Aarti Home

The Film!

2010-09-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here, finally, is the link to the film christened The Playing Wall.

This has Part 1 and has most of the film. Part 2 will soon be uploaded, there is a technical glitch which is holding it up. Will update the link once it is up.

..And the Big Picture Emerges!

2010-05-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

We wound up finally on Sunday morning. After the finishing touches were put, we all had breakfast together out under the big blue sky and the idlis and dosas tasted especially delicious!

Afterwards we met up indoors and celebrated the conclusion of a splendid week together with a huge round of applause for ourselves and for each other. The sense of pride the children felt in their work was palpable. They will feel good every time they look at their wall. That I guess is the power of creativity.

The mural tells you, among other things, that the big picture that emerges is made up of all the tiny bits that we all put together.

Here's a round of applause for everyone who did their bit, tiny and otherwise - Jan, Trina, Sandhya Auntie, George, Namrata (that would be me), Farah, Amrita, Manjula, Suneetha, Sneha, Pushpa, Pulla Reddy Uncle, Suresh, Vimla Auntie, Karen and of course the SUPER DUPER KIDS AT AARTI HOME!

Everything Falls into Place..

2010-05-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

Work went on. Sketches from the drawing books were scrutinized, chosen, cut up and stuck mentally with another sketch, edited and merged, teams chosen to work on a particular picture. There was a carnival-like atmosphere. Groups of children were working together on different pictures. Tins of paint were consumed and more ordered from the store. Littler ones were weaving in and out of the scene, running around in the playground.

Some folks from the local TV channels and newspapers popped over to get a piece of the action. Like any self-respecting journalist they thrust the mike in front of anyone (grown-up folks) willing to talk and asked Aapko kaisa lag raha hai? type of questions!

You can get a glimpse of the drama that was unfolding in the background.

The entire process was being captured on film. The children though were so involved in what they were doing that nothing mattered - not the heat, not the camera, not the scribes, not even the dinner-bell! Some of them were asked to tell the camera what was going on in their minds, what they felt about it all, what shelter meant to them.

What did they say you ask? Well, wait for the film!

From the Drawing Board to the Wall Canvas

2010-05-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

A big bunch of paintbrushes had been bought along with supplies of paints and other paraphernalia. We proceeded to make friends with the brushes - they were handed out and the children passed them around. For fat lines use the wide brushes we said and for detailed fine work, the thin ones. Then we all marched outside and bowls of white paint were handed out. The next hour or so was spent 'painting' with the white paint on the white walls so that the children would get used to the idea, and when it came to the actual painting they'd be comfortable with it.

Kadapa summers are HOT. 45 C is not exactly conducive to painting under the open skies. So we decided to start work at 6 in the morning, going on up till about 9. After this a session indoors and then a much-needed break. Finish pending work/chores, bathe, eat and sleep through the blazing afternoon. Start back at about 4 when the sun begins to get kinder.

We were staying at Sandhya Auntie's house and enjoying her hospitality. You have to taste the mangoes we hogged to understand why it is called the king of fruits!

When we reached Aarti Home at quarter to six in the morning, we found the children up and about, waiting for us. Sneha and Manjula and the rest of the team who looks after them had filled up their tanks - they'd all had a nutritious drink of ragi malt and a banana each, and were now raring to go!

We assembled in the meeting room and talked about what we'd do. Went outdoors and discussed which picture we should work on first and what could come where. The thing to note here is that it was the children who decided the stuff mostly - we were merely facilitating the process. The first picture was chosen. With a bit of help from Farah, work began with gusto (as you can see in the picture) to scale it up and draw it on the wall.

We realized there was a section of the wall near the main gate that had not been white-washed and soon there was a total Tom Sawyer-like situation!

The sun was climbing higher. Suddenly someone found a little kitten. There was much cuddling and cooing over it. A bowl of milk was produced from the kitchen, the kitten however was clearly not interested. A comfy bed was made for it and the bowl left next to it.

The drawing and painting continued in the evening session. As it started to get dark, we hired some floodlights and had them fixed. Work continued till almost nine. You must note that all of this was spontaneous. The concentration and focus with which they were working had to be seen to be believed. This was beyond mere 'fun'.

There were many goosebumps-inducing moments in the week. The way the children packed everything up at the end of the day with no one instructing them at all, for instance. Even the little ones pitched in by folding up the mats. The camera was left in the middle of the ground every now and then and yet not one child touched it. No adult was around asking them to do this or not do that - they seem to have a strong sense of right and wrong. On the other hand they are confident and feel secure enough to challenge anything you might say that they don't agree with - in a polite way. This balance I bet is something every parent strives for and here in this big family of about a hundred children you see it in action.

