Like although the parents don’t explicitly say that the children can’t go to school- many of the children come late (sometimes 2/3 hours late) to class because they had to cook food, clean dishes or fill water. A lot of the times its invariably the girls that have to do these things- hence they miss out.
2) Another prominent excuse seems to be the fact that the children are going to ‘Arabic school’ or the Madrasas. Being a predominantly Muslim society, they don’t feel the need to go to the other school since they’re already ‘learning’.
3) The students are from migrant worker families- since they’re always moving they don’t get a chance for continuous formal education.
4) Girls have to get married early.
5) The priority isn’t formal education. There are many boys that have been sent to work instead of studying.
6) Loss of hope: Excuses like- its too late to start school, what’s the point? etc
This experience reaffirms our thoughts and purpose everyday, at every moment. What’s hard is that the people themselves don’t really think of these things as problems. This is our purpose. To open up the eyes of the community, and the children themselves, of the issues that exist within their community. Only after they identify the problem would they be able to find the solutions. For me they have to realize that although they aren’t privileged and that they have limited resources and help- a lot of their problems are caused due to their own issues. We, as volunteers, have to help them find a permanent solution. Education and Health are two of them.

1, 2, 3 CLAP

2009-06-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

June 17, 2009

From our meeting with Manjul, he noted that we should also be mentioning how the community (teachers and students) are responding to us, instead of only reflecting on our own personal experiences.

We met with Gangadhar today. We told him that we plan on only doing a street play with one of the schools: Gayatri’s class, but that we will continue playing with the other class.

I was proud of us as a group managing to make it to the school on our own today (it is tough to remember navigating the narrow lanes).

With our first batch we started with going over our names- by using BOPPING technique. (We each ducked down and they had to shout the name of the person who ducked! Great fun!)

We passed out nametags to them, and as manjul pointed out, this was probably the first time many of them had had their names (especially in English and hindi) on their bodies.

We hung up the rest of the drawings on the walls (what they drew yesterday).

I started leading them with clapping- a group bonding, “oneness” activity that manjul had suggested. The kids enjoyed it…

I like when spontaneity works. Like I was getting them clapping at the same time, so I decided that I would say one, two, three and on three they would have to clap.

Then I started mixing up by saying…1.1.1.1. 2..2.1.., and seeing when they would clap, or if they waited until 3 to clap!

Shriya led us in wah. Which took them a little while to catch on, but once they caught on it was so cute! They got so into it! It was fabulous to see!

I immediately pounced into changing the sound and motion, which worked for a little bit- kids’ attention span left…eeek.

So we spun directly into ACTING out their morning.

It was fabulous. The kids did it! Individually, volunteers went up and showed us the motions from their days. Yes, for the most part it was repetitive (woke up, brushed their teeth, showered, drank chai, ate, came to school), but it was the confidence that they did it with. And all the kids were watching, engaged the whole time!

Then it was a spontaneous decision of the other leaders, that we should go up and one of us should act out our morning using the others as props.

WHAT A FABULOUS IDEA! Stretching the kids imagination, I used juhi as my alarm clock and sriya as my pillow. As I moved along my morning, they shifted into new props that the kids guessed. And they guessed correctly! And they loved it!

The kids sang happy birthday to sriya, and she handed out candies to them.

After shavasana, we spoke with gayatri asking which kids are definitely staying (not going to enroll eventually in BMC schools). She said that pretty much all the kids from our surveying are not here now because the parents don’t want them to, and the kids that are here will probably be off to BMC in 2 weeks or so. Gayatri requested that we go speak with the parents of the kids we surveyed, asking them to come.

My idea is that we should have these kids perform the street play outside of the homes of those parents, and grab their attention regarding education in that way!

Meanwhile, I sat with juhi and these girls. They had come over with a game to play with us- had wanted to play! One said that she wants to become a nurse, the other said a lawyer. One of them said that she can’t come to school because her mother doesn’t allow her, she wants her to go home and cook. Another kid told ria that she has to go home to clean the clothes. Manjul points out that a potential theme is the inequality between men and women in terms of education in this community.

When we left the center, this woman, who apparently has been saying this for the past few days, was asking us if we could stay over and not leave…

When we arrived at the second center, the kids again were happy to see us! We did much of the same activities, and again there were kids lined up at the doors watching us.

It looks like the new teacher has a new confidence in us.

Time with Manjul:

He suggested that maybe we break up into groups, and that we all lead our own group…or team up.

I said that I am wholeheartedly prepared and want to lead my own group. And I am. I have mentally prepared myself for this for over a month now, when I was given the alarming news that I would be doing this on my own.

But still, with wanting to hear the kids stories, wanting the script to be written, I have to say that it would help/be necessary for me to communicate with them a little in hindi. Because I hear what my fellow colleagues are saying, the stories they are getting from the kids. And I don’t know how I can have them tell me, or write, about their relationship with their parents or gender inequality or religion, without knowing those basic trigger words.

Manjul mentioned the need of professional commitment from us.

He also mentioned that in terms of how to go about with the script, that we should pick up on small things that kids mention. Hints into their lives. And that we should go to the families and see the influences we have had on their children. See where that takes us.

Diving Right In

2009-06-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

June 16, 2009

When we arrived, Gayatri told us that the many of the kids from yesterday were accepted into the BMC (government funded) schools, which is a great accomplishment.

We taught them the wave as a short energy booster? Little did I know that it is harder to teach kids things that are simple in my mind. They never did catch on to the fact that the wave is caught on as it moves along the circle- they were all doing the wave the whole time- but they were having fun with it, so that’s what counts!

We split up into groups to do nametags. Since most didn’t know how to write their names, I asked them their name by saying “nam!” and then wrote down in English what they said. I was probably brutally incorrect in my hearing and writing, but it was enough for me to be able to communicate with them (see their names and call on them).

We then had them all draw something really important to them. We gave examples like their parents, friends, etc… I was at a loss of how to help the children. The children that couldn’t write, I didn’t want to just draw something and have them copy it. But I guess this is where working as a team comes in, I called the others in to help.
Picture: Juhi helping kids decide what to draw

I went around and told everyone “acha! And teeka!” (meaning good! And ok!) with the hand gestures signifying good that I have already picked up. I was jealous that the others could converse verbally with the kids…

We didn’t have time to discuss the pictures, we tried to hang them on the walls with tape but with the wind blowing the fans made it a problem.

Picture on the left: Some of the drawings

I led them in “follow the leader", and whenever I turned around the kids had to fall to the ground. Juhi mentioned later that she had only described to the kids in a few words, not even the end of the instructions, and that they understood it!

Around and around the pole in the middle of the classroom. I was making a complete fool of myself, and at the end felt so much sweat all over me. But I was having so much fun. And the giggling of the kids gave me extreme energy.
I was being curious, moving EVERY time in a completely different way. Clapping down, up, side. Picking up a shoe, a water bottle and investigating it.

Every time I turned around the kids slammed to the ground with huge smiles on their faces.

Sometimes I would go up to the teacher and the assistant. One time we did this when everyone was imitating being sad and crying and they asked us “why are you crying”?

I felt like a mime. So many people have told me that I must be a mime. This was great practice.I also felt a little like I WAS manjul in all the videos I have seen him interacting with the kids, so that was strange. Again I don’t want to be limited to this strategy- but it works fantastically.

After they were exhausted (one child I think actually was already lying on the ground tired), juhi asked them to lie down to do a madasana, reflection. This is so different than how I usually end activities with kids- but this is fantastic because it leaves them energized in a different way.

Picture: Juhi leading the kids in a silent meditation/reflection

Juhi asked them what they liked from the day. They all mentioned different activities from the day- great!

Then I noticed two girls dancing swing. I told them that I wanted them to teach everyone tomorrow how to dance like that because it was so great, and they agreed to it!

Apparently one girl told juhi that if she didn’t come back the next day to play she would be very sad.

