A Fine Balance

“It is a fine balance between despair and hope” - Rohinton Mistry. In my opinion, this pretty much sums up life in India.

Hope – There is now a sleeper bus to Bijapur. It costs 400 Rupees one way but I could stretch my legs and try to sleep during the twelve-hour overnight journey from Bangalore to Bijapur. Bijapur seems to be a happening enough place for people to go to in sleeper buses.

Despair – The bus turns up 3 hours late. I was supposed to leave Bangalore by 7.15 pm and I actually left around 10.30.

Hope (mini) – The bus reached Bijapur by the scheduled arrival time of 8 am in the morning. So those 3 hours was just a buffer in their planning. The VRL travels probably allows for more buffer in their schedules than any of the famed software companies. May be our software tycoons should travel more in VRL buses to understand the concept of planning and scheduling.

Hope – The Shikshana Vahini program run by SVYM and supported by Asha has an ambitious goal of enabling all the SDMCs in Bijapur district by 2010. The team (of 5 people) seems to be very dedicated and energetic. Rather than simply running a school for around 200 children, Mamatha of SVYM has immersed herself in the un-enviable task of enabling the local communities to take ownership of the performance of their neighborhood schools funded by the government.

Despair – This trip only reaffirmed my opinion that it is easy to spout “community involvement” as an inane mantra but in reality it is a back and soul breaking effort. The program has been operational for 18 months. We visited 3 schools and met the SDMC and the teachers. There seems to be no ownership from the SDMC. The strong message from them is that the teachers are paid and so everything, including getting the children to school, is the teacher’s job. It is strange to hear from parents that they would not spend any effort in sending their wards to school but the teachers would have to run around every day to round up the children in the village and get them into the school. The schools are badly understaffed. Pressure on the BEOs (block education officers) is not working. The schools are in a moribund shape.

Despair (untrammelled) – Child marriage is still very prevalent in Bijapur! In every class I visited there were at least 2 or 3 girls who were already married. We are talking about elementary school here, 3^rd and 4^th grades. I didn’t have the heart to ask if they were married to adults or children. Some continue to live with their parents after the “marriage” and others actually live with their in-laws. If the civil society has not been able to stop this pernicious practice after 50 long years, do we really have hope about quality education and such esoteric stuff?

Hope (am I trying hard here?) – The SVYM team fully understands the current status and its implications. There was a very open and involved discussion on how to change track and tactics to be more effective. I was absolutely amazed at the energy and verve shown by two Asha Silicon Valley volunteers, Padma and Kiran, with whom I was traveling. They have come for a few weeks vacation from the US and in spite of the pressures to meet and spend time with family they took considerable time off to travel to these “projects”. I can’t stop gushing about them. They are ultra marathon runners and they hold Indian records. They have raised phenomenal amount of money through their running for Asha. Even if we consider all this as to be expected, the mental effort they spent in understanding the situation (in such a short time) and working with the SVYM team to find solutions does give hope. Does it not?

Do we really have a choice otherwise?