For the hundredth time, hats off to Sandhya Auntie and her team!

Moving Outdoors

2010-05-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

For the last three days, the camera had been lying untouched. The children were putting down the images inside their heads down on paper. We were witnesses to the process of their thoughts evolving. A picture is worth a thousand words - I'd like to correct that - its worth many thousands of words.

We moved outdoors into the wide space enclosed by the Aarti Home building and the school block. The mural would go on the wall at the ground level on the school building. We had got it white-washed earlier and now it was time to get the children introduced to their canvas!

We played some more games and then the children had another session with Farah. The idea was to get them comfortable with the space.

We now zeroed down into what we wanted next - ideas for the mural! Much brain-storming and animated discussions happened. We used a whiteboard to jot down the ideas that were being bounced around. At the end of the session we had more than forty completely unique ideas - all depicting the idea of shelter. What a long way we had travelled from the boring picture of two hills with a rising sun and a house, and this was just half a week later!

The children drew their ideas - we had got them a sketch book each which they had been using to sketch out their thoughts, to learn drawing techniques and to preserve all their memories of this week.

We collected the books in a pile and then all of us went through each of them, capturing the images in our heads in an effort to cobble up an idea of what would eventually go on the wall. The dinner bell went off but the children simply refused to budge till the last book had been checked out. All the books were laid out on the floor like an art gallery - with the picture they'd chosen facing upwards. We would start off on the wall the next morning - we couldn't wait!

The Next Couple of Days..

2010-05-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

..we all worked together.The children were shown various techniques of drawing. The emphasis was on HOW to draw, NOT WHAT to draw. We saw the transformation, they were starting to express what they felt on paper. One of them drew a house with two children in the foreground, holding hands. Friendship is a form of shelter, he said. Great going! A little girl showed us the sketch she had made - that of a mother with a child in her lap. Amma odi or mother's lap is shelter she said, and the woman in the sketch is Sandhya Auntie. Wow!

Yet another girl's sketch depicted a baby abandoned outside the gates of Aarti Home. Shelter is the hope that Aarti Home gives such children, she said.

We were humbled by the children's intelligence and sensitivity. Touched by their sense of loyalty to Sandhya Auntie and Aarti Home. Floored by their enthusiasm and sheer zest for life.

We felt grateful to have got this opportunity to work with them.

Starting Off

2010-05-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

We began on Day 1 by introducing ourselves and Farah the artist-lady to the children. We gave them an overview of what the project was all about.

We then asked them to put down on paper what their idea of 'shelter' was. Sheet after sheet had the same stereotypical landscape - that of two hills with a rising sun in between and a house with a sloping roof in the foreground! This was what they probably thought was expected, we however wanted what the children actually felt and thought.

We brain-stormed and came up with a few games to help them understand what the whole gig was about. For instance the children were divided into four teams and each team was then asked to 'build' a house using themselves as the material. It was amazing to watch what they came up with - we even had a deity in one of the creations, complete with a priest! Once a team made their house, a couple of children from another team sketched it on the whiteboard - as it would look if made from normal building materials. Look carefully for details we said. The idea was to teach them to visualize and put it down on paper. Much laughter and enthusiastic cheering ensued.

The rest of the day was spent in more such exercises which broke the ice between us and them, helped them come together as a team, emphasised the importance of observation and concentration and were great fun!

The Behind-the-Scenes Story

2010-05-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

Our brief was explore how creative practice impacts young lives positively. The theme we were to work with was shelter. We came up with a few possibilities, thought some more and narrowed down on the idea of the children producing a shelter-themed mural in Aarti Home - that would be creativity in action. We bounced the idea off George Kurian who was previously part of the team that made BBC2's documentary India's Missing Girls, and he offered to make the film for no fee. He also had many excellent ideas - you can see some of them in the posts that follow. We would capture on film their thoughts about shelter while they are creatively engaged.

After about a month of coordinating various aspects - what a learning experience this has been for me! - I now know how and where camera equipment can be hired for instance - we were ready to roll. George and I landed up in Kadapa and we were all set to go.

Creative Junction Partnership Project Goes Live!

2010-05-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

We have begun filming a documentray that explores how creative practice enhances the lives of young people.
Watch this space for more details..