We arrived at the center of the new teacher. The second we walked in, a lot of them shouted “Namaste teacher!” (hello)

It made me feel so good, and conflicted at the same time. While walking over to this center I had voiced that I felt like we needed to decide on one center for the play, and about everyone agreed to the first center because of the teacher enjoying us and also the energy of the kids.

But with this reaction, it was hard to say we will turn our backs to them!

When we did the drawing activity there were some kids who I believe have never held up a pencil before. They were looking at me, blank faced. So we helped them hold the pencil and draw.

Manjul reflection:

I found it hard to add the “performance element” that manjul had suggested we put in.

The others thought that it was really helpful that today we had a written out plan.

I mentioned that I think the new teacher is skeptical of us, which may add our bias to the first class, sand Manjul told us not to compare the two schools and teachers, and to take them as two different experiences, which is a good idea.

He asked us what we wanted from him for this week, I said I wanted to know how to create more of a performance energy with the kids, and the others said something on the same lines.

Manjul taught us some things to start with, which included clapping methods as well as having them act out scenes from their life (i.e. what happens when monsoon hits? Does it flood your house? Act that out!)

I hope to really experiment with the sounds and the clapping, and not just stick the words that manjul mentioned- because it is limitless!

And from that comes the themes for the performances and such.

I mentioned the need and want to concentrate on one class, or decide for sure on two. Everyone is conflicted on this, so we are still open to many different ideas.

Manjul said that he hopes that this group will take all of theatre of relevance even further- even internationally- even at a conference.

I thought of the conference that was held at Brandeis 2 years ago where many theatre activists from around the world sat together to discuss their work- it is already happening!

We also discussed training this upcoming weekend, which will definitely happen but the location is TBA. It will be interesting to go through another training.

First day of classes!

2009-06-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

June 15, 2009

First day of classes officially, although in some sense of the word it wasn’t exactly established…

When we arrived Gangadhar (the administrator) pointed out to us which building is our landmark in order for us to take control and realize how to make it on our own to the school.

We went to the other branch of the school. It is in an area of the community in which the teacher is still conducting surveys. Therefore, many of the students there today have already been in Parivartan before, and many according to Gangadhar have been forced to be there today.

Picture: The teacher, Gayatri, in the first branch of the school with Ria and Juhi

There were 20 kids there today by the end of the first 2.5 hours.

We had arrived at 1:15 to the school, where we had met the second teacher (who apparently has been working with Parivartan for some time now).

Although originally I thought we were to be more observers, rather than teachers on the first day, the teacher turned to us to teach. According to Gangadhar he wanted us to start the class in order to get the kids excited.

They were all sitting in rows, sitting there with their little book in a plastic bag and pencil. I only recognized one of them. At first I thought it was a mistake and that we were with the younger kids instead, but when asked, the kids were aged 7 and 8 mostly (and the later session should be kids 7-12.

I thought that they looked younger because maybe they are in reality less than 7 years old and their parents don’t really know their age (without a birth certificate), so they have guessed. Also, it was earlier mentioned to me that it is harder to convince the parents that the older kids should go to school because they are more capable and efficient at doing the work at home for money.

There were only a few older kids aged 11 or 12. The age gap looked huge, and I kept thinking how the younger ones probably can learn at a faster speed than the older ones (I’ve always been taught and experienced that at a very young age you can learn language much easier than at an older age). I also was thinking how the older kids must either be embarrassed/or frustrated if this is the case (that the younger ones are learning faster)

So we stood in front of the room. I proposed that we all introduce ourselves and then do an action that we like and everyone copies it. I chose this task because I thought that it was basic enough- not too crazy theatrically.

But for me it was hard to repeat anyone’s name because the kids whispered it…and the Hindi was hard to recall.

There were many kids (we were going around in a circle) that were way too shy to participate. They stood there not saying anything. So another facilitator said “let’s move to the boys”. The boys raised their hand to participate- it was cute seeing them taking initiative!

Afterwards I led them in the passing around a sound and motion in a circle. I started with a basic motion like sticking my mouth out and using hands and saying ahhh.

Many were pretty shy when it came to this… and when they did it they laughed.

Then we sat down and the other facilitators were asking them about which songs they like. Everyone was pretty silent, so I said, “why don’t we make up a song?” So I went into crazy sound mode…where I said things like: saleeee cheee neeekeee hey?” and sang it… I wanted them to copy and repeat. They did so nicely. We did many lines of this inventive song.

During all this, there was a crowd at the doorframe of the school. People were curious. One boy was peeping through the window up above. It made me so happy

Juhi decided to teach them English and incorporate sound. Goat- eeh hah! Cute English session! And Juhi kept on asking them to sort of shout, like I believe she picked up from watching Manjul’s videos, and it always picked the kids up to another level.

Then I played with them, making all sorts of noises until the teacher walked in. She had left (once we had started) in order to continue surveying the community. I didn’t know what to do at that point: continue or let the teacher take the floor?

So we handed it to her for the next 20 minutes. I was curious, how do you play with the kids?

The kids actually looked excited to learn. One by one the kids went up to the chalkboard and wrote their name in Hindi.Some were much more confident in their writing abilities, others it was their first time.One girl went up and only wrote the first letter of her name, which she had picked up from the way the previous student had written her name (with the same letter). It was the first time this girl had ever written, and I was so impressed. Kids can learn so fast!

The teacher played a little game with them, seemed like American’s equivalent of “Simon Says”, with the kids standing up, then sitting down, according to the orders of the teacher. The kids loved it.

We then took off to the other center, led by the assistant to Gangadhar. I hope to be able to navigate this slum independently SOON, but now there isn’t time to get lost.

The second we arrived at the center it was comforting. We had already spent much time with this teacher, as well as this space.

The kids were all playing with Lego. Apparently today was just games day.

Soon enough, we were in a circle. And kids were going up, on their own, to sing songs.

WHAT?!!!! WHAT?!!! SO IMPRESSED!

They were singing confidently. The others were listening, for the most part.

I kept thinking of my training with ETF, and how we were all so hesitant to sing, and here were these kids singing without any problem. Especially this one girl who was SO hesitant at the beginning.

Then she went in front and for maybe 5 minutes performed a song with such commitment and energy and focus.

Then the teacher taught some funny songs. I taught them all “I love you” in English with hand gestures, while the others translated it in Hindi. I was grateful, because in English and with its reputation, it IS a cheesy song, but it is simple enough to teach others of a foreign language and brought smiles.

I brought up charades. I know that playing charades with this population involves catering to the activities, and things that they know. I started by miming washing clothes and hanging them up. Almost everyone shouted their guess to what I was doing.

Meeting with Manjul-

We started by writing out our thoughts of the day, followed by sharing it.

Others keep saying things like “I don’t have experience working with children. I don’t have experience working with theatre”.

Picture above: Kids from the community watching school in session

WHO CARES?! I told them in the car ride home that

there are plenty of people in this world that have worked with kids for years, and still are terrible with them! That usually people who are trying something new have a sense of curiosity and will to try that is remarkable.

Manjul presented the option of performing right then, presenting what it was we did that day, create a photo for him.

He said without talking. YES! I hate talking. So we moved space, and I took the lead starting when the kids first saw us enter the room. Then manjul told ria to play me. She said I was “the hardest character to play”. She tried imitating me making strange sounds….

I am enjoying watching the group dynamic and how others are taking in Manjul’s advice and attitude. I feel more comfortable, given the fact that I am more familiar to this manner of learning, but now I get to watch others go through what I went through…which is a whole other journey.

We discussed the training. We most likely will do Friday through Sunday which I think is a terrific idea to give the others a sense of the workshop.

Meeting with Parivartan staff and AID Mumbai

2009-06-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

June 13, 2009

Meeting with AID Mumbai and Parivartan staff (aka gangadhar (administrator) and shikihil (founder of Parivartan))

Picture on the left: Individuals present at this meeting including all the Brandeis volunteers for this project, Parivartan staff and AID Mumbai volunteers.

