Eclair - The Milestone

Tuesday comes just once a week. Isn't it such a sad thing? I get to meet my darlings only once in seven days!

But I must share a milestone. Its a little story that has stayed with me for long. I am touched, overjoyed and so shaken.

My perception of the beggar kids outside Hanuman temple has been static over time - they are violent, they are hungry and they love snatching things.

The first time my friend Priyanka and I had distributed ice creams, it had been a mess. We did a rough headcount of the kids and then ordered 25 ice creams. A mad crowd of kids had gathered around the ice cream seller who was previously standing alone on the road. We introduced some order, made them form a queue for the ice cream. One by one, the ice creams started getting distributed, but then we discovered that suddenly from nowhere more kids had come in the queue and those who had taken one ice cream had hidden theirs somewhere and joined the queue again. Some complained, others resorted to violence, there were numerous little fights in the course of it. By the end of it, Priyanka and I were more exhausted preventing the duels than satiated with our little philanthropy experiment. We ended up paying for 40 ice creams instead of 25!

Another similar episode had occured later, this time over pencils than ice creams.

And so I had concluded that it wasn't their fault after all. Poverty and hunger were the causan cause. They had so little, that they craved for a little more which was still not enough to fill their tummies. And so the tendency to snatch and fight were the direct manifestations of the inherent competitive tendencies that scarcity often gives rise to.

Over time, I internalised the conclusion. I would go and play and teach, but I took a vow never to distribute anything.

This tuesday, things changed. They challenged my conclusion.

My friend Sarda had called me excitedly on Tuesday morning expressing her desire to come to Eclair. In all her enthusiasm, she told me, 'I want to give biscuits to all of them'.

I hesitated. I told her the entire story of previous experiments and left the decision to her.

The class turned out to be really fun - we made paper boats and painted. And they laughed a lot at Sarda's jokes. We clicked pictures by the roadside. There were numerous curious onlookers, eager to help.

And then, the biscuit time came. Sarda had done an approximate count probably and had gone and got a whole bag of biscuits.

We were cautious this time.

'Let's form a circle', she suggested. Indeed, its less difficult to cheat when things are distributed to circular recipients than linear ones - I guess :p - they can't get out of the circle and join it again, and are under constant gaze of each other, you see! No fights occurred. I was surprised to find them behaving like well mannered children.

Anyways, it turned out that we fell short of 6 biscuits. Six cute faces looked up to the empty bag with disappointment and resentment rather.

'Hume nahi mila' - that tall girl Sonam looked into my eyes and asserted her right to a biscuit.

"Okay, I will get 6 more biscuits" - Sarda announced and went to buy more biscuits.

To our shock, somehow scarcity cropped again. There were 6 biscuits and 7 kids. One of them had probably been playing on the side and we had missed her on the count. Or she might have pocketed her biscuit and might have come back for a second one, I thought.

I tried to convince one of the little girls - Roshni about the value of 'sharing' and how sharing doubles up the joy of having biscuits. So, I proposed, 'Why don't we open the pack of biscuits and share half with Sonam?' Her face drooped and she was hesitant to concede. 

In another moment, magic occurs. 

Deepa - the cute girl watching the little fight with her innocent but mature eyes comes forward, advances her pack of biscuits and says, "Sonam ko mera packet de do" (Sonam can take my pack my biscuits)

Generosity! Those little kids! Aww...I was so touched.
I could have never imagined those little, half clad kids practising generosity. I saw it before my eyes.

And yes, one more thing. I had taken three boxes of colours for the kids, which they used and replaced in the colour box, some shove the little crayons into my bag. I had axiomatically believed that anyways some colours would be lost - they were little kids....

Guess what? I came back to my room and counted all the colours - 36! ALL of them were there. Somehow from somewhere, as if honesty had crept into our classroom. I had never sermonised to them about honesty or the value of truth, not even any of the volunteers. 

It was a suo moto change...yeah, its a BIG milestone. I am great hopes about the future!

Eclair - new lessons :)

"Even the interaction has a value in itself, the fact that somebody came to them and thought them to be worthy to talk to, will be a memory in their lives. Even if nothing concrete comes out of it, it is a humbling experience for you and a joy forever for them". I keep on looking at her - my professor, lost in the profundity of her words, reveling in every inch of truth in them. I had gone to her with all my worries, how my efforts were not bearing fruit, how things were back to square one, how I could never get a bunch of kids enrolled in a hobby class. And there, she tells me the crux of it.

I had started Eclair with exactly same intentions but had eventually started measuring it by the result of it than the journey throughout. So if the kids were enrolled, I thought 'that' was the achievement, now I know what the achievement was - the joy of laughing together and playing together.

This Tuesday was a memorable one - its a mela outside the temple always, hordes of kids throng the footpath seeking food and alms from the devotees.

And then their didi comes - 'jal didi"! They had laughed at the strange name. Now they wait for the next Tuesday, for another round of fun and frolic and the joy of aiming darts at the dart board and playing with the huge hoola-hoo ring. Suddenly, the world becomes lighter for them and they are kids again, away from the burden of collecting coins which the devotees throw at them from a distance.

"okay - agle mangalwar ko khelenge - bye" - I bid goodbye to the energetic little class, trying hard to convince them that it was time and that I had to return. After a lot of pestering, and playing the game 'one last time', they finally heeded to my call.

"Bye" - I wave at them, "Go back to your homes now" ... I wait for them to depart.

They just stand and look at me, smiling ear to ear and conveying me a world of thoughts through their innocent eyes. Probably, they are amused. Delighted, may be. People by the roadside hardly smile at them, do they?. They've seen people moving past in a hurry all the time, failing to even acknowledge their existence by the side. They had to get themselves noticed always, by shouting, by running wildly in the middle of the road or by just coming in the way of some passers-by. And now, its a new world.

Begging has become a side vocation now, they are here to play and learn.

One of the little girls - Roshni looks at me and says, 'chankyoo'

She somehow remembered the lesson from many Tuesdays back.

"Par kyun?" - I quip.

"Aapne humare saath khela" - she says blushing. And then the rest also shout, "Chaankyoo"

I am all smiles. Its a different feeling :)