Davakar

2008-08-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

This beautiful boy is Davakar. He is 5 years old at the time of the photo. His mom is still alive but has cancer and is unable to take care of him so he lives at the Home. Davakar is awesome because he is like an old man in a 5 year old boy's body. He has this adorable habit of walking around with this hands resting on the top part of his stomach (what I imagine a 60 year old man would do when taking his morning stroll in the nearby park). Davakar is also really thoughtful. He was in my class and would always be the first to finish projects such as the "autobiography" he is holding in the above photo. Whenever he finished his work instead of running around like a normal 5 year old, he would go around and help the other students finish their projects! Davakar is also incredibly smart. One of my favorite stories is that I was teaching the kids the words "fast" and "slow" and I said something like "I run slow!" at which point Davakar piped up and said "I run slowLY". I was floored. This kid is clearly a genius. Also just another example of what kind of intelligence and talents would have gone to waste without Sandhya and without the Home.

PS - Davakar is holding a page from his autobiography that I had the kids write. I taught them some simple sentences and they filled in the blank. Davakar's says "I love Sandhya. I like the color red. I don't like pacola. My favorite activity is reading."

Mustafa and Abdhul

2008-07-24T01:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, enough stories about girls, here is my first post on some of the boys at the Aarti Home. The above photo is of Mustafa (in front) and Abdhul. Mustafa and Abdhul are orginally from the Mumbai area. They are not orphaned children at all, but actually lost children. The story, as I understand it, is that Mustafa and Abdhul both separately became lost from their families. Being very young at the time, they did not know how to find their homes and could not tell the police where they lived. The police posted notices in the newspaper trying to find their parents, but no one ever came to claim them. Not knowing what to do with these two boys, the Indian police decided to stick them in a juvenile detention center.

A few years ago, Sandhya was asked by the government to take her expertise on caring for so many children at once, and inspect the juvenile detention center. Sandhya said that was she found was disgusting: the boys lived in tiny cells with one (very unclean) bathroom for the entire center and were given bland, unnutrious dinners (rice, and sometimes curry if they were lucky). They were not given any kind of education or any other kind of activities to keep occupied. During her visit to this juvenile detention center, Sandhya was especially horrified to find Mustafa and Abdhul -- boys clearly too young to be criminals. When she heard their backstory, she convinced the government to allow her to bring them back to The Home where they have been living ever since.

One of the more heartbreaking moments at The Home was the week leading up to Mustafa's mother's birthday. Every day, Mustafa would ask Sandhya to call the Mumbai police to find his mother in order to wish her a timely "happy birthday". Of course, we could not find Mustafa's mother for him. Comforting him on her birthday was one of the saddest moments of my life.

Another interesting story about Mustafa and Abdhul was the day they decided to change their names. From their names, it is clear that both these boys came from Muslim families. Though the kids at the Aarti Home will try to convince you that there is no religion at The Home, there is prayer time when they read from the Bhagava Gita and also an altar for the Hindu Gods. Mustafa is especially religious, and likes to pick fresh flowers daily for the altar. Although the idea of religions being mutually exclusive of each other is not too strong at The Home (kids would constantly ask us or tell us about their favorite Gods; Ganesh and Jesus were always among the top three), most of the children are professed Hindus. Maybe it was this that made Mustafa uncomfortable, or maybe the passing of his mother's birthday lit some fire within him to start a new life, but something triggered Mustafa to change his name to Sreenivas. This was a little bit adorable because Sreenivas is the name of one the older boys at The Home whom Mustafa really liked, but mostly just strange because he was very, very adamant about the fact that everyone refer to him as Sreenivas. Abdhul, his best friend and most loyal follower, subsequently also decided he wanted to change his name but did not know what to change it to so Sandhya decided on "Sreekunth" for him. No one else at The Home seemed to think this name change was as strange as I did, so maybe it's a cultural thing? Anyhow, this happened towards the end of my stay, so these boys will always be Mustafa and Abdhul to me.

Hashitar and Washitar

2008-07-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

Washitar (left) and Hashitar (right), pictured above in the blue hats and outfits, were the two babies at The Home while I was there. We are celebrating their birthdays in the photo above. Like most of the kids at the Aarti Home, the birthdays of Washitar and Hashitar (so named because they arrived at The Home around the same time) are actually unknown. Sandhya just chose a random auspicious day to be their birthdays. Everyone at The Home has a "birthday" and everyone's birthday is celebrated with cake and ice cream and the birthday boy/girl gets to wear a special outfit throughout the day instead of the usual school uniform.