Juhi thinks that people should get off of their lazy butts and do something instead of always talking.

From my perspective AID Mumbai has lost a lot of hope. Basically one of the AID volunteers, the guy I had originally spoke to on the phone, was at the meeting with his wife. They make up this branch of AID along with one other woman.

They started off talking about how they need to do fundraising. Juhi clarified that we are not here for fundraising.

I tried to get across the point that I think that they shouldn’t give up on volunteers wanting to come. And that maybe some things can be accommodated to be more volunteer friendly, but maybe they can’t. but I am willing to make the sacrifice of my comforts to do this work because organizations like Akanksah already get so many volunteers.

Juhi reinforced that there are many people that want to help and volunteer but don’t know where to channel their energy and time because organanizations like parivartan are not on their radar.

So it’s hard to look at the AID volunteers and not shake them up and say “why don’t you have hope?’ but on the other hand I haven’t been through what they have been through. So I don’t completely understand…

But juhi said that AID Mumbai needs to take advantage of it's international partnerships for fundraising.

Shkil, the founder didn’t speak that much. I didn’t understand anything he said because when he did speak it was all in Hindi.

Gangadhar said he appreciates my spirit while working in Wadala. Ria said that I am an exception from the usual batch of volunteers... that I am sticking it out.

Juhi asked me if I think someone, who has never traveled outside of America but had the energy and enthusiasm to do this type of program should do it. I don’t know. I think everyone should be exposed to this reality, but I don’t know---it might be a lot to take in if you don’t process it correctly.

Had long conversation with a woman today on how we can’t have goals for ourselves because we will only let ourselves down…that we need to do what we can and are here to do now and then move on.

I was a little taken back by what I heard. I kept defending myself saying that I have a goal in mind: to have the children want to attend school and the parents as well. But she kept on reinforcing that this is for our learning, and that we aren’t really going to be helping the children, at least in the short term, that we should save our ego for that.

It was hard, hard to listen to.

A reflection

2009-06-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

Brown eyed girl.

Brown eyed boy.

I am sinking

.
.
.

falling into the depth of your eyes full of experiences that I will never fully understand that I will never fully experience that I will never get

I smile shining my big white strong crest brushed teeth after months of investment in braces

and a smile sweeps across your face.

No words. Just a smile.

A warmth glowing from my eyes
reaching you,
taking me in.

A laugh so pure it echoes

exiting your mouth.

And you follow me, almost to a point of skipping...

Excitement anticipating what will I do next?

Because I am a clown, here to entertain you. Here to make you smile, laugh,

Even if it is for one second.

Just one second to

forget your life routine. Your abuse.

your pressure. Thoughts. Everything.

To melt into a pool that is free of language, free of poverty

Full of hope. Full of expression!

And happiness! And glee! And filling the cups full of energy! And making a fucking fool of yourself

Because you want to.

The boy looks at me and asks “what are you doing?” as he catches me making squearmish- geeky facial expressions-

reaching you

“what are you doing?”

I am playing.

Do you want to play with me?

Don't fall in!

2009-06-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

June 11, 2009

Today was again exhausting.

We arrived and had a pleasant conversation with gangadhar abut the community.
He was telling us that the government wants to pay the residents here to live in these tall apartments. So the plan is to destroy the slum homes, build high rises and stuff the people in (which will be a good deal for real estate because it is high property now over much space, and good for residents because nice places…but I don’t know).

Juhi said that she is motivated to go into law to change these things, nice!

Ria said at the end of the day that she really is ready and wants to journal it out. That made me smile!

What else?

Today we went around and I took more pictures than usual- had to document.

The kids loved being with me again.

One woman was so nice, she offered getting us pepsi. We accepted.

She asked why I am here. Juhi said because I want to be here. And she said "it must be hard for her."

At one point this drunk man came over and started yelling at us saying that he sent his kid to the parivartan school once and the kid didn’t have a place to sit so the kid went home and never returned to the school. So he was yelling at us, saying that we took his money.

He was drunk, and the community members didn’t care to listen to him. They were saying that he should have stood up and said something. I tried to accept this situation. This is probably a reality , I am actually surprised that I don’t interact with more drunk men in this community considering it is a problem.

Then someone else yelled at us saying “why do we focus on education when kids are dying from the trash that is here”.

There are swamps of trash filled with flies. And today sriya stepped in one pile accidently- it’s hard to tell sometimes if it is solid or not. She was a great trouper! And washed it off.

One of my friends was concerned that she doesn’t have bug repellent on, and not to let the flies stay on you for a while and such. She started concerning me- but there is nothing we can do.

I have no idea how dangerous or not dangerous it is.

And one of my favorite moments was getting back to the main road. The kids took us the “short cut” which meant hopping from stone to stone over what was “pee” and garbage to make it to the main road. At first we tried as a train, but that was too dangerous so the kids helped us individually. I was so proud of the others for doing it.

And lots of times I am dancing with the kids or fooling around and I never know if it is culturally good or bad.

Today the kids told me that they aren’t afraid of my freckles- they help make me beautiful. Different than jungle in Ecuador but india is always up for ornamenting.

Sryia wants to go back and help with the sewage. She said she heard on the radio an advertisement "can we help clean your place of misquitos before monsoon hits"

Also, I think thoreau was on to something.

I do just want to be humble, live on the basic necessities.

Starve a little.

In every way possible.

It makes me appreciate privilege of any sense.

And juhi said to me yesterday, “I love how you appreciate everything”.

I love appreciating everything.

Especially cold water after a day like today.

Juhi and Ria join!

2009-06-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

June 10, 2009

I don’t want to turn into that bitter I have explored third world country I can’t appreciate my privilege I can’t laugh I am too depressed kind of girl.

But as manjul mentioned in his calm voice over the workshop to some people: “I have witnessed a change in you”.

And I have witnessed a change in myself. My face hardening. Finding it harder to laugh, and be free in that way.

While all day, all I have been doing is smiling and laughing, laughing, laughing.

Because I just want to hear laughter from the kids.

And most of the time: great success! I hear it! I see it!

I can breathe it!

Sometimes there are little babies, who no matter what kind of smile I express, they are still scared of this white foreigner. Who can blame them?

And I am so silly, playing along.

And all I want to do is sink into every single pair of brown eyes.

I take some moments to just sink into their eyes. And make sure that I am reaching each and every one of them. I don’t want any of them to feel left out, god knows they have already been too left out.

I heard one girl say “happy!”, so I repeated with a smile, following with sad ! and with expression and ANGER! And expression.

And like a pack of followers, biggest fans, they repeated that. English lesson #1- in the most informal way of education. And the kids were laughing, and repeating it.

And I feel like some sort of robot saying “hello!’ in a purky voice!” and “byebye!”

But today it wasn’t forced, like other days. Today I wasn’t convincing myself, really, that I was enjoying it.

I think I actually was.

And that was because I was sharing my baby with juhi and ria.

Things that I have been processing independently of sharing the experience with others.

And so I unconsciously was trying to make my time there effortless.

Carefree.

When I used the toilet, afterwards, juhi asked me, “how was it?” and I said “great fun!”, she patted me on the leg.

Was it great fun? It smelled terrible standing there squatting while there was a little shower curtain separating me from the many children staring up from the ladder.

But my fear has left.

I can’t fear them anymore.

I still am hesitant of hugging and carrying, and even sometimes touching little naked babies that have some sort of rash on their body, little dots appearing out of nowhere- is that a registered disease?

We pass by the bathrooms, that kids are making. I don’t get it. The teacher says it is similar to those made in slumdog millionaire- and I see those toilets. It really looks identical. And these babies are on the ramps to the bathroom and there are swamps and there are high rise buildings and blue sky in the background and I smile to myself.

Screw it. I smile to myself. Screw it all.

I really have created this inner bitterness towards anything that is privilege, and I don’t like that either.

But at least something is hitting me, something is clicking.

