Our One True Love

Know what day today is?

It’s International Book Giving Day.

While the rest of the world celebrates Valentine’s Day with candies, chocolates and roses, it is not much more meaningful to use the day to introduce people to our One True Love- the Love of Books and Reading.

You can gift a book or two to a loved one, donate used books to people who do not have any of their own, or simply leave a few books in a waiting room where there is nothing else to keep people occupied.

Single or attached. Young or old. Everyone loves Books!
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If you can't physically go out and hand over a book, you can also make an online donation to provide a book to a child in remote villages in the highlands of Gautamala.

How long can the inequity last?

While we sit and debate whether or not to bite into that last piece of chocolate, there are people dying of hunger. Not people going hungry- missing a few meals, eating barely enough to sustain themselves- but people actually dying because their body no longer can sustain itself.

People in the Horn of Africa, people in Somalia, people on the street two miles from where you live.

At the same time, there is wastage. Uneaten food dumped in the garbage bin, food allowed to go bad in the refrigerator, meals ordered and left unconsumed.

How long can this inequity last?
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In case you want to make a donation, every little bit helps- even a donation of $ 5 will help keep a child alive - FIGHT HUNGER! 

On Food

"If there are so many starving kids, give this to them", said my son pushing his plate away.

"Let him be", advised the father. "What are you trying to prove?"

Yes indeed. What was I trying to prove? How will my kids clearing their plates make any difference to a starving child?

Actually it would. If we don't waste food, we consume fewer resources. Lower demand pushes down prices, making food marginally more affordable to people living at the edge of starvation.

Or you could order one pizza less and use the money to feed a child for a month.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

And here is the story of a girl who's meals I sponsored for a month for the cost of a pizza.


Last years' post - F is for Fighting Fat and Fitness

The Invisible Victims

While I may want to believe that commercial sex workers choose to ply their trade, the reality is that most of them don't have a choice. Even today, families sell girls into the sex trade for as little as a couple of hundred dollars, and the girls are expected to remain till their earnings pay off the cost at which they were acquired.

The girls already sold into the sex trade, perhaps, have no option but to remain till AIDS or old age claims them, but must the daughters born to them have to follow them into slavery?

Hopefully not!

Their smiles hide the horrors they have witnessed!

Do check out my blog post on the Invisible Victims of Sex Trafficking, and help spread the word if you can.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Will I ever learn to Edit?

I had 36 hours to cobble together a post for my organization's blog. 500 words- one word every four minutes! More than enough time.

But I was feeling particularly uninspired. In two hours, I came up with something grammatically and factually accurate, but utterly uninspiring.
I tried a second time. The second version was engaging, but you couldn't understand it, unless you knew exactly what I was talking about.

I slept on it. But still didn't want to edit.
I was happy with Version Three- it conveyed all that I wanted to convey. I managed to get away without Editing!

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The blog post is here - Heros of Poverty Revolutions

Grab every Opportunity

Ten year old Manisha believes in grabbing every opportunity. For centuries, her forefathers have been strangers to the written word, but when a private school took her on as a charity student, she shot to the top of the class.


Her mother is often forced to beg on the streets, to get enough money to feed her family a single meal a day. Undernutrition was taking its toll on Manisha's ability to concentrate on her studies. But just fifteen dollars a month gives her three healthy meals a day. Is that too much to change the life of a child?
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To read the full story, whether or not you want to donate, click here.

See the Life You Change

I sponsored three months of nutrition for a child a couple of days back through SeeYourImpact.Org, and got this story back about the life that I changed.
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Fourteen year old Radha’s story seems right out of a Bollywood movie. Her parents, Pappu and Sheel Kumari, are landless agricultural laborers, who migrated to the city of Kanpur to work as laborers at the brick-kilns or construction sites. Since her parents are at work all day, the fourteen year old manages the household chores (preparing food, cleaning utensils etc.) and for the past four years has been working part-time as a horse-cart puller transporting bricks at construction sites.


Despite all her chores, Radha finds time to attend Apna Skool, where she is in grade 4. She is a good student, and being the oldest in the family realizes the need to set a good example for her brother and two younger sisters. All four of them are very dilligent in their studies, and dream of going in for higher studies and earning a decent livelihood one day.

Radha’s favorite subject is Hindi and she loves reading stories. She aspires to be a teacher so that she can educate many more children like herself. She is fond of playing with skipping ropes.
 
Your donations, [--- and ---] will ensure that Radha enjoys an entire year of nutritious, tasty lunches, and healthy snacks. Thank you.

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If you would like to make a difference to someone's life, do check out SeeYourImpact.Org- you can also redeem this gift card to get $ 5 off on your donation - CWHWRTH3QF

Youth- the Future of India?

When a friend from America visited me, one of the first things she said was, "I can never get over how young India is. I have seen barely a handful of older people all week."

Her statement seemed strange because, of course, there are older people in India too. But the numbers prove her right- almost a third of the billion people in India are between 10 and 24 years old. And because it is primarily the youth who migrate to cities to escape rural poverty, almost half of urban India falls in that age range.

Imagine the latent productivity.
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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.



Once a month, I contribute to my organisation's blog- do check out my latest post on Youth in urban-India.

The Editing Process

When I was asked to write a blog post for my organisation's blog, I put on my most cerebral cap and tried to come up with a definitive thesis on the state of primary education in India. After six abortive attempts (spread over seven days) to go beyond the first paragraph, I decided to quit attempting to be someone else, and just be myself. Half an hour later, I had a 'straight from the heart' story of an amazing girl who couldn't even write her name at 9, but who, after the timely intervention of a local charity, became the first in her family to graduate from high school. I thought my job was done after I proof read the post, corrected a few minor typos, and sent it off with a bunch of accompanying photographs.

Little did I suspect that was only the beginning. The post came back to me after a week, accompanied by a mail which said, "We love it, but.......". The list of suggested edits seemed longer than my entire post! Far from "loving" my post, they seem to have found something wrong in every paragraph.

"But this is the best part of the whole post", I often wanted to scream. "If I take it out, there would be nothing left." I am, however, a professional and I always listen to other professionals, so I soldiered on.

Editing the post took three times as much time as writing it had done. But when I re-read it after I was done, I was in for a very pleasant surprise - the new post was much better than the first draft had been. The parts I had been asked to take out would not have made sense to someone who did know know me and my writing style- the post that ultimately went up was accessible to everyone.

I have always shied away from the editing process- I now realise that even if it is as painful as a root-canal treatment, it is also as necessary.


And if you do want to read the blog post, click onto From a Construction Site to a Courtroom.