An evening well spent

I'm back.

Back earlier than I thought I would.

You might ask if I ever was gone. Trust me, I was, for a nanosecond I had even contemplated shutting the blog down, something was amiss and I just couldn't put my finger on it. Fuelled by an insomnia induced restlessness I had decided to give writing a break.

There are certain moments in your life when something becomes all too clear for you, I think its called an epiphany in literate circles, I'd rather refer it as a lightbulb moment. I realised that I liked to write. So, write, I shall. The insomnia and the uneasiness, I shall deal with.
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There are so many things to write about. Firstly I should write about meeting Anu Bakshi of Project Why during her visit to Chennai (PWhy is an organisation that sets up small teaching facilities in slums with very little infrastructure and a lot of creativity and heart. You could read about their activities here. I've also written about Anu earlier in this post) . It was a fantastic experience for me to have spent a few hours with her and Mr. DV Sridharan, of Good News India, at his residence, talking about their lives , their work etc. Unfortunately due to Mr. Sridharan's bad health I couldn't get to talk to him so much, I hope this would be soon possible.

The fire in Anu's eyes and words, the drive that she has to do what she does is amazing, whether it be running the day to day activities of ProjectWhy, getting a child the right medical treatment he or she needs, mobilising funds for day to day expenses, dealing with local authorities, trying innovative method of teaching children, being a Mom etc. Anu's mind and words race through, often leaving me behind, speechless. I wish everyone of us had this kind of a passion for something in our lives. I think that would make living more worthwhile.

Her direct way of asking questions and the sheer speed, caught me on the wrong foot a few times. "Whats a good place to eat around here", she asked. I thought for a minute and replied. Pat came the next question, "Whats another good place? What do they serve? Indian, Chinese and Continental? all together?" she asks with a quick laugh, then before I could think of a suitable reply, she is off to another topic another issue and another plane of thought. As I was highlighting a problem that she might face with her latest project, she looked me in the eye and asked with interest, "So, what would you do?". Wrong footed again.

Its almost like she has a lot of such little information written in post its stuck in her mind for later day retrieval.

As the conversation moved on from one thing to another, what struck me was that level of thought process that has gone into its teaching effort at Project Why. For instance, children in Project Why were taught about water conservation and told that they need to look out for any tap that leaks as they went about armed with empty half litre bottles. When they spot a leaky tap they need to fill up the bottle from that leak keeping a track of the time it takes to fill up. Once this is done they take it back to their classroom (or in certain cases a tree under which they are taught) and then calculate how much of water is lost due to that leaky tap. As the kids found this effort a lot of fun, they didn't realise that they were learning a few things like water conservation for starters, mathematics and a bit of physics as well. This is just one of the many things that the children do.

Such practical teaching is sadly absent in many modern schools. A pity.

As we took a walk to get a cup of tea and some provisions the conversation moved to food, books, bio-diesel, economics etc. Anu told me that she attributes her 16-20 hour days to her proper diet. This probably was the one area where we differed, since what I prefer eating usually belongs to the junk food category. Before I could realise, it time for me to go. This four hour conversation ended too early. I wish there had been more time.

This is one super person, a proud mom, a good adminstrator, a great teacher and in all someone worth looking up to. From an Indian Ambassador's daughter born abroad to the lady people say makes school teachers out of street sweepers, she has indeed come a long way.

Please visit her website and blog. There is a lot that you can learn about them. Project Why is a lovely little world that needs all the support that it can get. I have deliberately not written a lot about PWhy because I'd rather you visit their sites and read for yourself.