And I look at every face and it turns into one of those foreign ads “help out the starving kids”.

Juhi said that this isn’t what she expected . that many organizations hype things up for volunteers to come, when conditions are worse- and that this was no exception.
And she thought that some other friends would be joining us, but at the end of today she said “no, they can’t. I asked why? She said, “ I don’t think they could handle this."

And there is no reason to say that those organizations don’t do great work- they do, as sriya was stating. But, there are other places that need help, like Parivartan.

We were asking gangadhar, the administrator all these questions. If the founder of the school grew up in his community, how did he get educated? Apparently someone helped fund his education…and he went everyday far to some café to get educated. Same with gangadhar.

There always exceptions to the rule.

And what makes me uncomfortable is that I don’t want to be the fun aunt, that others are jealous of or feel left out. Today when the girls were doing the survey I was just smiling and playing with the kids. They loved it. I already felt like I was getting more attention because I am white and look different them , but I don’t want a power dynamic.

I really did love today.

And the second we got in the car I asked, “honestly, what did you think of your time here?”

One person said, “ I appreciate your strength to do this." To which everyone agreed.

She admitted to having wanted to leave, escape it all.

Another had said that she had always known that this stuff was happening, it wasn’t a shock to her in that way.

Another said that they had always been taught to be wary of such places. And when we were walking through, they remembered that. And remember that they should keep ‘their guard up”. And their parents were worried. And the driver had freaked out today when he heard that both juhi and ria were also going to the slums- so maybe naïveté is best

Because I don’t have this cultural understanding, or background--- I guess I was brought up saying not to walk in dark alleys at night, that some areas of Boston were dangerous

But this is different. I don’t have that fear.

But here, I just want to be with the people. And make them laugh! And do something

And manjul told me to make note of the others’ reactions, and not to judge them.

And privilege slaps me hard.

I spoke with my mother today about a family member's difficulty in making a decision.

And I was interested, kind of.
But I did eventually bring it up

Sorry mom, I am just in a different world now. When I am surrounded by kids that have never been educated and isn’t considered a priority and will sew on sequins for an hour to earn one ruppe, 50 ruppees to a dollar,

No I am not worried about this situation.

And I don’t like this about myself, this change.

how do I relate?

But I must relate.

And as I was telling the other girls, my way of processing, I said that emotionally I am exhausted daily and that I was truthfully in shock when I came here.

One replied that she feels bad, but that she is “numb to it all”.

Numb like I am to learning and seeing visuals of the holocaust?

Numb to hearing about racism and sexism and homophobia and everything?

Numb, numb, numb, numb, numb

And it is numbness that lets us get by. It is numbness that let the Nazis fired millions of heads- although they are people too.

And numbness that allows me to sustain some sort of dignity as I pass through the streets in my a/c car with my uniformed driver, equipped with toilet paper and hand sanitizer and snacks and bottled water of the purest quality and I see a broken limb hitting again the glass. I see a male figured sari sweeping by. I see kids signaling their hands to their mouths for food, colored umbrellas waiting to be bought

The informal economy.

They are bound to have some success in a given day, in a well-off suburb? Right? All day there, swerving between cars, maybe someone will buy the little plastic toy?

And I am noticing this change in myself.

It is harder to smile,

It really is.

Where is my liveliness? I love to dance and sing and I want to dance and sing with all of you but my heart is so heavy I can’t process it and I want to process it and my friend told me that India isn’t even really on the radar as one of the poorest countries, so how? How is it any worse? Maybe no dvd in the house? No color tv?

I don’t get it. I guess I need to go to Africa

But it isn’t right to compare and contrast when this is painful. And it is painful.

And so many parents from the slums are looking at me, miming driving a car, pull their finger upwards and say America!

I know exactly what they mean. Half of the time I play the dumb, confused American. The other half I say india followed by a thumbs up signifying that I love india- but they don’t want to believe it!

And when one participant from my training workshop with ETF said “ I need to know my own limits- I can’t go into a community just like who I am, I don’t do that.”

So that is the problem. It is stopping people.

Please, please join me in laughing

And I am not even hungry. Although all I have had is a little bit of cereal earlier in the day, and know that there is food waiting for me in the car.

I am just not hungry when I am there. I am there, and I don’t want to leave.

Sriya joins!

2009-06-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

June 9, 2009

Shriya, another brandeis student, joined today

I wasn’t with her when she entered via car, but met with her later. Gangadah showed her a dvd of the school.

All the kids were so happy to see me again.

And having a translator there…well, it was helpful and also hindering.

I don’t know, with this mob of people strolling around, but most of all I think it is important for people from the other communities of Mumbai to experience this. And I am proud of them.

Today I just met with juhi and her sister, ria who will be joining us.
I am so excited to see how they react to this community. Apparently our driver told them that it is “dangerous” and that he was surprised that they were going there as well.

Dangerous. Is it really?

Someone was telling me that here in the schools people learn by books. So you aren’t taught to think outside of the box, or really to help the community.

For me it is culture shock, but I am seeing a change in myself. I am working on being neutral, to not being transparent as shocks come.

Like one of the girls yesterday who has never studied, neither has her husband and she doesn’t know their ages (common here), she was sewing sequins on a piece of cloth. She makes 1 rupee for every garment she completes.

And this is sewing lots of sequins…and there is 50 rupees for every dollar.

And I am hurt. And I am inspired. And I am glad I am here, and I never want to leave

And just hearing the laughter of the kids. And manjul’s confidence in me, and in general, has pushed me beyond apprehensions. I hear juhi’s concerns, and all and I have tried to not be concerned

It doesn’t matter that we have 2 weeks. And language GETs in the way.

I just want to continue smiling, and I am and I am loving it.

Can’t wait for tomorrow when juhi and ria join!

I don’t want to tell them anything about the community first, I want them to experience it first!

Meeting with Manjul

2009-06-16T22:26:00.000-07:00

June 6, 2009

Meeting minutes with Manjul
Location: At his house

From 10:30-11:45 am

I went over the schedule I had written out for the following week, and Manjul agreed on it.
Goal for this week is to get teachers excited that this project is happening and that we are the people involved (myself and the other volunteers) For teachers not to see me as one of many volunteers that come and go, but as “Zohar”.

I should not verbally explain to them what I intend on doing, but have them gain that trust from my enthusiasm and participation and interest.

Suggested that I walk around the community a few times, and note the reactions I get from the members. Also, since I usually drive in through the main road to the school, that I should try later in the week walking through the street.

I should reflect on my observations, by writing blog entries daily and sending them to Manjul and others involved with this project. I should also get the perceptions of the teachers, students and other volunteers- but not reject their different perspectives. I should get the perspectives by observing and asking.

It is great that in my schedule I have included seeing the school at all hours of the day- to note differences.
Suggested that I buy some simple, inexpensive Indian clothing to wear when working at the school

I voiced my concern about videotaping and taking pictures of the kids at the beginning of the week, and even at the end because I am afraid that will create a “fishbowl” effect. He mentioned that it is important for me to document how the situation was at the beginning and at the end, but that I should do it in a less obvious way (i.e. holding the camera in a way that isn’t in their faces)

I will be checking out during this week the amount of students that I will be working with. The range is anywhere from 10 until probably 40 or so. One option would be to work with more kids and split them up into two groups (also split up the volunteers to work with each group).

I shouldn’t be concerned with choosing the venue during this time, that will come after working with the kids and asking them how many times they want to perform and where.

I should ask everyone working with me different basic phrases in Hindi and start using ones that I already know to communicate with the staff and children.

The sweet feeling of success!

