3 – Gandhi and Salaam Baalak

 

A very different kind of day.  It began with a lecture on Gandhi.  The lecturer was a professor from Delhi University who spoke for over an hour.  His topic, “Relevance Of Gandhi In Today’s World”,  was fascinating and we kind of wished the lecture would last the rest of the day.

 

 

Next we moved on to a truly incredible experience.  We were taken on what was described as a “city walk”.  Well, it certainly was not a tourist’s view of the city….  We are here, after all, to work with some of India’s children who have been abandoned.  So our “city walk” was led by two (2) of those children.  Sheetl and Izaz took us from our rather comfortable B&B in Delhi into the world they know well, the back streets of Delhi filled with children who have no homes and no place to go.

The background information about this walk is one which many of you may remember.  Several years ago a documentary from India titled “Salaam Bombay” (directed by Meera Nair) received tremendous recognition at the Oscars.  The movie focused on the abused children of the slums of India (sort of like the true story of “Slum Dog Millionaire”).  After that film was a tremendous success, she (Meera Nair) used the funds from the movie to begin an NGO called the Salaam Baalak Trust.  Our guides for the “walk”, Sheetl and Izaz, are participants in the services provided by the Salaam Baalak Trust.  They both were lovely, spoke excellent English and Hindi, were very open about their stories, and showed us clearly how they (and others) lived on the streets of the big cities in India.  Most importantly, they showed us what the Salaam Baalak Trust does to aid children in India, helping them to find a way to an education and a future.  We now feel we might have a slightly better idea about the lives of the children we will be teaching and what these children are up against in their struggle to survive.

Our day ended at Gandhi Smriti, the location where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life and was assassinated on 30 January 1948.  All who view these lovely grounds and the park area around it can see the preserved room where Gandhi lived.  Also, many of his quotations are displayed in the area (some of these quotations are displayed in our photos)

A challenging day, a difficult day, but a powerful day in many ways.

(P.S. —  A quick, funny note to add:  The photo below shows a wall with various pictures of Religious God/Gods/Goddesses.  In the midst of one of the alleys in the slum areas in which we were walking there was one small alleyway which was often  used for a urinal by passing males.  When the community was beginning to try to “clean things up” in that alley, they could not stop this use by the passing men.  Then they thought of a solution:  If we put tile pictures of Religious Icons on the wall where the men would pee, then these men would be ashamed to be “seen peeing in public” by their God/Goddess/Gods and would no longer use this alleyway as a urinal.  It worked !!!!)

Good Night!