Washitar and Hashitar both arrived at the Aarti Home as babies and so the Aarti Family is the only they will ever know. Everyone at The Home collectively takes care of them, taking turns washing, feeding, and playing with them. Washitar is more outgoing and loves to be held by everyone. Hashitar does not like strangers and she mostly just cried whenever I tried to hold or play with her. Also one time she peed on my arm.

Most of the babies that arrive at the Aarti Home have either been abandoned at the local hospital or left on the steps of the Home. In one especially horrifying story, a mother left her baby in a shoebox on the steps of the Home one night prior to a rainstorm. By the time the live-in mothers at The Home discovered the baby, she had been soaked in cold rain for the past 6 hours, and sadly, did not survive. Because of this Sandhya has now created a covered crib outside The Home for babies to be safely deposited into. It is a bittersweet reality that the crib is now regularly used.

Although I think it is horrible that Washitar and Hashitar will grow up never knowing what a mother's love feels like, I love these two babies with all my heart and am so grateful for the joy they have brought me. Here they are during the celebration of Krishna's birthday. Washitar (being held by Sandhya) is dressed up as Krishna and Hashitar is dressed up as Radha, Krishna's lover.

Pushpa

2008-07-18T04:50:00.000-07:00

I will write about Pushpa first because she is one of the first stories I learned about. Pushpa was eight at the time of this photo. Her name means "flower" in Hindi. From what we can gather from her, her father used to have her dance on the streets to make a living. A few years ago, her father remarried, and her stepmother sold her to a sixty-something year old man for "marriage". Pushpa says it was her stepmother who sold her, but who knows which parent actually decided what. She was sexually abused by this man, and so she ran away and lived at a train station for some time before being discovered by a teacher who brought her to the Home. arrived.

We arrived at The Home just a week after Pushpa did. When we met Pushpa, she was having a very difficult time adjusting to the home. Not only had she been through such traumatizing events, she spoke a different language from the other children which made it hard for her to make friends. Because she danced on the streets during her childhood, she missed out on a substantial amount of education and was put in classes with the youngest children who were just learning their ABC's. So, Pushpa being very sad and lonely when we met her, became one of the first chidren we connected with. We quickly showered with the eight years of love and attention that she had missed out on.

My favorite thing about Pushpa was that she had this very adult way of speaking -- she sometimes reminded me of a wise grandmother. There was one day when I was sitting with her and all the boys in the home ran into us and were being really rowdy and she made this "tsk" noise, turned to me with this disdainful look on her face, and shook her head and muttered "boys..."

A few months ago I was sad to find out that Pushpa was having such a hard time with her studies that she had decided to give up on an education and was trying to learn how to do embroidery and stitching instead. The last time I called the Aarti home, I was shocked to find out that Pushpa had been taken out of the home by her brother, and it is unclear where she is now or what she is doing. I can only hope that her brother's character is more upstanding than her father's , and that she will be able to learn a vocational skill that will enable her to make a living and support herself, instead of falling back into the position of being owned and controlled by the men around her.

Aarti Home

2008-07-18T04:25:00.000-07:00

In the summer after my freshman year of college (2007) I spent five weeks teaching English at this wonderful organization called the Aarti Home (pictured above). Those five weeks were the happiest weeks of my life and, collectively, the most meaningful experience I have ever had. The Home was started 15 years ago by my personal hero Sandhya Puchalapelli. What started as a simple effort to take care of a few orphaned children has turned into a full fledged NGO providing shelter, education, and love to over 80 children. Out of these 80 kids, about 70 of them are girls abandoned by their parents because of deep-rooted economic and cultural forces that disfavor daughters. The luckiest of the girls are those who were abandoned as babies, untraumatized by the event that left them at The Home. Others, sadly, have been sold, prostituted, or chosen to run away from a life of domestic abuse. It completely breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach that these children have been through these types of things that no child should have to endure. And yet, these children are able to live their lives with so much gratitude for the people around them. They are more eager, curious, and lively than many other children I have work with. I started this blog so that I can share with everyone the stories and lives of these children. I don't mean this blog to be a "look-what-kind-of-horrible-things-there-are-in-the-world", because quite honestly, these are the happy stories. Without Sandhya and without The Home, these kids would all be out on the streets stealing and lying to survive, if not dead. Instead, I want this blog to be both a tribute to the resilience and awesomeness of the children, and a reminder to us that it's really not that hard to make big, positive changes on other people's lives; we just have to put our minds and hearts to it.