2009-06-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

June 16th, 2009- Tues
If I were to keep a descriptive word for each day I would definitely label today a success! On the way to Wadala Zohar and I sat carefully planned out the day and what we wanted to do with the children and then we ran it by Sriya (who was in the other car) on speaker phone. Unfortunately, Ria wasn’t well so she couldn’t come with us. A large part of our success for the day could be owed to the fact that we were quick to pick up our mistakes from the day before and that we worked amazingly well as a team. We created a structure as such which we could largely go by everyday. We decided to start the day with introducing the 3 of us again (in a playful way, like pointing at each other and having them scream out the names loud), then we planned on some game that required movement to get them to wake up since it was late afternoon. On our way to Wadala we bought stationary for them to create nametags in Hindi and in English. We decided to split up the groups into 3 so that we could concentrate on a set of children at a given time. Although Zohar had to cope with the language barrier, she kept her group. I instructed the students that she would write out the names in English for them and then Sriya or I would come and write it in Hindi. Then we would switch up the groups and Zohar would continue to write the name in English while Sriya and I were done with Hindi. The purpose of the name tags was not only for us to remember, but also so that they could get familiar with their names in both languages. I realized that time on, Sriya got much more confident with the children. She was much more comfortable talking to the kids in a smaller group which worked well to compliment Zohar and me.
After the name tags we were running short of time, so we plunged into the next major activity for the day. We got the kids in a circle, asked them to close their eyes, think of the 3 most important things of value in their lives- be it mother, the water pump or some food. Many kids stared at us blankly and didn’t know how to draw. This is where I found Sriya’s core competency. She was good at getting the children to let out on an individual level. I was better with the louder kids, and if I was having too much trouble with any, I’d call for Sriya and then she’d swoop in and take care of the ‘situation’. Zohar walked around kid-to-kid and encouraged their drawings with ‘oos’ and smiles. They smiled back.
After this Sriya and I were trying to put up the drawings on the wall so that the students could get a chance to talk about their artwork if they were willing. We noticed the energy level going low again so Zohar and I looked at each other and realized that we need to get them immersed in a game again. Within the next seconds Zohar got the students to line up behind her, I instructed them that then were supposed to follow her and copy her until she abruptly stopped and looked at them- that’s when they had to freeze. Zohar finally got to lead regardless of the language problem- so it was really nice to watch them have a blast without really the need for communication.
Trying to put up the drawings wasn’t getting us anywhere since the powdery walls weren’t really conducive to tape. So we gave up and decided to get a better solution tomorrow. That’s when we realized that we were running out of time so we brought in the last part of the day where we asked the children what they enjoyed the most. They loved the drawing and Zohar’s game. We got them to get into the “dead man’s pose” by lying on the floor`. It was really nice to see that even with their level of energy they could focus their minds.
We went to the 2nd section and repeated most of the activities. Ofcourse we had to improvise but it was largely the same. It seemed like this class was much more confident. It was incredible to see 2 of the students who didn’t speak at all the day before be much more talkative. However, I felt bad that my energy level wasn’t the same with the 2nd class. The teacher wasn’t as inclusive, we had to repeat the games and the excitement level wasn’t as high. So we had to choose between the 2 classes for the next day.
In the 2 hour meeting after Wadala with Manjul we went over the day in detail. We started to work towards the theatrical exercises. Created a further focus. I’m excited about tomrw. :D

The first day of School: A Challenge

2009-06-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

June 15th, 2009- Day 6 (Mon)
Today was a challenge for sure. We decided to work with the ‘older’ children who study in the second half of the day i.e. 1-5pm. Since Parivartan has 2 centers, we decided to check out both to get a feel for both set of children so we spent 2 hours at each center. We went there without a plan, without any expectations. Today was supposed to be a day of observance.
Ofcourse, that’s not how it turned out to be. Once we reached the classroom, Gangadhar met us and introduced us to the new teacher (who’s been working for Parivartan since approx 3 years, but we hadn’t met before). She was inviting but I sensed an unsure atmosphere in the classroom- from the students, the teacher as well as Gangadhar. So once we introduced ourselves to the teacher, we explained our purpose and project.
There were some students in class who landed up an hour before class started and helped the teacher clean the room. However some turn up many of the children don’t turn up to school regardless of reminders sent to home. The teacher decided to take a leave and call those children to school while we played with the kids. Since we didn’t really have a plan or discussion, we the four of us stood in front of the kids, introduced ourselves while they stared at us with wide and expecting eyes. This bothered me since I felt a lack of confidence and direction in what I was doing. The four of us looked at each other for what felt like a really long and quite 30 seconds. Finally, to bring up the energy in the room and some informality, we got the students to stand in a circle in order to see each other. We played a game which required them to say their names and do an action. We started with Zohar and worked towards the rest of the team so that the kids got an idea of what to do and were comfortable with making noise. It started off well until we came across two girls who refused to say a word. I realized they hadn’t repeated anyone’s names the entire game. We didn’t force them so we went to the next people.
Like any given classroom there was atleast one kid who talked the most, one mischievous and some that were to shy to say anything. What surprised me here is that everyone was extremely respectful and followed instruction without much of a push. There seemed to be a tendency of the ‘herd mentality’. In one of our games, where we named an animal and made that animal’s sound, if one started with a cat, there where atleast 4 that followed with the same animal. One kid would change the animal, say to a dog, and then another 5 kids followed suit. When the teacher finally came back from ‘looking for children’ she asked the students to write their names on the board to see how much of their studies they remembered from before vacation. You could see a direct correlation between the students who were the most confident with how much they knew and between the most quite and the new. Combining the two, explained why those 2 girls didn’t say a word.
In the second center, we walked in again with the intention to just observe. But ofcourse, that didn’t work as the children seemed too curious. This time, however, the teacher was familiar and she stayed with us the entire time. We did the same thing with the circle and realized the students were much more vocal. The teacher asked them to sing songs they remembered. After some encouragement, the students started singing, sometimes alone or sometimes in twos. After a few more games we tried to play dumb-charades. Once again, we felt like the energy level got low so I asked the kids which was their favorite game and to teach us instead. That worked great as we passed a whole half an hour playing that.
Overall, the day was challenging in many respects. I still don’t feel a complete connection with the children, but it was only the first day so I have hope. I have many concerns like if the kids have high expectations and we let them down, and if we get too boring and they decide not to come to school. It’s hard to always entertain at the same time keep focus. Maybe I’m thinking too much, but it’s always sensitive working with kids and I don’t have much experience here that makes it a bigger challenge.
We spent 2 hours reflecting our day with Manjul later in the evening. That definitely helped me clear my thoughts and leveled some of my concerns. His calmness and confidence transferred over to me as it did before. What I like about him is that he’s perceptive and works through the team members as required and in a strategic way. Not that my concerns have disappeared, but I know we’re being guided. And that helps.

First day of School

2009-06-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

Day 7- june 15th 2009

Today was the first day of school…parivartan has 2 centres with 2 batches each. The morning batch is for children between ages 4 to 7 while the second batch is for the ages 8-14. We attended the second batch. When we first entered I was really excited to be finally with the kids. The teacher handed over the class to us and we decided to play some ice breakers. Some of the kids were really really shy and we later found out that those were the new kids who had just joined parivartan. The others who had been a part of the school were a little more confident and spoke out loud. I thought that the shy kids might actually speak out if we spoke to them individually or spent more time with them. However, I don’t know if that would work as they were very quiet even when the teacher was leading the class.
We spent the class…trying to make songs…and getting them to speak…I feel its only a matter of time that we spend with them that they will start talking freely to us. The ones who have studied more are definitely the ones who speak out loud. As for me, I was really happy to be there and even though I might not have spoken much I need a little time too to be comfortable with talking to them. I feel I can talk better individually than to the class as a whole.
When we went to the second centre the children had just got back from recess. The teacher introduced us and we played the same games. It was nice to see that in this class the children did not seem that scared of us. It could be because they seemed a little older and also because not many of them were new. I also feel that in the second centre since the teacher herself was part of all the games, the children felt more comfortable to speak out, as they were familiar with her. Overall I was really happy to be there and am excited to go back. But I also really want to teach them something, rather than just play games. When I was there I felt that some of the kids really do want to study and might think of us as a waste of time. This I think might change if we explain to them why we’re there and also assure them that we’re here to help them and will keep coming back.

The first weekend: Meeting w/ Parivartan, AID Mumbai and Manjul (our mentor)

2009-06-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

June 13 & June 14, 2009- Day 4 & 5 (Sat & Sun)

Today was the first time that all 4 of us met with Manjul as a group. He gave us a quick synopsis of what ETF has done, what it represents and what our focus would be as a team. Although it was a brief meeting and there’s a lot more to understand, my initial impression of him was incredible. He works with a level of energy and confidence that’s so easily transferable. So..so far so good..will build a more concrete opinion as I get to know him better.
I have built a whole new level of faith in what we're doing today. I'm not going to lie; I had 1000 concerns and didn't really have complete confidence in our result. Today, that changed. Apart from having complete faith in our guide, the 3 hours training opened my eyes to the simplicity of the situation. The phrase of “learning through experience and exposure” stuck with me.
Its absolutely incredible how perspectives change when you’re organizing something and when you’re actually working at the ground level. I always knew what our purpose was as Revive: Mumbai and our concepts were clear when we planned the program. However, I completely underestimated the impact theater can have on these children and on that society. It’s extremely hard to feel a part of the community that I have been a passive observer of for years.
Yesterday had a 2 hour meeting with AID Mumbai and Parivartan. The meeting was supposed to have an agenda, but it turns out that the main focus was just the Revive: Mumbai summer program. I was surprised to see that they didn't even try to tackle the many issues they have at hand. AID, maybe rightfully, mentioned that fundraising was the toughest (yet most important) task at hand and they had lost a lot of hope for this year. They didn’t have enough volunteers and motivation. There are 3 people in AID Mumbai and they don't really have any projects other than Parivartan. So they basically only meet only when they come for the bi-weekly Parivartan meetings. They said that funding was such a huge issue that even starting the school for the year is going to be a challenge! Parivartan had 3 centers last year but this year they only have 2 because of the limited funds.
Also, we finally met Shakil who is the founder of Parivartan. Unlike his wife, he didn't speak English but he seemed like a very calm and intelligent observer. He didn't speak as much but replied to all the questions asked. It was really nice to finally put a face to the person I’ve heard a lot about in the past. Although his main focus has been education, his wife and he have been spending years trying to tackle the peripheral issues like hygiene and water shortage problems.

Meeting the Excecutive Board

2009-06-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

Day 5- june 14th 2009

Today we had a meeting in Dadar with the executive board of the parivartan school. The members present were Shakil. the founder, gangadhar, the administrator, Juhi, Ria, Zohar, Shamli, Rachita and Rushabh (trustees of the school and members of AID).

Juhi basically explained our plan to them and also told them about revive: Mumbai. They seemed to like our ideas and were interested in our suggestions for the school. Their main concern is funding for the school, which they seem to be working on.

Day 3 & Meeting w/ Shabana (Parivartan's Founder's wife)

2009-06-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

June 12, 2009- Day 3-

We decided to try a different time of working in the slums today just to see if there was any difference. So we reached there around 10:30 and worked for 3 hours. However, we ended up spending the first whole hour at the founder’s house. We met Shabana who’s Shakil’s wife. She’s a very impressive woman, whose family is from middle class South India. For the entire hour, I was engrossed in hearing the stories from an organizer’s perspective. She told stories of how Parivartan got started, how the smallest and the most obvious issues become the hardest to deal with in this particular community and how the current problems are just those extended from what they’ve been fighting for years!
Mumbai has been going through a transformational stage through the Slums Rehabilitation Scheme (SRS). However, every slum in Mumbai has a different experience. Sangam Nagar (this slum we’re working at) has been neglected for years from the Government. The reason, --- says, is because of the lack of the Government’s interest in this community. The current MLA was elected by bribing the locals with samosas and Pepsis, but is uneducated herself and doesn’t understand the need to take care of the issues. Hence, not only does she not show any interest in trying to solve the problems, she doesn’t know how to fill out the forms needed to liaison with the Government. All the money that comes in doesn’t reach the slums.
After years of fighting, Shakil and Shabana , finally got the BMC to start the first and only municipal school in the area. Before, the students had no place to study. This is the school where most of the students are enrolled. However, lately they’ve been having a lot of problems with no electricity and other facilities. Apparently someone stole the fans and messed up the wiring system. Now after trying to fix it, the government hasn’t been responsive.
Shabana says that at this point the biggest problem is working with the Government in a diplomatic way. They have been fighting for years for the smallest things like an actual community bathroom.
The rest of the day, we did some more surveys. Sriya came across a family with 9 children in a little cubby of a house while I came across a 23 year old man who’d graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. The children recognized us from the day before and followed us again. It felt really nice to see the familiar faces.

COUNTING DOWN NUMBERS

2009-06-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

Having got a good briefing from Mr. Gangadar we began our walk, or should I say trek to the community houses where we would be carrying out surveys. Surveys that would give us an idea or let us know for sure how many children were enrolled in schools and the reason for the one’s who were not. This wasn’t like any other survey where only a handful of people were taken to represent the community at large. With the help of Gayatri teacher we went to each and every house to make sure we had covered all the people who currently lived there.

When I say house, the image of a decent amount of space with windows, doors, furniture and a roof might pop up in most people’s head... but this was not the case for inhabitants of these houses. If I were to make an approximation I would say that 7 to 8 people shared about 150 – 200 square feet of floor, which would usually be big enough for just 1 bedroom, and that too average sized!

To get to these houses we had to walk in sideways to prevent hitting the walls, these are houses that never went any planning, proper infrastructure construction … no proper source of water or electricity… But at the same time this is home it’s residents. Do you see them complaining about… not the least bit.

India being an agricultural country, quite a few people would go back to their villages for the harvesting season (a period of 6 months) and return to the city once that was over to keep their income rolling. Due to this continuous movement children would loose out on their education, another reason being they did not have the right paperwork to prove which standard (grade) they were currently in, which forced them to either repeat a year or stay out of school.

The range of the number of children in each house was quite astonishing, it was any where from 1 child to 8 children, the average being around 5 to 6 children per household. The reasons were pretty much the same, the girl would not go no school cause she would soon get married and the boy needed to work and help out with the family income.

Then there are always 2 sided to a coin, while some were adamant on not attending schools, the others were always looking for opportunities to study. This is when we though that we could help the people of the slums help themselves.

FIRST REACTION?????

2009-06-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

Having just arrived from the US the day before, sitting at the breakfast table and talking to Juhi I made an impulsive decision and told her that I would like to accompany her, Sriya and Zohar into the slums of Wadala until my prior committed summer internship began.
Before I knew it, a few hours later I was walking through the slum streets shared by an assortment of stores, pipelines, garbage, mosques, temples, vehicles, goats, chickens, roosters, men, women and children. It could be viewed, as a city in it’s self, isolated it looked like it had all the amenities required to run a small-scale industry within a confined area. And now the new transient guests of this city were Juhi, Sriya, Zohar and I.
Walking beneath the sun and sipping water the heat was strong and getting to me… this has always been one of my week points, I have never been able to get used to the humid summers of Mumbai even though I was born and brought up in this hustling and bustling city. Did the fast paced movement around overwhelm me? Not the least bit; living in Mumbai had already prepared me for this.
I don’t know if it was the heat to blame or that I was just jet-lagged but my head started to fill with uncanny questions, the answers to these questions that I believe at some level are true : did I feel different… Did I feel like I was walking into unfamiliar territory? Did I feel like I didn’t belong here at all? …not the least bit.
It all seemed so familiar, as though I had belonged here and had grown up in such a surrounding and had slowly but surely grown accustomed to it. Why, I still don’t have an answer…
After walking for a few minutes we reached Mr. Gangadhar’s office, the Admin in-charge of Parivarthan School whom we would be working with. He gave us a short overview and description of what the current settings of the 2 of the 3 schools that were currently functioning, the third having been shut down due to lack of funds. We were soon introduced to the teacher of one of the schools who goes by the name “Gayatri teacher” and Shoaib, Mr. Gangadar’s 15 year old part-time assistant currently gaining some experience during his summer of from school.

I hate cats and goats! :(

2009-06-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

Day 4 – June 12th 2009

Today we first went to the founders house and met his wife… We had chai in Shakils house…talking to her made me realize that’s its really really not easy at all to just clear up all the mess or to solve all the problems… it will be an extremely long process that has no guarantee of working or safety. Politicians and their politics play a big role in the condition of the people. Even if you want to help and come with good intentions things might just turn into a fight.

I had an experience with this small boy who wished to see how dollars look. I gave him a quarter that juhi had and explained to him that it is similar to the 25 paise coin we had, but is worth 12.5 rupees in the US. The little boy was thrilled and showed all his friends. After explaining the worth of the coin the child said he would give the coin to someone he found going to the US. I told him that instead he should consider it his lucky coin. He should think about the coin he has with him when he studies. He should study really hard and do well enough to go to the US one day and then take the coin with him. I was really happy that he understood me. As when I saw him before we left he repeated the same thing say that he would definitely study hard and work towards going to the US… with his lucky quarter! I hope his dreams might come true and will be so so happy if this motivates him to study.

We met another girl who went to an English medium school. Her mother showed us her notebook and I was impressed by the amount she had learnt. It was obvious to see the that parents who were educated a little bit or earned more were obviously more concerned about their childrens’ well being and education.

As we continued going about doing the survey a whole crowd of children followed us and we were the centre of attention. Some of the mothers answered our survey more readily seeing all the children because it made them more comfortable that everyone was doing it. A weird thing that happened during the survey was that as I asked this lady questions a cat came and BIT me or SCRATCHED me or something and ran away. It was quite scary. Before I could get over that I saw this whole group of little dirty brown ducks pass by. It was very weird. And unexpected.

I’m also scared of goats. Very very scared.

Day 2: Feeling comfortable in the community

2009-06-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

June 11, 2009- Day 2-
The experience today was incredible. A large part of that experience had to do with the fact that I felt much more comfortable in the community we were working with.
We continued to do what we started yesterday which is surveying the different families in a given community to get an idea of the number of children who are not currently enrolled in school and the reason for that. After this, a list is written out with the name of these not-enrolled students who Parivartan would later on contact to get their children in the school. The administrator, Gangadhar, who had been born and brought up in the Dharavir slum, speaks good English and seems like an extremely helpful, diligent and selfless person. He works in a little cubby within the slum, which we have to squish through. It’s hard to imagine this is where he was sitting when we were in touch with him from Boston while putting the program in place. Yesterday, he introduced us to one (and the only hired teacher at present) Gayatri. She’s been walking with us, taking the surveys and has been working with the students since a while. She understands the community and knows most of the children. She’s been working since weeks on these surveys and completed a lot of them before we joined her. Gayatri Maam (as we call her) is a very simple women who instills the confidence in us to work freely with the community at the same time is sensitive to where we come from.
Anyway, today, after getting over the ‘initial shock’ I had much more emotional room to observe and absorb. The simplicity of the kids still amuses me. Regardless of the fact that the average number of children in a given ‘house’ is 4, the kids find a way to keep themselves amused and happy. And although majority of the mothers were in their late 20s- 30s, they looked much older and worn out with very limited energy. It seemed like a lot of the older kids would take care of their younger siblings and assumed an authority over them like a parent.
Something that’s not new to me, but that still fascinates me is how the children get so excited when they see an unfamiliar but friendly face. Once we spoke to them briefly, they followed us everywhere with the pile of children increasing as we moved across lanes. Some of the kids on the other hand were scared and started to cry when they saw an unfamiliar face that they’re not used to seeing i.e. Zohar’s. Some loved her, while some got scared. I noticed such extremes and contradictions throughout the day.
One of the women who had 8 children had traveled a lot and knew some Arabic which was quite fascinating. I grew a liking for her as soon as I met her. After the survey she insisted that we drink something at her house. Without asking us, she called for a Pepsi for Zohar and me. I was really surprised by this gesture and was invariably touched by it. Gayatri teacher told me that many of these houses are actually not as poor as they look. The reason why they look like they’re in that situation is because they tend to neglect the kids and their need for education. On the other hand, we faced quite an adversarial situation where one of the men started yelling at us about the situation of the dirt and the sewage. He said that the number one priority, instead of education, should be the children’s health because they’re so exposed to it. He was also frustrated by the fact that his child couldn’t get admitted in the school when he wanted to. I didn’t really get the details on that as much, but it was something worth thinking about.
A lot of these parents haven’t been against education. They were more than willing to talk and explore the opportunity. But they were worried that they’re students would be rejected from Parivartan just like they were from many other schools that they looked into. The reasons for rejection varied from the fact that they were from a specific place, were of a specific age or because they migrated too much.
I’m really excited to understand this community more. They seem to be really willing to learn and many of the kids are very bright. Infact some of the women were teasing the fact that there’s only education for children and not for older women. They too were willing to learn. They’re also extremely welcoming, to the extent that when the man was yelling at us about the sewage systems, all the women and men shooed him away immediately while the children hurried us over to another side to avoid confronting him. This ‘rescue’ was so immediate, but so effective, that it was surprising and impressive to see how an adversarial situation was dealt with within the community. Atleast, my expectations were not of that sort. There’s more to see and observe.

Stepping foot in a gutter

2009-06-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

Day 3- June 11th 2009

This was a very interesting day…we started with a talk with gangadhar about how the housing plans of the government work and how effective it has been. He also talked about the families in the community. Most of these families migrate to the village and back throughout the year. Even while talking to the families we found that when they travel to their villages for an elder siblings wedding or for other reasons, they don’t return for a relatively long period of time and so the children completely miss out on their education. When they return they have fallen behind and cannot join the class they were in the municipal school as before… these children were some of the main targets of parivartan.

Today the while walking around the area we found out that some of the families are really well-off even though live amongst the community alongside really poor people… we also found that the owners of these houses are not necessarily living in the houses in the community. The houses are rented to tenants who come from the villages.

We found a group of children who were denied admission in the municipal school as they did not have birth certificates. The parents have seemed to have lost them during the floods. Thus these children did not study. The mother however was extremely keen on sending the children to school. We took down her details as part of the survey for parivartan.

Another interesting character was a drunk man who came and started shouting at gayatri teacher and us and accusing the school as frauds…. This was because when he admitted his child on the school last year. The child did not get a place to sit and so came back home. After this, instead of the parent bringing the problem to the teacher he kept the child at home. Although this was wrong on the parents part we find that there is a new problem…space for the school. Parivartan school has had 3 centers from which one is to close down this year. From the other 2 centers, one is owned by parivartan and the other was rented out by a muslim priest who runs and Islamic religious school below the centre.

During this argument, another man who seems like an eminent person amongst the rest started shouting how the children were to study when they might just die of diseases because of all the trash and waste, muck and dirt in the stagnant gutter. There are mosquitoes and flies and thus every possible chance of disease in the area. The most unhygienic conditions ever. I stepped foot in this gutter too. And had my foot covered in black disgusting polish covered muck. It was nice that the kids found me water to wash my foot. I wasn’t the only one though… two other kids stepped foot in the gutter. Even thought the man is right in saying that the place needs to be cleaned up before any education is given….. all this waste is coming from themselves…. Education I feel will only help them to be cleaner…. Also everyone doesn’t seem to appreciate the fact that outsiders are coming to help for a certain purpose that is education. Although they are justified in their thinking I feel they don’t realize that we ourselves are students and don’t have much say. When many people are already fighting their cases. We have nothing to offer but our care and physical help…. We just have to hope that whatever little we can do will help them in some way.

Visuals of the Wadala Slum Community

2009-06-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

Housing situation

Piles of trash commonly found throughout the slum.

One of the pathways in the community.

A Great Beginning

2009-06-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

With the utmost enthusiasm and excitement I present to you a blog documenting Revive: Mumbai's 2009 summer program coordinated through Brandeis University, the Experimental Theatre Foundation, the Parivartan school and AID Mumbai.

Revive: Mumbai is an initiative run by Brandeis University students helping out the Mumbai community since the terrorist attacks this past November. To learn more about this group you may visit their webiste at: http://revivemumbai.wordpress.com

One of the projects that they started was a summer program aimed at creating street theatre with the children that reside in the slum community of Wadala outside of downtown Mumbai. The theatre performances will be created using the methodology and training of the Experimental Theatre Foundation (ETF), a theatre organization located throughout India that works with using theatre as a tool for social change.

Working on the project are 4 Brandeis students (including 1 recent alums) student of ETF, Shamli, and all are under the guidance of Manjul Bhardwaj. The Brandeis students include: Juhi Chadha, Ria Chadha, Zohar Fuller, and Sriya Srikrishnan.

As a quick update, the first week of the project involved meetings with the staff of the school and planning out the project in detail. The second week was spent in intensive ETF training (participants were Zohar and Shamli), that gave a strong basis on the concepts of ETF's movement as well as enhancing communication skills and leadership abilities (in order to work with the schoolchildren).

Currently we are going door to door in the slum community surveying the families regarding how many children reside in the homes and what educational background the children have. Starting Monday the school will be in session, and until that it is our job to find those children who have either never gone to school before, there has a been a huge lapse of time in their education or that it's too late for them to register in the goverment funded schools.

We will be trying to update regarding our experiences, reactions, achievements and challenges as much as possible during this time.

Enjoy!

-Zohar

Day 1- The plunge!

2009-06-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

June 10, 2009- Day 1-

How do I feel? Numb. I’ve seen this before and I’m not surprised. What I was surprised about, however, was more about how I was in there. Actually allowing myself to see it and feel it. All our lives we’ve been told that these are the ‘not safe’ areas. The standard thing to do is to help through organizations where the facilities are much more acceptable for students like us. But this is different. It doesn’t get any more grass root than this. Do I like this? No. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps, it’s something to do with the fact that it’s my first step into this neighborhood that I’ve been avoiding all my life.

In the past few years I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand how to place myself in society. Of what is my purpose? I’ve been trying to bridge my experiences from what I want to do, what I should be doing and to what I’m meant to do. While I still ponder over these questions, I want to understand how these children in the slums would answer these questions for themselves. They live a raw life, but you see a difference in their aspirations and their value for life.

Today. I don’t have much more to say and I might not be as coherent. For now, all I know is this me really stepping outside my box. Sometimes worldly experiences cannot compare to how you feel when you experience the problems at home. I need time and patience.

Surveying

2009-06-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

Day 2- June 10th 2009

Today Juhi and Ria joined in and we actually started surveying the community ourselves…my reflections are pretty much the same… people had the same reactions… however today we visited a predominantly muslim area….. I found that most of the families sent their children to urdu schools (schools of the Islamic religion) and considered this formal school…. Girls who had studied till the 7th std…were also not sent to school anymore… it seems to be because of male teachers….This is because of one of the questions asked by the mother of a 12 year old daughter… when asked why she had dropped out of school… the mother as well as daughter seemed content with the amount she had studied… which was merely 9 years…. Contrastingly… in another house… the daughter was in the 9th std… and even though she had older brothers….. her mother mentioned that the daughter was the brightest on the house…..

Another lady seemed to be mocking us… she started talking to another little kid…and kept telling him…. That were were here to come and take him away to study…. The poor kid was scared and went away from us… this I feel wasn’t very nice of the lady as it discourages the purpose of the school and makes us seem like bad people whereas we were only here to help….

The first impression

2009-06-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

Day 1- June 9th 2009

When I got there, as I entered the narrow lanes…I started to first know what to expect…I knew that this was it…the real deal…the actual experience. I first met Gangadhar…the administrator… he showed me a documentary on the schools achievements and main goals….

Then we went to the founders house where I met Gayathriji and Zohar…. And a load of kids….I felt so comfortable in the house around the kids….they were so nice and immediately friendly and could speak to them freely. We went around the community…house by house… and observed while Gayathriji asked questions and conducted a survey…of the main incomes of each family, number of kids and whether they were schooled. It was quite a wonder to see that so many mothers didn’t know the ages of their children, husbands and even their own ages. The different reactions we saw were also really interesting. Some people are happy and very much interested in educating their children…some people are least bothered…some are angry with our questions and get irritated…some our too arrogant…. Different reactions….

Walking through the slums actually made me a little angry…. someone has to see this place and do something about it…horrible conditions… that actually can be improved if we try….

Another thing was to see how some people were so happy and content in the little space they had…. We should really learn from them… our world is so materialistic compared to theirs and we feel so guilty and useless for having so much and wanting more whereas they hardly have anything but are still content and live as neat and happily as they can in the place they have…..

First day of Surveying

2009-06-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

June 8, 2009

Today I went to Wadala, alone for the first time. I was lost, couldn’t find the landmark because the English school that used to mark where the office is has since been destroyed!

The person who drove me there was lost because the address given on the website is not Gangadhar’s address- it is the address to the main center. So when the driver spoke to the townspeople, I called Gangadhar and we waited near a shop. The shopowners took out a bench for me to sit and wait on.
I kept on thinking what an experience it must be for my driver. He must feel out of place. I don’t know his background, but I am guessing he didn’t grow up in the slums, and maybe has never exposed himself to the slum lifestyle.
Here he is in khaki uniform, being handed a stool to sit on while waiting, what was going on in his head? Usually HE is the one serving others.

This whole time I just wanted to be independent and find the place on my own, but the driver almost had a panic attack when I tried to communicate that to him.
Eventually Gangadhar came and brought me to Shabana, the Parivartan founder’s wife’s home. What a sweet woman! With a cute son!
Immediately I was offered water by the domestic worker, which I had to refuse. Then they wanted to feed me, which I refused as well.
While talking with her, and she spoke great English, I kept wondering what it’s like for her to live here. She has such an outsider perspective, yet is living here.
It’s inspiring.
She told me a little more about the community and history of Parivartan. Apparently a lot of families send their kids to the Islamic school where they learn the Koran (but it isn’t even translated or explained). Lots of kids’ parents say that they can’t go to school because they don’t have a birth certificate, which they then enroll in Parivartan and eventually Parivartan writes a letter to BMC explaining the situation to let them in.

She introduced us to a man who is a socialist and big in politics in India. They both told me that it is great that I am doing this- because there are few people that are doing something for the good of society. They told me that I should go into politics and bring this change there. Maybe?

I didn’t refuse the tea, because of the guilt of earlier, and hopefully I won’t be sick.
I started with the surveys. I am amused by their expectations of me. Gangadhar kept saying “how is the sun for you?...If during the survey you are tired, just come back”.

While surveying they asked me to sit down.

Eventually we got to one place with a lot of children and I let loose. Looking them all each in the eyes, I just played with them- simple play. They were so happy from this! The smiles on their faces!

And throughout this experience I keep thinking how uncomfortable I felt last night at the Bollywood scene and how much more comfortable I feel here with the poorest of the poor. If course here I feel judged, but there is no comparison to last night. Here life is so simple.

One little boy kept crying when I looked at him!

When I returned, Gangadhar asked “ how did you enjoy it?” I enthusiastically replied and that’s when attitude truly makes a difference.

Later, in the evening, I was discussing my project with a woman who asked “do you HAVE to do this work? Is it part of your studies?”

I looked at her and said, “no, I most definitely don’t have to. I want to”. And she said, “you know, it is great that you are doing something for the community. More people should. You know, I have heard of so many great NGO’s here doing great things, and I always say that I should get involved…but I just never do it…”

OK…

And I keep thinking of the question my mom’s friend has posed to my mom, “where did Zohar get so much empathy?”